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I'd say it is. Right now I am actually running a minimal install of linux mint + ratpoison && trayer. Using xscreensaver to turn off the screen after a very small amount of un-use, and managing any power hungry background processes away, I can get from 8 to even 10 hours of heavy use.
On that note I am probably going to install arch soon, I would like to run a kernel that I don't have to patch at every install.
Otherwise it is great
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With all of these (minor) issues in mind, is it worth purchasing a c720 for arch linux exclusively? What sort of battery life is typical with one of these devices in arch?
I can get around 6-8 hours typically, even with the backlight on max, with tlp for power saving. However most of the time I just have Firefox and a tmux session running in i3, so YMMV if you're planning on using a heavier DE. But I could still get a respectable battery life even when using Eclipse to do light Android app development.
Depending on your workflow, the biggest inhibitor might be the 2GB of RAM, but even without swap I've personally never run into any issues. The new intel-i3 models have 4GB, but they cost almost twice as much.
But for the price, yes, this machine is definitely worth purchasing to use with Arch. Once the 3.17 kernel hits, all of the hardware should finally work out of the box, and the 64-bit install issue at least has a workaround documented on the wiki page, so most of the minor issues are already disappearing.
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I've managed to get Arch installed on my new chromebook. I'm using the lastest Acer C720-3605 with the core i3 processor. I followed the wiki, https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ac … Chromebook, and have gotten most things working except the touchpad and some buttons on the keyboard. The wiki says to use the cros-haswell-modules.sh script to get the touchpad working but this doesn't seem to work with the 3.15 kernel. For now I've been using a mouse instead. As for the keyboard, well I read about how to configure the F keys but my keys for brackets are not working. Does anybody else have that issue?
Another odd thing is Arch is displaying incorrect system info. This model of the C720 comes with 4GB of RAM, but sudo lshw -class memory shows 2GB:
*-firmware
description: BIOS
vendor: coreboot
physical id: 0
date: 04/30/2014
size: 1MiB
capacity: 8128KiB
capabilities: pci pcmcia upgrade bootselect acpi
*-memory
description: System memory
physical id: 1
size: 2009MiB
Anybody know why this is?
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Also, I'm using 32-bit.
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I've managed to get Arch installed on my new chromebook. I'm using the lastest Acer C720-3605 with the core i3 processor. I followed the wiki, https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ac … Chromebook, and have gotten most things working except the touchpad ...
This model of the C720 comes with 4GB of RAM, but sudo lshw -class memory shows 2GB:
Will you please post the output of "sudo dmidecode" and also "free"?
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Sure, sudo dmidecode shows:
# dmidecode 2.12
SMBIOS 2.7 present.
10 structures occupying 402 bytes.
Table at 0x7F782020.
Handle 0x0000, DMI type 0, 24 bytes
BIOS Information
Vendor: coreboot
Version:
Release Date: 04/30/2014
ROM Size: 8192 kB
Characteristics:
PCI is supported
PC Card (PCMCIA) is supported
BIOS is upgradeable
Selectable boot is supported
ACPI is supported
Targeted content distribution is supported
BIOS Revision: 4.0
Firmware Revision: 0.0
Handle 0x0001, DMI type 1, 27 bytes
System Information
Manufacturer: Acer
Product Name: Peppy
Version: 1.0
Serial Number: 123456789
UUID: Not Settable
Wake-up Type: Reserved
SKU Number: Not Specified
Family: Not Specified
Handle 0x0002, DMI type 3, 21 bytes
Chassis Information
Manufacturer: Acer
Type: Desktop
Lock: Not Present
Version: Not Specified
Serial Number: Not Specified
Asset Tag: Not Specified
Boot-up State: Safe
Power Supply State: Safe
Thermal State: Safe
Security Status: None
OEM Information: 0x00000000
Height: Unspecified
Number Of Power Cords: Unspecified
Contained Elements: 0
Handle 0x0003, DMI type 4, 42 bytes
Processor Information
Socket Designation: Not Specified
Type: Central Processor
Family: Pentium Pro
Manufacturer: GenuineIntel
ID: 51 06 04 00 FF FB EB BF
Signature: Type 0, Family 6, Model 69, Stepping 1
Flags:
FPU (Floating-point unit on-chip)
VME (Virtual mode extension)
DE (Debugging extension)
PSE (Page size extension)
TSC (Time stamp counter)
MSR (Model specific registers)
PAE (Physical address extension)
MCE (Machine check exception)
CX8 (CMPXCHG8 instruction supported)
APIC (On-chip APIC hardware supported)
SEP (Fast system call)
MTRR (Memory type range registers)
PGE (Page global enable)
MCA (Machine check architecture)
CMOV (Conditional move instruction supported)
PAT (Page attribute table)
PSE-36 (36-bit page size extension)
CLFSH (CLFLUSH instruction supported)
DS (Debug store)
ACPI (ACPI supported)
MMX (MMX technology supported)
FXSR (FXSAVE and FXSTOR instructions supported)
SSE (Streaming SIMD extensions)
SSE2 (Streaming SIMD extensions 2)
SS (Self-snoop)
HTT (Multi-threading)
TM (Thermal monitor supported)
PBE (Pending break enabled)
Version: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-4005U CPU @ 1.70GHz
Voltage: Unknown
External Clock: Unknown
Max Speed: Unknown
Current Speed: Unknown
Status: Unpopulated
Upgrade: Other
L1 Cache Handle: Not Provided
L2 Cache Handle: Not Provided
L3 Cache Handle: Not Provided
Serial Number: Not Specified
Asset Tag: Not Specified
Part Number: Not Specified
Core Count: 16
Characteristics: None
Handle 0x0004, DMI type 15, 23 bytes
System Event Log
Area Length: 4095 bytes
Header Start Offset: 0x0000
Header Length: 8 bytes
Data Start Offset: 0x0008
Access Method: Memory-mapped physical 32-bit address
Access Address: 0xFFBF0000
Status: Valid, Not Full
Change Token: 0x00000000
Header Format: OEM-specific
Supported Log Type Descriptors: 0
Handle 0x0005, DMI type 32, 11 bytes
System Boot Information
Status: No errors detected
Handle 0x0006, DMI type 41, 11 bytes
Onboard Device
Reference Designation: lightsensor
Type: Other
Status: Enabled
Type Instance: 51
Bus Address: 0002:44:00.0
Handle 0x0007, DMI type 41, 11 bytes
Onboard Device
Reference Designation: trackpad
Type: Other
Status: Enabled
Type Instance: 37
Bus Address: 0001:67:00.0
Handle 0x0008, DMI type 41, 11 bytes
Onboard Device
Reference Designation: touchscreen
Type: Other
Status: Enabled
Type Instance: 38
Bus Address: 0002:4a:00.0
Handle 0x0009, DMI type 127, 4 bytes
End Of Table
and free shows:
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2058164 802692 1255472 40820 28816 267024
-/+ buffers/cache: 506852 1551312
Swap: 0 0 0
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Does linux-mainline-chromebook from the AUR enable the touchpad?
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/linu … hromebook/
Also, unrelated, will you post the output of "sudo cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log|grep 8086" ?
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I'll give that a try and report back.
sudo cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log|grep 8086 shows:
cat: /var/log/Xorg.0.log: No such file or directory
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sudo cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log|grep 8086 shows:
cat: /var/log/Xorg.0.log: No such file or directory
Maybe "sudo grep -r 8086 /var/log|grep PCI" ?
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Another odd thing is Arch is displaying incorrect system info. This model of the C720 comes with 4GB of RAM, but sudo lshw -class memory shows 2GB:
... *-memory description: System memory physical id: 1 size: 2009MiB
Anybody know why this is?
Have you confirmed with memtest86+ that the memory is available?
Also, here's some info from what is advertised as a "2GB" Toshiba CB35 running 64-bit:
~: sudo lshw -class memory
*-firmware
description: BIOS
vendor: coreboot
physical id: 0
date: 12/04/2013
size: 1MiB
capacity: 8128KiB
capabilities: pci pcmcia upgrade bootselect acpi
*-memory
description: System memory
physical id: 1
size: 1884MiB
~: dmesg|grep Memory
[ 0.000000] Memory: 1913764K/2035740K available (4912K kernel code, 704K rwdata, 1664K rodata, 1000K init, 960K bss, 121976K reserved)
[ 1.502993] [drm] Memory usable by graphics device = 2048M
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@scot14
Do you believe that using John Lewis' updated coreboot build without blacklisting tpm modules might solve system freeze issues ?
At the moment I experiencing 3 kind of freezes with my Celeron C720 (4GB):
* App freeze, "stuck on render ring" probably due to dri driver bug ( https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=80229 ), for some app it's temporary and others (like chrome) I need to kill.
* VAAPI related freeze
sometimes I can close the lid, open it and be able to change to tty2 to kill the video player.
and some other times it's a full system freeze forcing me to restart the system.
these vaapi issues aren't specific to the C720 (see https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 7#p1437427 ), this might be related to the bug reported about "stuck on render ring" issue above as some of the duplicated bugs reports describe vaapi issues.
* Full system freeze, I'm not sure what's the cause as I wasn't able to grab logs (I tried also reading syslogs with syslog-ng as the journald logs were corrupt).
p.s.
I didn't tried yet John's coreboot build as I want to restore ChromeOS (to redeem the free 100GB) and I'm waiting for a ssd replacement (myDigitalSSD decided to die).
Last edited by dhead (2014-08-12 07:35:49)
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@scot14
Do you believe that using John Lewis' updated coreboot build without blacklisting tpm modules might solve system freeze issues ?
At the moment I experiencing 3 kind of freezes with my Celeron C720 (4GB):
* App freeze, "stuck on render ring" probably due to dri driver bug ( https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=80229 ), for some app it's temporary and others (like chrome) I need to kill.
* VAAPI related freeze
sometimes I can close the lid, open it and be able to change to tty2 to kill the video player.
and some other times it's a full system freeze forcing me to restart the system.
these vaapi issues aren't specific to the C720 (see https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 7#p1437427 ), this might be related to the bug reported about "stuck on render ring" issue above as some of the duplicated bugs reports describe vaapi issues.
* Full system freeze, I'm not sure what's the cause as I wasn't able to grab logs (I tried also reading syslogs with syslog-ng as the journald logs were corrupt).p.s.
I didn't tried yet John's coreboot build as I want to restore ChromeOS (to redeem the free 100GB) and I'm waiting for a ssd replacement (myDigitalSSD decided to die).
When using the standard firmware, I think there are three fixes to suspend/resume:
1. Boot with tpm_tis module parameter force=1
2. Boot with tpm_tis module parameter interrupts=0
3. Use a patch I'm working on, and that is included in linux-mainline-chromebook
When using the new firmware, I think there might be three fixes:
1. Blacklist the tpm_tis module
2. Boot with tpm_tis module parameter interrupts=0
3. Maybe use a different patch I'm working on, but that isn't working yet
But in either case, as long as you do something to fix the suspend/resume issue as described above, I haven't heard of anyone having further freezes. So the answer is: I don't think the new firmware will help with the problems you're describing.
As for those three freezes, here are some thoughts, but others might know more.
1. Have you tried using UXA instead of SNA?
2. Agree
3. Probably you were already, but if not then maybe using ext3 or ext4 for /var, since corruptions should be recoverable on the next boot?
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The wiki says to use the cros-haswell-modules.sh script to get the touchpad working but this doesn't seem to work with the 3.15 kernel.
is it right? cros-haswell-modules.sh doesn't work with linux 3.15.x kernel?
Amazing !
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If you want to build the modules instead of using a patched kernel, this repo should be up to date. https://github.com/masmullin2000/arch-c720p/
Those instructions in the wiki are a bit old, since most of us use a patched kernel now, and nobody has been updating the script in the wiki AFAIK.
Last edited by SolarBoyMatt (2014-08-12 13:12:38)
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Does linux-mainline-chromebook from the AUR enable the touchpad?
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/linu … hromebook/
Thanks, it took an hour or maybe more to install, but the touchpad works now.
I will post the output of sudo grep -r 8086 /var/log|grep PCI and check the memtest86+ later after work.
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When using the standard firmware, I think there are three fixes to suspend/resume:
1. Boot with tpm_tis module parameter force=1
2. Boot with tpm_tis module parameter interrupts=0
3. Use a patch I'm working on, and that is included in linux-mainline-chromebook
All the above are applied to setup.
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet add_efi_memmap boot=local noresume noswap i915.modeset=1 tpm_tis.force=1 tpm_tis.interrupts=0 nmi_watchdog=panic,lapic"
After this error message
kernel: [drm] stuck on render ring
I only now also notice
kernel: [drm] Enabling RC6 states: RC6 on, RC6p off, RC6pp off
, I'll try setting
i915.i915_enable_rc6=0
to see if that helps.
As for those three freezes, here are some thoughts, but others might know more.
1. Have you tried using UXA instead of SNA?
2. Agree
3. Probably you were already, but if not then maybe using ext3 or ext4 for /var, since corruptions should be recoverable on the next boot?
1. I tried them all: UXA, SNA and Glamor, didn't saw any change.
3. I'm on ext4.
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All the above are applied to setup.
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet add_efi_memmap boot=local noresume noswap i915.modeset=1 tpm_tis.force=1 tpm_tis.interrupts=0 nmi_watchdog=panic,lapic"
So this confirms it probably didn't have anything to do with TPM.
I'll try setting
i915.i915_enable_rc6=0
to see if that helps.
Good idea. I think there was another thread about it: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=184845
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Have you confirmed with memtest86+ that the memory is available?
I didn't let the memtest86+ run through, but it did show 4GB of RAM. I'll let it sit for a while tonight.
sudo grep -r 8086 /var/log|grep PCI
Nothing outputs for this.
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I didn't let the memtest86+ run through, but it did show 4GB of RAM. I'll let it sit for a while tonight.
What does "dmesg|grep Memory" show? My understanding is that the entry at 0.0000 seconds shows the total memory detected. If that doesn't show more than 2GB, then another idea is to see if a 64-bit kernel detects more memory, maybe by booting a live cd. I've only heard of 32-bit reducing available memory from 4 to 3 or 3.5 though.
scot14 wrote:sudo grep -r 8086 /var/log|grep PCI
Nothing outputs for this.
Does the backlight control work? Are you running a kernel greater than 3.15.1? We had to patch the kernel for the older C720's before the backlight would work on newer kernels and I'm curious if this newer C720 requires a separate fix.
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Hello
If you are using the https://github.com/masmullin2000/arch-c720p script to update the touchpad/touchscreen modules for your existing kernel you'll have to 'git checkout 3.16' before running the touch.sh script.
eg.
git clone https://github.com/masmullin2000/arch-c720p.git touch
cd touch
git checkout 3.16
sh touch.sh
Let me know of any problems
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Well, it was annoying that my bracket keys weren't working, so I tried reinstalling Chrome OS to see if it would work there. Nope, it still didn't work. I even ripped this baby apart to see if I could see something amiss with the hardware. I disconnected and reconnected cables. The keys still did not work after putting it back together. I contacted Acer support and they just had me check a few other keys and do a factory reset...nothing. They suggested I mail in for a repair. I denied and asked for a new keyboard to be sent to me. They refused as I expected. I just got them to give some website links, phone numbers and a part number to buy a new keyboard instead. Oh well.
...then another idea is to see if a 64-bit kernel detects more memory, maybe by booting a live cd. I've only heard of 32-bit reducing available memory from 4 to 3 or 3.5 though...
I've been unable to boot 64-bit live cds without putting in a kernel parameter. They complain that I have insufficient memory or something of the sort. The top command in Chrome OS says 4GB of memory like it should.
Does the backlight control work? Are you running a kernel greater than 3.15.1? We had to patch the kernel for the older C720's before the backlight would work on newer kernels and I'm curious if this newer C720 requires a separate fix.
After installing linux-mainline-chromebook from the AUR, I was running 3.16. And no the backlight controls were not working after reconfiguring the hotkeys as suggested in the wiki.
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I've been unable to boot 64-bit live cds without putting in a kernel parameter. They complain that I have insufficient memory or something of the sort. The top command in Chrome OS says 4GB of memory like it should.
Since ChromeOS works, a 64-bit Arch kernel might also recognize the 4GB. But I don't know. I haven't previously heard of anyone using the 32-bit kernel on newer chromebooks with more than 2GB, which would fit with no one seeming to be familiar with this problem. The wiki describes how to do a 64-bit install, which people here can help with if it doesn't work. Today I also did one using the https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/In … ting_Linux instructions, from a Finnix installation. It seems like Arch is the only distro with a non-functional 64-bit installer for the Chromebooks.
After installing linux-mainline-chromebook from the AUR, I was running 3.16. And no the backlight controls were not working after reconfiguring the hotkeys as suggested in the wiki.
If you contact me through my profile, I can probably work with you to get the kernel patched upstream so that the backlight will work. It would require some simple information from your logs, as well as the 64-bit kernel for testing. Once it's patched upstream, then the patch should flow back into the official arch kernels.
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I'll try setting
i915.i915_enable_rc6=0
to see if that helps.
Doesn't help, still seeing full system freeze and temporary app freeze (stuck on render ring).
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parched, can you break down what are the differences in the 2 kernels that you've placed into the AUR (linux-chromebook and linux-mainline-chromebook)?
Will you continue to release precompiled kernels for linux-mainline-chromebook? I ask this because I see that you have 3.16-1 for linux-chromebook but not linux-mainline-chromebook precompiled at the download page you shared. Compiling on another system isn't an issue but would be more convenient to use if there were a precompiled binary around.
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@pegasus21
He's waiting for Linus to release 3.17rc1 and then the linux-mainline-chromebook will be updated.
Last edited by dhead (2014-08-14 13:16:52)
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