Hi All,

Have recently installed Debian live 7.4 on my Acer c720 chromebook.

I found various tutorials (for crunchbangtp) on how to get the touchpad working, but nothing for Debian live. The first step seems to involve upgrading the kernel from 3.2.4 to 3.12.5

I did this process

http://elementaryforum.org/forum/sup...rade-procedure,

but the upgrade did not fully work. There is a dependency problem - the upgrade required libc6 version >2.14, whereas the installed version is only 2.13.38. The rebooted machine does show kernel rev as 3.12.5, but the linux-headers package is broken.

So, how to upgrade libc6? What repo is it? As libc6 is used by everything, is it safe to do, or will it cause more issues?

Or, is there better option to get the touchpad working on the C720?

PS: Installed OS is Debian live 7.4

Thanks in advance.

Andrew.

Succeeded in upgrading libc6 by switching from Debian stable to Debian sid. But that did not fix the trackpad. Nor did crunchbangtp scripts.

Any ideas how to fix the trackpad would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance...

Andrew.

Solved.

To fix trackpad on Debian sid, see here:

http://blogs.fsfe.org/the_unconventi...ian-gnu-linux/

part of which says this:

"BEWARE: If you have also enabled the unstable and/or experimental repositories (for APT pinning or whatever), make sure to disable source downloads from unstable/experimental by commenting out the deb-src lines in /etc/apt/sources.list.
The linux package automatically links to the latest available version, which would be 3.14-trunk from experimental. You need the same kernel source as the kernel you’re running, which is most likely the one from testing. I can’t find any other way for APT to honour that; not even by trying the usual suspects such as -t testing or linux/testing. If anyone has any suggestions, I’m happy to hear them. Otherwise, just make sure your sources.list is in order."

I found the script wouldn't run without the deb-src lines in sources.list

Thanks to all who viewed.

Andrew.

I haven't gotten as far as installing yet. I was going to follow Jack Wallen's instructions on linux.com for how to install Bodhi from usb, but instead use one of my live debian iso usbs. What did you do to get debian installed? Once you did get it installed, how bad were the touchpad problems? Not working at all? Or just, say, two-finger scrolling not working? Other symptoms?

Hi Quixote,

I did install bodhi following those instructions by JW but: there are errors in his instructions and when finally I got it all working, I did not like the result. I felt endarkened by "Enlightenment" and wanted a common but more functional standard gui. xcfe is small but it is competent.

Ended up going with Debian because of another thread I started in this forum, where I had found another LQ person running full Debian sid on C720, which convinced me to buy the C720. BTW Debian "sid" is the so-called "unstable" Debian - all the latest software, but not always reliable.

So, thinking stable is better than unstable, I installed Debian stable. Easy to find an iso for that. However the "stable" Kernel is OLD OLD OLD. It won't support the changes necessary to get the C720k working. i.e. working at all. So, I switched to Debian sid. Better to see if you can go straight to sid, .

The touchpad still did not work, and all the easy to find scripts were for chrunbuntu, bodhi or cruchbang. Until I found the link in this:

http://blogs.fsfe.org/the_unconventi...ian-gnu-linux/

Once you get Debian sid up and running, that is the touchpad script that worked for Debian sid.

But I would not follow his instructions for getting started with the ChromeOS, which involve opening the machine and removing a write protect screw so that you can flash the bios. Overall, if I were doing this again, I would do the following:

1. Follow the standard processes for getting the machine to boot from the legacy bios.

http://jeffhoogland.blogspot.com/201...acer-c720.html

is better than Jack Wallen's, but I ended up using a bit of both. After doing the instructions, when you turn on the machine, in just a few seconds it reaches a white screen declaring that it has a problem. You press <ctrl l> and it goes to text, where you press <ESC> to get the boot list, which will include your USB drive assuming you have a bootable USB stick in it.

2. Get a bootable USB drive (with Debian sid on it, if you can). If you can't find that easily, get the netinst version of Debian stable, which is easy to find. I used pendrivelinux on windows to make my bootable usb. Install Debian from USB. (Note, I could not get the live version to run from usb on the 2 GB RAM machine that I have. Had to go straight to install)

3. If you have installed Debian stable, upgrade to sid. Instructions were easy to find at the Debian wiki - it just involves some simple edits to the /etc/sources.list file, then issuing a single command as root to upgrade your distro.

4. Copy the Debian touchpad script to a text file and run it. Should work as ordinary user.

Notes:

a) This can also be done for Crunchbang, which is smaller I think than full Debian sid and the path is also more well trodden. I wanted the full OS.

b) I still have a couple of issues to resolve on the machine, like suspend functions and bluetooth functions. There were also some issues with the USB mounts and with setting up the key bindings (eg to make the screen brighter / dimmer).

c) At present, the OS is taking up too much of the precious disc space.

d) The above is just a broad brush overview. If you want all the details, post a reply in this thread and happy to help.

Overall, I am very pleased with the result. The machine boots in about ten seconds and runs very well. The xfce gui is doing everything I need from a gui and debian is very well supported for any command line stuff I may need.

Cheers,

Andrew.

Oh, Forgot to mention switch from alsa to pulseaudio required to get sound working

Andrew, thanks for the details! Just in time, too, because I'm going to do it today . My other machines are on testing/jessie, running kernel 3.13, so maybe I can try that instead of sid?? Anyway, I'll see how I go. I feel like I have a clearer idea of what actually needs doing now. (Oh, the bad news is I actually have a c710, I noticed. Piffle.)

Quixote,

I understand the two important things are Kernel rev, 3.13 is good, and Celeron/Haswell processor, not ARM. The C710s that I see have that kind of processor.

I did see an "interesting discussion" around bluetooth on the c710. A new owner stating clearly that he was using the blueooth hardware under linux but could not get it working under ChromeOS, and an expert stating clearly that there was no bluetooth support in C720, until the owner finally posted the solution how to get it running under ChromeOS. That thread was a while back.


Please let us know how you go with the bluetooth. I can find the hardware and all the necessary services are running, but no devices and no adapters found. Don't yet know why. Since the machine has only two USB ports and a 16 GB SDD, I would like to use USB for all my personal data, keeping the SDD for OS and applns only. So bluetooth would be nice to have.

Andrew.