Putting linux on a Chromebook or MacBook

Operating Systems & Open Source Linux
1

Was looking at getting an Acer C720 and putting a flavor of linux on it.  I've found a wiki with instructions for Arch Linux (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Acer_C720_Chromebook) but was wondering if anyone has tried it with Arch or another flavor, like CrunchBang.  How much of a pain in the ass is it getting all the drivers working?

If it doesn't seem feasible I'll probably experiment on my wife's old macbook when it gets a little older.

2

http://liliputing.com/2013/12/acer-c270-chromebook-tested-ubuntu-bad-200.html Read that.

3

Acer c720: easy to install, runs on open source BIOS, one of the most secure options for laptops available at the moment. The touchpad doesn't work in older distros, kinda works (it's not the highest quality touchpad) in bleeding edge distros. Great power for the price though, the CPU alone on these things is normally over a 100 USD, and the entire machine is just 200 bucks. With the open source BIOS in this thing, this is definitely one of the best value/price business machines available for the moment.

Macbook: everything works in linux, they even got the retina screen of the mbpro to work flawlessly now.

4

What distros work with the touchpad? 

5

There is no upstream hardware support for it just yet, you have to install kernel headers for it manually. Those can be found in the google repos (ChromeOS is linux). They are installed by running cros-haswell-modules on kernels 3.11 and 3.12. Distros that run on an older kernel will not be able to install these.

Fedora and Arch (bleeding edge distros) work perfectly fine with it.

The script for Arch/Manjaro (on Manjaro, make sure that you mhwd-kernel -i linux311 or linux312 first and reboot with that kernel, because the default is still at 3.10.22) can be found here: http://pastie.org/pastes/8540561/download

Basically you just chmod it and run it and it works after reboot. You have to make a conf file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d to make it respond in a more intuitive way (source: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Acer_C720_Chromebook - find it there because what I copy/pasted from there remains unformatted and I'm not going to bother with formatting it lol):

 

/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-cros-touchpad.conf




Section "InputClass" 
    Identifier      "touchpad peppy cyapa" 
    MatchIsTouchpad "on" 
    MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*" 
    MatchProduct    "cyapa" 
    Option          "FingerLow" "10" 
    Option          "FingerHigh" "10" 
EndSection
6

Thanks Zoltan, that was exactly what I wanted to know.  Definitely made a case for me to bite the bullet and buy one.