(depthcharge, vboot) Difficulties booting on Chromebook

[Linus Heckemann]

Hi all,

I've been following the instructions for getting Debian running on an
Asus C201 Chromebook[1]. This has been going well, mostly, except that
when I try to actually boot it (power on and press Ctrl-U) I am greeted
by a loud and low-pitched beep and not much else. Any ideas as to what I
may be missing?

Relevant stuff:

# crossystem | grep dev_boot
dev_boot_usb           = 1   # Enable developer mode boot from USB/SD
(writable)
dev_boot_legacy        = 0   # Enable developer mode boot Legacy OSes
(writable)
dev_boot_signed_only   = 0   # Enable developer mode boot only from
official kernels (writable)

I've uploaded an image of the SD card resulting from the instructions
(208M, 2G uncompressed) at [2].

Best regards
Linus

[1]: https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Asus/C201
[2]: https://sphalerite.org/chromebook-debian-boot-sd.img.gz

[Paul Kocialkowski]

Hi,

On Tue, 2017-07-18 at 07:24 +0100, Linus Heckemann wrote:
> I've been following the instructions for getting Debian running on an
> Asus C201 Chromebook[1]. This has been going well, mostly, except that
> when I try to actually boot it (power on and press Ctrl-U) I am
> greeted
> by a loud and low-pitched beep and not much else. Any ideas as to what
> I
> may be missing?

That probably means that your boot medium was not setup correctly.
Perhaps the Debian instructions are either incorrect or incomplete.
> Relevant stuff:
>
> # crossystem | grep dev_boot
> dev_boot_usb           = 1   # Enable developer mode boot from USB/SD
> (writable)
> dev_boot_legacy        = 0   # Enable developer mode boot Legacy OSes
> (writable)
> dev_boot_signed_only   = 0   # Enable developer mode boot only from
> official kernels (writable)
>
> I've uploaded an image of the SD card resulting from the instructions
> (208M, 2G uncompressed) at [2].
>
> Best regards
> Linus

[Linus Heckemann]

Hi Paul, thanks for your reply.

On 18/07/17 08:28, Paul Kocialkowski wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Tue, 2017-07-18 at 07:24 +0100, Linus Heckemann wrote:
> > I've been following the instructions for getting Debian running on an
> > Asus C201 Chromebook[1]. This has been going well, mostly, except that
> > when I try to actually boot it (power on and press Ctrl-U) I am
> > greeted
> > by a loud and low-pitched beep and not much else. Any ideas as to what
> > I
> > may be missing?
>
> That probably means that your boot medium was not setup correctly.
> Perhaps the Debian instructions are either incorrect or incomplete.

Do you know of any "known-to-work" instructions for setting up a
non-chrome OS boot medium that I could compare my setup to or try using
instead? Or a way to get more helpful information than a beep from
depthcharge?
> > Relevant stuff:
> >
> > # crossystem | grep dev_boot
> > dev_boot_usb           = 1   # Enable developer mode boot from USB/SD
> > (writable)
> > dev_boot_legacy        = 0   # Enable developer mode boot Legacy OSes
> > (writable)
> > dev_boot_signed_only   = 0   # Enable developer mode boot only from
> > official kernels (writable)
> >
> > I've uploaded an image of the SD card resulting from the instructions
> > (208M, 2G uncompressed) at [2].
> >
> > Best regards
> > Linus

[Paul Kocialkowski]

On Tue, 2017-07-18 at 08:49 +0100, Linus Heckemann wrote:
> Hi Paul, thanks for your reply.
>
> On 18/07/17 08:28, Paul Kocialkowski wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > On Tue, 2017-07-18 at 07:24 +0100, Linus Heckemann wrote:
> > > I've been following the instructions for getting Debian running on
> > > an
> > > Asus C201 Chromebook[1]. This has been going well, mostly, except
> > > that
> > > when I try to actually boot it (power on and press Ctrl-U) I am
> > > greeted
> > > by a loud and low-pitched beep and not much else. Any ideas as to
> > > what
> > > I
> > > may be missing?
> >
> > That probably means that your boot medium was not setup correctly.
> > Perhaps the Debian instructions are either incorrect or incomplete.
>
> Do you know of any "known-to-work" instructions for setting up a
> non-chrome OS boot medium that I could compare my setup to or try
> using
> instead? Or a way to get more helpful information than a beep from
> depthcharge?

I have a cros-medium-setup script that does that:
https://git.code.paulk.fr/gitweb/?p=libettereboot.git;a=blob;f=projects/cros...

You could try to run the paritions action and then cat a known good
kernel image to the first partition. Alternatively, you can use my whole
build system:
http://git.code.paulk.fr/gitweb/?p=libettereboot.git;a=summary
to build a cros kernel and install it to the storage:
./libreboot download linux-cros
./libreboot cook linux-cros veyron
./libreboot cook cros-scripts
cd install/cros-scripts/
./cros-kernel-prepare pack ../linux-cros-veyron usb
./cros-medium-setup partitions /dev/sdfoo
./cros-medium-setup kernel /dev/sdfoo ../linux-cros-veyron usb

That will however take a while to complete. I'm not providing binary
releases at this point (or any official documentation, really).

Maybe reading these scripts can help you figure out what is going wrong
with your setup.
> > > Relevant stuff:
> > >
> > > # crossystem | grep dev_boot
> > > dev_boot_usb           = 1   # Enable developer mode boot from
> > > USB/SD
> > > (writable)
> > > dev_boot_legacy        = 0   # Enable developer mode boot Legacy
> > > OSes
> > > (writable)
> > > dev_boot_signed_only   = 0   # Enable developer mode boot only
> > > from
> > > official kernels (writable)
> > >
> > > I've uploaded an image of the SD card resulting from the
> > > instructions
> > > (208M, 2G uncompressed) at [2].
> > >
> > > Best regards
> > > Linus

[Linus Heckemann]

On 18/07/17 09:13, Paul Kocialkowski wrote:
> > Do you know of any "known-to-work" instructions for setting up a
> > non-chrome OS boot medium that I could compare my setup to or try
> > using
> > instead? Or a way to get more helpful information than a beep from
> > depthcharge?
>
> I have a cros-medium-setup script that does that:
> https://git.code.paulk.fr/gitweb/?p=libettereboot.git;a=blob;f=projects/cros...
>
> You could try to run the paritions action and then cat a known good
> kernel image to the first partition.

By the looks of it that's pretty much what I've done and I don't see any
differences that could cause it to fail. I'm guessing that leaves the
kernel…
> Alternatively, you can use my whole
> build system:
> http://git.code.paulk.fr/gitweb/?p=libettereboot.git;a=summary
> to build a cros kernel and install it to the storage:
> ./libreboot download linux-cros
> ./libreboot cook linux-cros veyron
> ./libreboot cook cros-scripts
> cd install/cros-scripts/
> ./cros-kernel-prepare pack ../linux-cros-veyron usb
> ./cros-medium-setup partitions /dev/sdfoo
> ./cros-medium-setup kernel /dev/sdfoo ../linux-cros-veyron usb
>
> That will however take a while to complete. I'm not providing binary
> releases at this point (or any official documentation, really).
>
> Maybe reading these scripts can help you figure out what is going wrong
> with your setup.

I'll have a look at that, thanks for the pointer. Side note: the git
repo URLs shown by your gitweb are wrong — they contain two slashes
after the domain, and aren't clonable (but taking out the extra slash
fixes it).

Thanks again
Linus