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#galliumos

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I'm about to test the latest #Gentoo LiveGUI USB Image (3.6 GB) on my 2013 Chromebook Pixel.

I've just spent some time backing up my #GalliumOS /home directory with tar, excluding ~/.cache:

$ cd /home
$ tar -cJvf /mnt/chromebook-home-backup.tar.xz --exclude='*.cache*' jhamby

I've also saved the output of "lshw", "lsusb", "lsmod", and "dmesg", and backed up the custom GalliumOS systemd scripts to enable zram-based swapping since I only have 4GB RAM, and a script to change screen brightness.

Continued thread

I stand corrected about swap. #GalliumOS has wisely chosen to "modprobe zram", which makes an LZ4-compressed swap space from free RAM, a sort of "RamDoubler".

jhamby@abstergo:~$ zramctl
NAME ALGORITHM DISKSIZE DATA COMPR TOTAL STREAMS MOUNTPOINT
/dev/zram0 lz4 5.7G 452.9M 164.7M 172.7M 4 [SWAP]

So 172.7 MB of my 4 GB RAM is holding 452.9 MB of paged-out r/w data. No paging to scarce SSD at all.

Continued thread

The desktop for #GalliumOS is Xfce, which is a sensible choice for a low-RAM environment.

I haven't noticed a huge diff between Firefox and Chrome, but I tend to use Firefox more often. With 4 GB RAM, I have 456 MB / 5824 MB swap used. So it is definitely thrashing away on the poor SanDisk 32 GB SATA SSD.

I didn't repartition it. I installed the final version of Chrome OS and then booted into debug mode and used a Linux-installing tool. I also used MrChromebox firmware. docs.mrchromebox.tech/

docs.mrchromebox.techMrChromebox.techMrChromebox.tech website
Continued thread

It's more useful if I say what I've tried and what I'm using now that's old but works.

I'm using #GalliumOS 3.1 on it, a Linux distro for x86-based Chromebooks based on #Ubuntu 18.04, which is old enough to cause problems running newer programs.

I've tried newer versions of Ubuntu and the kernel driver support gets worse and worse. The SD card slot stops working, I think Bluetooth, then maybe even the USB slots? I'll have to try again and verify when devices stop working on it.

@fugueish @carnage4life Chromebooks are quite capable machines, especially since they can run modern browsers. They are at least as capable as most mobile phones, with the added benefits of larger screens, physical keyboard and expansion ports.

The only barrier to running Linux or any other OS of your choice is a locked BIOS straight from the manufacturer. When the BIOS can be unlocked, there are many Linux distributions that support them like #GalliumOS (galliumos.org/)

galliumos.orgGalliumOS – A fast and lightweight Linux distro for ChromeOS devices

I've been doing more with #coreboot on Chromebook hardware. Liberated an Acer C740 with the mrchromebox.tech firmware. Now that I know how to do it, it's almost easy. Can be intimidating until you successfully flash one, though.

I've flashed two Dell Chromebook 11 3120 laptops to coreboot now and planning on doing a few more soon. I've been using one with #GalliumOS and it has been working well. Battery life is long, Gallium is practical and works as expected (#ubuntu-based so familiar).