- This topic has 6 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated Mar 22-11:45 pm by rokytnji.
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littleloyal
Dear Gentlemen and Ladies of Anti-X
I work at a school that finally read the fine print that our chrome-books have EOL in 7 more months. Ive been given the task to install linux on chrome-books. from what I have learned so far I need a arm based distro. I wondered if anyone has done an Anti-X arm distro? I think it will be leaner and meaner to use on these 2ram 16gb ?hard-drive? Has any one installed Anti-X on a chrome-book?If you know I need to look elsewhere please point me in the right direction. I am a teacher who loves linux but only used it on stand-alone PC. Our learning lab uses MX 18.3. I’m learning to network our machines – I’m gonna get there soon!
eugen-b
I don’t have any knowledge an experience about chromebooks in particular, but would like to give some general common sense based advice.
You should find out what are the exact models of hardware which you want an alternative OS for.
https://www.techjunkie.com/chromebook-check-specs/
Is it really a machine with an ARM CPU??https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromebook#List_of_Chromebooks
Then you should run an “informal” search “install Linux OR Debian OR Ubuntu on <myChromebookModel>” with DuckDuckGo.
DON’T use a random step-by-step guide from an unauthorised source you might find with a search engine! Go with the official documentation of a distro.You could ask people from a dedicated ARM distro (like https://archlinuxarm.org/, Manjaro ARM (https://forum.manjaro.org/t/manjaro-arm-19-08-released/99031), https://www.debian.org/ports/arm/ , https://arm.fedoraproject.org/ , https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ARM ) whether their distro supports your model. And if not what they can recommend.
You should find out what architectures your chromebooks exactly need: aarch64, arm, armv5tel, armel, armhf.
Then you could search for distros which offer this architecture the informal way like above or with Distrowatch database: https://distrowatch.com/search.php
But even if a distro offers packages for your architecture it doesn’t mean the machine will allow the distro to run properly. The distro must offer all the right drivers and the machine must allow to unlock the bootloader.- This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by eugen-b.
- This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by eugen-b.
fatmac
Its not an easy job to put Linux on even an Intel based chromebook, & there are less options for ARM based – I have investigated Gentoo on my RPi3B+, an ARM based micro computer, & it seems to run well – worth taking a look – but it really is a minefield at the moment. I believe Ubuntu did an ARM version, but not sure what it will work on.
I was pointed to Reddit when I just did my chromebook conversion, not everything works on mine either, so take that into consideration. https://www.reddit.com/r/chromeos/new/
Of course, just because you will no longer get updates doesn’t mean your chromebooks won’t work, they were conceived to be able to deal with problems, by resetting them, just make sure you back up your personal data.
Linux (& BSD) since 1999
PDP-8
As time passes .. two handy tips but unfortunately not for ARM based chromebooks
If you have a relatively new chromebook that is Intel based from the last few years or so, a simple solution is to use the “Linux Apps” application. Results in a “core” type of cli setup with Debian, and all the apt package utilites one can use to build up from there if they want. Shows up as “terminal”. Use CTRL +/- to scale the fonts to your liking.
The neat thing about chromebooks is that they recognize linux filesystems right off the bat, so if you have a linux stick formatted with ext4, it will be easily seen and recognized. Makes it easy to transfer to/from antiX.
BURN antiX distro from a Chromebook? Yes, but you have to get the Chromebook-Recovery app installed. Normally used to restore a crashed machine but there is a really fun trick to make it burn iso-images.
Note that this is NOT to turn the chromebook into an antiX machine, but to use on *another* machine you want to put antiX or whatever on.
* Download antiX iso (or any other distro) to your chromebook.
* RENAME the suffix of the download from “.iso” to “.img”
* Fire up the recovery app, and in the cog-icon, choose “Use local image”
* Because you renamed your xxxx.iso image to xxxx.img, the utility will find it.
* Let the recovery-app burn your downloaded linux image to the usb stick.
* Now you can use this stick to install on that machine you found in the closet.I found this trick to be really handy for those that own only a chromebook, but are facing the chicken-and-egg problem of getting the image downloaded and burned to use on a vintage or new machine that may or may not be working or have access to the net in the first place.
Noman01
So are you saying that using this technique will work to install antiX on a chromebook.
rokytnji
No. He is instructing on how to burn a usb into a live usb on chromeos.
My chromebook runs antix with the john lewis bios hack and antix 19. But mine is intel based and the bios hack can be hit or miss if the bios jumper is broken. Like on another Chromebook I use for parts.
I have no experience with arm chromebooks. Sorry.
Sometimes I drive a crooked road to get my mind straight.
Not all who Wander are Lost.
I'm not outa place. I'm from outer space.Linux Registered User # 475019
How to Search for AntiX solutions to your problemsrokytnji
If me owning arm cpu
https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Samsung/ARMChromebook
https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Asus/C201
https://blog.pgeiser.com/posts/2018/02/installing-debian-stretch-on-an-arm-chromebook-xe303c12/
Install a window manager and get it as close to antiX as possible but. Having to swallow systemd and like it.
I am not hip if apt pinning systemd in debian is enough to do after initial install. Because systemd is already pulled in and installed.
Changing repos to antix and MX would do any good, but break stuff.
Just airy fairy ideas.
Since I know we do not produce a arm cpu spinoff. Bigger distro teams further back in the food chain do that heavy lifting.
Like Debian. Ubuntu. Slackware. Etc…..
LinkI know this is old thread. Just adding fodder.
Good Luck.
Sometimes I drive a crooked road to get my mind straight.
Not all who Wander are Lost.
I'm not outa place. I'm from outer space.Linux Registered User # 475019
How to Search for AntiX solutions to your problems
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