ARM-based Chromebook support

[zek-c]

I've been monitoring this project since release and wondered, why is there no ARM device support? Is there a roadblock in the firmware or do you not plan on working with certain drivers..

[APie357]

I have an Acer R13 as a personal cb and there doesn't seem to be any shims out for it. I did manage to install archlinuxarm on it (no shims needed but idk if it will work on managed devices), but to get a graphical environment it's a lot of terminal stuff and not a lot of software is available for it. You might be able to get it to work with archlinuxarm, but not many devices are supported.

[zek-c]

linux has terminal work (mind blown) but thx

[ading2210]

ARM support is certainly possible but I don't have any devices I could test it with.

[zek-c]

buy a $50 chromebook or i'll use mine

[zek-c]

you got a status update on arm support? i can test images myself if you can trust me to do that.

[ading2210]

The main thing blocking ARM support before was that I didn't know how the extract the initramfs from the kernel images.

I investigated this a bit today and I've figured it out, so now all I need to do is automate this, then compile the needed Debian packages for ARM64.

[ading2210]

@zek-c Which board do you have? I could send you an image to test later today.

[zek-c]

I have a corsola board - codename rusty

[ading2210]

Could you try booting this image? https://local.ading.dev/array/shimboot/corsola_test.bin

[zek-c]

yep. works nicely.

[ading2210]

Nice. Does booting the rootfs partitions and Chrome OS work?

[zek-c]

nope. inputting them and continuing with the prompts brings me a blank screen.

[zek-c]

but chromeos (default/3) does work.

[ading2210]

Wdym? What happens when you select the third option (default on /dev/sda4)?

[zek-c]

yes, third option boots the chromeOS dev mode bootloader. But the first two options boot a blank screen

[zek-c]

sorry i worded that one bad

[ading2210]

So that means it didn't actually work. Could you enter the shimboot shell and type uname -a, then send the output?

[zek-c]

ahhh, i thought /dev/sda4 was the bootloader or something. or maybe it is and you meant that the first two wouldn't boot. here's that output for ya Linux localhost 5.15.74-12848-g653b187c79ae4 #2 SMP PREEMPT Tue Dec 6 19:07:10 PST 2022 aarch64 aarch64 aarch64 GNU/Linux

[ading2210]

Would it be possible for you to record a video as you try option 3? There might be an error that shows up briefly before it crashes.

[zek-c]

sure i can do that in about 10 minutes

[zek-c]

alright, all it says after entering is selected /dev/sda4 moving mounts to newroot switching root https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YrNaP4CXe347qsZKaViF0Owkz4mK-da-/view?usp=drivesdk the video is still processing but it'll be done soon

[zek-c]

ok so i tried lsblk but its not installed to the shell, so i used fdisk -l and /dev/sda4 is the "shimboot:rootfs" so i'm just dumb

[ading2210]

I think I built the rootfs wrong on the previous test image. Try this new one: https://local.ading.dev/array/shimboot/corsola_test2.bin

[zek-c]

sorry, i'm away rn 😭 i can test it tmrw around 4-5pm or so (we are the same time zone) or you can find someone else with a corsola to test it but i'm sorry for the inconvenience

[zek-c]

ok i've got it done, same results as last. blank screen.

[OtterCodes101]

try waiting a bit on the blank screen.

[zek-c-alt]

ive currently lost access to my main account, but i will try this momentarily. (i do not have my phone at the moment and have 2fa enabled so this is from my computer)

[zek-c-alt]

ok- this is VERY weird. option 1 results in a blank screen i left running for about 3 minutes- gets nothing. option 2, leave it for about a minute- boots a chromeOS partition thats on version 122. but, the internal disk that i am using right now is.. version 113. I may have forgotten that i am using cryptosmite on this device, which is most likely why this is the case. i can try it on a non-cryptosmited device very shortly.

[zek-c-alt]

ok. i did the un-csmited device and option 1 resulted in an unmanaged chromeOS. option 2 was nothing, and 3 resulted in a dev mode error beep.

[zek-c]

got my account back

[ading2210]

If booting Chrome OS worked without too much trouble its likely that regular Devuan (fork of debian) will work just fine. I'll try building a new image with Devuan instead of making the rootfs manually which may have been flawed before.

[zek-c]

hey you got an ETA on that image? i'd try to build myself but stupid debian won't install to my software raid...😭

[zek-c]

^^bump this waiting for an update

[ading2210]

I got systemd to build correctly for arm64, and I fixed some bugs in the build script, so ARM Shimboot might work now. So far I've only built it for hana: https://local.ading.dev/array/shimboot/shimboot_hana.zip

[ading2210]

@zek-c Try this image for corsola: https://local.ading.dev/array/shimboot/shimboot_corsola.zip

[zek-c]

i have the file downloaded but had to leave for school. i'll get it done around 2pm since it's finals week so we get out earlier

[zek-c]

alright it worked. i booted into linux, i'm gonna test a few things out

[zek-c]

works nice, thanks for working this thing out :sob:

[ading2210]

Does GPU acceleration and audio work?

[ading2210]

ARM support has been merged into the main branch.