• Linux mainline / pure Debian on Acer Chromebook R13 [was: Re: Feedback

    From Andrei POPESCU@21:1/5 to All on Fri Jun 18 15:10:02 2021
    On Vi, 11 iun 21, 19:24:45, Milan P. Stanić wrote:
    On Fri, 2021-06-11 at 10:03, Andrei POPESCU wrote:

    [1] writing this on an Acer Chromebook R13 running an ancient kernel
    from archlinuxarm.org that would benefit from mainline support.

    Also I'm writing this on 'Acer Chromebook R13' but with mainline kernel 5.12.10 with three patches I added.

    Are those patches published somewhere (and what are they for)?

    It is really good machine though it
    is four years old. Only suspend-to-ram doesn't work with kernels 5.11
    and 5.12 but it worked with previous kernels, 5.8 and 5.9 iirc.

    Again shameless plug: I wrote small note and script to install alpine
    linux on R13, here https://arvanta.net/alpine/install-alpine-on-acer-r13-chromebook/

    As far as I can tell that script must be run from within an already
    existing Alpine Linux install. Am I guessing correctly that the package linux-elm contains the kernel image? I'd rather try and extract the
    kernel + modules only as I have no intention to move away from Debian.

    A list of options that must be enabled in the kernel for the R13, as
    well instructions for building the image to be flashed to the kernel
    partition would also be very helpful.

    With these we might be able to get full support for the R13 in the
    Debian kernel and flash-kernel.

    Kind regards,
    Andrei
    --
    http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser

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  • From Milan =?utf-8?Q?P=2E_Stani=C4=87?=@21:1/5 to Andrei POPESCU on Fri Jun 18 21:20:01 2021
    On Fri, 2021-06-18 at 15:59, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
    On Vi, 11 iun 21, 19:24:45, Milan P. Stanić wrote:
    On Fri, 2021-06-11 at 10:03, Andrei POPESCU wrote:

    [1] writing this on an Acer Chromebook R13 running an ancient kernel
    from archlinuxarm.org that would benefit from mainline support.

    Also I'm writing this on 'Acer Chromebook R13' but with mainline kernel 5.12.10 with three patches I added.

    Are those patches published somewhere (and what are they for)?

    Yes, here:
    https://git.alpinelinux.org/aports/tree/testing/linux-elm

    one is to fix mmc devices order to not be random.
    one to 'cut' down external mmc frequency.
    and one to fix spi nor frequency.

    It is really good machine though it
    is four years old. Only suspend-to-ram doesn't work with kernels 5.11
    and 5.12 but it worked with previous kernels, 5.8 and 5.9 iirc.

    Again shameless plug: I wrote small note and script to install alpine
    linux on R13, here https://arvanta.net/alpine/install-alpine-on-acer-r13-chromebook/

    As far as I can tell that script must be run from within an already
    existing Alpine Linux install.

    Yes, but if using apk-tools-static pkg (alpine package manager) it can
    be run from any linux distribution.

    Am I guessing correctly that the package > linux-elm contains the
    kernel image? I'd rather try and extract the
    kernel + modules only as I have no intention to move away from Debian.

    Right, you can download linux-elm pkg from: https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/testing/aarch64/linux-elm-5.12.10-r0.apk
    and untar it. You will have modules and vmlinux.kpart image in /boot dir
    which you can flash (dd) to chromebook kernel partition.

    note: I didn't intended to tell that you or anyone should move from
    debian, just wanted to help by pointing to that what I did to get R13
    work with mainline kernels.

    A list of options that must be enabled in the kernel for the R13, as
    well instructions for building the image to be flashed to the kernel partition would also be very helpful.

    In /boot you can find kernel config file which you can use as a base for
    your own kernels.

    With these we might be able to get full support for the R13 in the
    Debian kernel and flash-kernel.

    You can look at https://git.alpinelinux.org/aports/tree/testing/linux-elm/APKBUILD which
    is alpine build recipe and is written in posix shell (ash) and look how
    it is built.

    Some of this ideas are 'stolen' from Arch Linux alarm

    --
    Kind regards

    Kind regards,
    Andrei
    --
    http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser

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  • From =?UTF-8?Q?Uwe_Kleine-K=c3=b6nig?=@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jun 20 21:20:01 2021
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    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
    Content-Language: en-US
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

    On 6/18/21 9:16 PM, Milan P. Stanić wrote:
    Are those patches published somewhere (and what are they for)?

    Yes, here:
    https://git.alpinelinux.org/aports/tree/testing/linux-elm

    one is to fix mmc devices order to not be random.

    That should better be done in the machine.dts. See for example https://git.kernel.org/linus/5dcbe7e3862dfc89d219f37a9ed5e53944fa13c2

    one to 'cut' down external mmc frequency.

    This should probably sent to mainline. With a proper change log this
    should be easy.

    and one to fix spi nor frequency.

    This increases spi nor frequency. The only benefit should be to speed up reading/writing, so it's not necessary to make the machine work
    correctly. If you mention the actual used part this should also be easy
    to bring into mainline.

    Best regards
    Uwe


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  • From Milan =?utf-8?Q?P=2E_Stani=C4=87?=@21:1/5 to All on Tue Jun 22 22:20:02 2021
    On Sun, 2021-06-20 at 21:09, Uwe Kleine-König wrote:
    On 6/18/21 9:16 PM, Milan P. Stanić wrote:
    Are those patches published somewhere (and what are they for)?

    Yes, here:
    https://git.alpinelinux.org/aports/tree/testing/linux-elm

    one is to fix mmc devices order to not be random.

    That should better be done in the machine.dts. See for example https://git.kernel.org/linus/5dcbe7e3862dfc89d219f37a9ed5e53944fa13c2

    Yes, I've seen this patch in my local git clone and even thought to post
    this I made but not sure where to post it.

    one to 'cut' down external mmc frequency.

    This should probably sent to mainline. With a proper change log this should be easy.

    Actually I looked in Arch Linux Alarm (and refactored it somewhat) when made this patch and don't want to 'stole' it in a hope that original author
    will post it.

    and one to fix spi nor frequency.

    This increases spi nor frequency. The only benefit should be to speed up reading/writing, so it's not necessary to make the machine work correctly.
    If you mention the actual used part this should also be easy to bring into mainline.

    TBH I even forgot for what reason I added this one, so not sure even if
    it is still needed.

    --
    Kind regards

    Best regards
    Uwe


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