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#501 2014-08-11 12:09:46

stratosmacker
Member
Registered: 2013-10-15
Posts: 13

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

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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#502 2014-08-11 13:29:06

SolarBoyMatt
Member
Registered: 2012-01-07
Posts: 263

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

Jam0864 wrote:

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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#503 2014-08-11 19:09:08

siralucard
Member
Registered: 2013-07-19
Posts: 9

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

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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#504 2014-08-11 19:22:31

siralucard
Member
Registered: 2013-07-19
Posts: 9

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

Also, I'm using 32-bit.

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#505 2014-08-11 20:44:09

scot14
Member
Registered: 2014-06-02
Posts: 123

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

siralucard wrote:

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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#506 2014-08-11 20:51:58

siralucard
Member
Registered: 2013-07-19
Posts: 9

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

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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#507 2014-08-11 22:58:36

scot14
Member
Registered: 2014-06-02
Posts: 123

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

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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#508 2014-08-11 23:05:52

siralucard
Member
Registered: 2013-07-19
Posts: 9

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

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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#509 2014-08-11 23:11:01

scot14
Member
Registered: 2014-06-02
Posts: 123

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

siralucard wrote:

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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#510 2014-08-12 00:17:56

scot14
Member
Registered: 2014-06-02
Posts: 123

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

siralucard wrote:

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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#511 2014-08-12 07:27:35

dhead
Member
Registered: 2012-09-26
Posts: 190

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

@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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#512 2014-08-12 10:58:49

scot14
Member
Registered: 2014-06-02
Posts: 123

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

dhead wrote:

@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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#513 2014-08-12 12:18:45

mshan
Member
Registered: 2013-05-05
Posts: 105

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

siralucard wrote:

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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#514 2014-08-12 13:10:36

SolarBoyMatt
Member
Registered: 2012-01-07
Posts: 263

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

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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#515 2014-08-12 15:23:39

siralucard
Member
Registered: 2013-07-19
Posts: 9

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

scot14 wrote:

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. hmm

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#516 2014-08-12 17:28:02

dhead
Member
Registered: 2012-09-26
Posts: 190

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

scot14 wrote:

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.


scot14 wrote:

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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#517 2014-08-12 17:46:34

scot14
Member
Registered: 2014-06-02
Posts: 123

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

dhead wrote:

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.

dhead wrote:

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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#518 2014-08-13 01:07:46

siralucard
Member
Registered: 2013-07-19
Posts: 9

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

scot14 wrote:

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.

scot14 wrote:

sudo grep -r 8086 /var/log|grep PCI

Nothing outputs for this.

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#519 2014-08-13 03:21:56

scot14
Member
Registered: 2014-06-02
Posts: 123

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

siralucard wrote:

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.

siralucard wrote:
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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#520 2014-08-13 22:56:02

masmullin
Member
Registered: 2014-04-10
Posts: 28

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

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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#521 2014-08-14 02:54:01

siralucard
Member
Registered: 2013-07-19
Posts: 9

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

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.

scot14 wrote:

...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.

scot14 wrote:

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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#522 2014-08-14 03:51:12

scot14
Member
Registered: 2014-06-02
Posts: 123

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

siralucard wrote:

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.

siralucard wrote:

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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#523 2014-08-14 05:36:36

dhead
Member
Registered: 2012-09-26
Posts: 190

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

dhead wrote:

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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#524 2014-08-14 12:10:39

pegasus21
Member
Registered: 2014-06-15
Posts: 17

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

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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#525 2014-08-14 13:16:37

dhead
Member
Registered: 2012-09-26
Posts: 190

Re: Acer C720/C720P Chromebook

@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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