Installing Linux on Ideapad Chromebook
This article is a translation of the following my article:
Original: ideapad chromebookにLinuxをインストールする
* Translated automatically by Google.
* Please note that some links or referenced content in this article may be in Japanese.
* Comments in the code are basically in Japanese.
by bokumin
Installing Linux on Ideapad Chromebook
The other day, I received a Lenovo ideapad duet chromebook from a friend because I no longer use it.
I tried using ChromeOS for a while, but I found it difficult to use, so I decided to install Linux. I hope this will be helpful to someone.
⚠If you do this, you will no longer be able to boot into ChromeOS, which is the same as removing (uninstalling) ChromeOS. You can create a recovery disk so you can go back, but please do so at your own risk⚠
1. Introduction
Details of the equipment actually used.
| Device name | Lenovo IdeaPad Duet Chromebook ZA6F0038JP |
| Processor | MediaTek® P60T (8C, 4x A73 @2.0GHz + 4x A53 @2.0GHz |
| Operating System | ChromeOS |
| Memory | 4GB (LPDDR4X) |
This time, I created it with reference to the following site.
https://github.com/hexdump0815/imagebuilder
I used the debian12 img file published here.
This will be baked using software such as balenaEtcher.
*If you want to create an image file using ChromeOS, access the Chrome Web Store from your Chrome browser, search for “Chromebook recordy Utility” and install the tool below.
After startup, you can create a Linux image file in the same way on ChromeOS by selecting “Use local image” from the gear mark on the top right.
You can also create recovery media for your ChromeBook using this tool, so we recommend creating one just in case.
2. Enter developer mode
Change ChromeOS to developer mode. *When changing to developer mode, all internal files will be deleted, so please make sure to back them up in advance.
When changing to developer mode, the procedure differs depending on the Chromebook, but in this case, it is
Press power button + volume UP + volume DOWN at the same time
The message “Please point to the recovery USB” will appear, so press the volume UP button, then press volume UP + volume DOWN to change to developer mode.
3. Enable USB boot
After changing to developer mode, you can open the terminal with CTRL+ALT. So enter the following:
# USBブートをONにする
crossystem dev_boot_usb=1 dev_boot_signed_only=0
4. USB boot
I think you can boot Linux from the USB by pointing to the USB memory you created on your PC and pressing Ctrl+D.
You can log in using Linux as the user name and changeme as the password. *I’m sorry if I’m wrong.
Then, open a terminal and check if the internal storage device is visible using the command below.
sudo -i //パスワードはchangeme
ls -d /dev/mmcblk* /dev/sd* | cat
/dev/mmcblk0
/dev/mmcblk0boot0
/dev/mmcblk0boot1
/dev/mmcblk0p1
...
/dev/mmcblk0p12
/dev/mmcblk0rpmb
/dev/sda
/dev/sda1
/dev/sda2
/dev/sda3
/dev/sda4
df -h /boot
/dev/sda3 504M 68M 426M 14% /boot
fdisk -l
Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 29.12 GiB, 31268536320 bytes, 61071360 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
...
Once you have confirmed that the internal storage is visible, run the following command.
# イメージファイルを外部ストレージ（USBメモリ）にダウンロード
wget https://github.com/hexdump0815/imagebuilder/releases/download/230917-01/chromebook_kukui-aarch64-bookworm.img.gz
# 先ほど上記のコマンドで発見したターゲットデバイスに書き込む
export TGTDEV=mmcblk0
zcat chromebook_kukui-aarch64-bookworm.img.gz | dd of=/dev/$TGTDEV bs=1024k status=progress
Once the writing is completed successfully, shut down and boot from internal storage.
5. File system resizing work
Even if you enter safely, you cannot use it as it is now. You need to resize the file system.
*It used to be on Github, but it seems to have been deleted for some reason, so please download it from below and use it.
https://bokumin.org/download/extend-rootfs.sh
wget https://bokumin.org/download/extend-rootfs.sh
sudo sh extend-rootfs.sh
6. Conclusion
Currently, my ideapad has installed Debian 12 successfully and I can use it without any problems so far. *The following is the actual screen.
The touch panel did not work well in the xfce desktop environment, so I installed gnome and was able to operate it to some extent by touch.
The subsequent initial settings are written in the article below, so please refer to it
End