Chromebook

1

I know that it is possible to install Ubuntu onto a chromebook. does anyone know if the same or similar method would work with Haiku? If it would, it would sure make an inexpensive Haiku Laptop.

David

2

No it’s not possible, they use tricks to reuse part of Chrome OS as they are both Linux based. Haiku is completly different so it can’t use that trick. You would have to install another OS and make sure that there is a suitable boot loader (uboot).

It’s quite a lot of work to do that unfortunatly.

3

Thanks for the info. I figured that there had to be a reason or it would have been talked about already. I just didn’t know what that reason was. Shame though, I bet Haiku would rock on one of those.

4

Yes, I agree. Just a lot of work. Or maybe not, seems someone installed Windows on a Pixel: http://gbatemp.net/threads/how-to-install-windows-8-on-your-google-chromebook-pixel.350111/

Someone needs to spend time hacking on it though, maybe it can be done.

5

Acer C710 Chromebook now runs Haiku. Trackpad not working (same as Linux Mint) but otherwise seems to be fine.

Steps required:

  1. Flash bios with John Lewis’ Seabios script (https://johnlewis.ie/custom-chromebook-firmware/rom-download/)
  2. Create a Haiku install on a USB stick
  3. Install Haiku and any other OS you fancy (currently running Fedora 20 from internal disk and Haiku on USB SSD)
  4. Enjoy

When I get chance I’ll try to find the driver used by Fedora 20 for the trackpad and have a go at porting it over to enable use in Haiku

6

There isn’t one “chromebook”, there are a number of models: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromebook#Chromebook_models. Some of them run on Exynos or Tegra ARM-based chips and it’s unlikely Haiku will EVER be ported to that - the ARM devs seem to be eyeing different kinds of ARM chips AFAIK. Others run on unexceptional x86 hardware (Atoms and Celerons, nothing to write home about) and you could probably get haiku on there the same way you do on any other laptop, once you get past Coreboot. Then you will have a cheap, but not particularly powerful Haiku laptop. The trick in the article you mention is that hey get Ubuntu on there AND keep Chrome “OS” available. You won’t do that with Haiku without dual-booting.

I don’t get the whole Chromebook thing, actually. Get an i3 laptop, put a lightweight Linux distro on it (LXDE is quite good), set Chromium or Firefox to autoload in fullscreen on boot, hey presto, as close to a chromebook as damn is to a swearword. What am I missing here?