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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

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Old ass chromebook distro recommendation [request] (lemm.ee)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

12 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Background: I'm not "new" to linux, but this is my first year daily driving it. I have been running Mint on my main PC for a little over a year, and I love it.

My super old chromebook (Acer c720) has reached end of life. It is no longer supported by Google, and will not receive updates. I've toyed with dual-booting it to Linux in the past with Bodhi, but eventually it broke, and I ended up reverting to ChromeOS. That was years ago, and my patience/knowledge has grown, and I'm committed to switching.

So the other day I went ahead and pulled the trigger. I removed the write-protect screw from the Chromebook's motherboard, and installed Debian 12. I really just chose Debian because I already had a flash drive with the ISO on it for a different project (rooting my Dreame vacuum). It also runs GNOME by default, and I had never used that, so I thought it would be worth a try.
Turns out, I didn't mind GNOME, and I really loved the three-finger swipe to switch workspaces. BUT... The function keys on the chromebook that are used for changing the screen's brightness don't work. So I dove down the rabbit hole of trying to get those to work. Found 'xbacklight' and gave it a go. didn't work, and I struggled with it for a few hours until I discovered that xbacklight doesn't work with Wayland... So I attempted to disable wayland, and also made some other changes that lead to my Chromebook not completing its boot up... whoops. Every challenge is an opportunity, so I figured - why not explore some other distros, and see if I can't find one that fits my needs a bit better?

Now the request: The hardware of this machine is OLD, so I am hoping to put something super light on it, but still be able to have a few features:

Trackpad gestures (swapping workspaces, navigating firefox).
Window snapping (left and right panes at least)
I don't care too much about how it looks, but I need to be able to map the function keys to volume and brightness.

I have been lurking on Lemmy for long enough to have watched all the memes/conversations about different desktop managers (GNOME/Xfce/etc) but I never really understood what the deal was, but now I am coming face to face with that decision, and I'd love some "professional" input!

Edit: the only "real" activities I will use this for is web browsing, terminal stuffs for my servers/other machines/homeassistant, and some note taking. So default programs can be SUPER minimum.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

This is the first I've ever heard of a write protect screw. That's so silly!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Yeah, you don't have to remove it (I didn't when I tried this 10 years ago) but if you don't you always have to hit ctrl+l when it boots, or it could get stuck looking for ChromeOS. The hardware is so old now, I don't really care if I brick it. I'm just learning about linux by goofin.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Elementary OS might be what you are looking for. It has their own DE (pantheon) that I think was one of the first to implement 1:1 gesture navigation. It still uses X if I’m not mistaken so you are probably going to be able to use the backlight correctly.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Looks interesting! Seems it pantheon is built on top of GNOME, so wouldn’t that make it a bit heavy for my 2GB RAM beater? Or is there really not that much difference between the different DEs with regard to resource usage?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Ohhhh, didn’t see the limited ram… maybe something with Xfce is the better option. With some customisation it looks very very good and is very very light

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I’m running arch on my Chromebook I followed the wiki for WiFi then ran the arch install command and set up xfce4. That worked with xbacklight and hot keys setup. I needed a script from mrchromebox to get the speakers working as well but everything else worked out of the box.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (4 children)

I'll be honest, I'm a bit scared of Arch, but this might be the push I need to give it a go. What's the worst that happens?

Can you add trackpad gestures to Arch?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

I honestly haven’t tried, but I have seen this gesture support in the AUR

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

I had to use the script twice because I did something stupid the first time but honestly the worst case is you try again!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Second Arch. I'm running it on my EOL chromebook with coreboot now. Everything works as intended.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

If you want a little bit of hand holding to ease you into Arch, Endeavour OS is a pretty smooth distro that makes the install and configuration easier.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Interesting! Looks pretty slick. Might be a nice stepping stone into that world. This chromebook is so old that it could be a perfect playground for this sorta thing. I don’t have any important files/apps or anything on it that I’m afraid of damaging or being without. Thanks for the suggestion.