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Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

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Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#21

Post by pqz »

bubblethink wrote: post #18
pqz wrote: post #13

Is there some way I could try ChromeOS on my regular PC? Inside VMware or natively.

ChromeOS, no. ChromiumOS, yes. vmware/virtualbox, unlikely without hacking. Qemu/kvm, yes in theory. Native, yes. Possible options for native: 1) https://arnoldthebat.co.uk/wordpress/chromium-os/ 2) https://www.neverware.com/

I see the ChromeOS team has their own set of scripts to run ChromeOS on KVM, but they are Linux-only it seems. Bad luck :P

I also tried the first option for native but it froze while the "ChromiumOS" logo was shown.

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#22

Post by grondilu »

Only slightly related, but I once had a chromebook I was very happy about, until after a few years it just failed to boot. I've repaired many linux laptops in my life, usually using an USB key to boot a live system and fix the disk-drive or something. But with this chromebook, there was absolutely nothing I could do. No access to something like a DOS or anything, nothing booted from the USB port. Just a black screen.

I've never bought any chromebook since.

Was I just unlucky and should I git it an other try?

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#23

Post by bubblethink »

pqz wrote: post #21
bubblethink wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ChromeOS, no. ChromiumOS, yes. vmware/virtualbox, unlikely without hacking. Qemu/kvm, yes in theory. Native, yes. Possible options for native: 1) https://arnoldthebat.co.uk/wordpress/chromium-os/ 2) https://www.neverware.com/

I see the ChromeOS team has their own set of scripts to run ChromeOS on KVM, but they are Linux-only it seems. Bad luck :P I also tried the first option for native but it froze while the "ChromiumOS" logo was shown.

Try the second option (cloudready). It should have undergone more testing.

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#24

Post by mutagenesis »

grondilu wrote: post #22

Only slightly related, but I once had a chromebook I was very happy about, until after a few years it just failed to boot. I've repaired many linux laptops in my life, usually using an USB key to boot a live system and fix the disk-drive or something. But with this chromebook, there was absolutely nothing I could do. No access to something like a DOS or anything, nothing booted from the USB port. Just a black screen.…

Chromebooks have recovery mode. This is functionality in the firmware to reinstall the OS from a signed image on a USB drive or SD card (device obviously needs to have the SD card reader for this). Just look up instructions online for more details which will be better than anything I could write.

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#25

Post by dsr_ »

pqz wrote: post #12
lostmsu wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, why don't you just use Windows or Mac laptop? You'd have all the same advantages without hardware/firmware problems.

I don't know if this is his reason, but at the price range of a Chromebook I assume all Windows notebooks are crap and Macs are non-existent.

You're wrong, but only because the Chromebook price range goes from $200 on the low end to $1650 for a Google Pixelbook with the high-end configuration. In between you can find lots of usable hardware from other vendors, including two configurations of the 13" MacBook Pro with retina screens.

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#26

Post by hawski »

grondilu wrote: post #22

Only slightly related, but I once had a chromebook I was very happy about, until after a few years it just failed to boot. I've repaired many linux laptops in my life, usually using an USB key to boot a live system and fix the disk-drive or something. But with this chromebook, there was absolutely nothing I could do. No access to something like a DOS or anything, nothing booted from the USB port. Just a black screen.…

I had once an update that broke the system. Here are the instructions I used to recover: https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/1080595?hl=en

In short you need a pendrive and another computer with Chrome to to download a recovery image and flash the pendrive. Afterwards use a key combo on Chromebook and it should be fixed.

In my case it helped, but I retained this pendrive with instructions for my wife if it would happen again (and she managed). I had to skip updates for some time.

A lesson for me was to not buy an ARM Chromebook again.

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#27

Post by stoolpigeon »

dsr_ wrote: post #25
pqz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if this is his reason, but at the price range of a Chromebook I assume all Windows notebooks are crap and Macs are non-existent.

You're wrong, but only because the Chromebook price range goes from $200 on the low end to $1650 for a Google Pixelbook with the high-end configuration. In between you can find lots of usable hardware from other vendors, including two configurations of the 13" MacBook Pro with retina screens.

The first reason given was the ability to write on the screen with a pen. That wont happen with an MBP.

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#28

Post by williamstein »

hiccuphippo wrote: post #15

How good is the Virtualized Linux Environmen for developmentt? Can I run stuff like Docker on it?

Docker mostly works. However, `sudo docker run -it centos bash` fails because the centos image (as do many others) uses extended attributes, which are not compatible with the underlying btrfs filesystem. In those cases, I've been rebuilding the Docker images myself from source, when possible. It's frustratingly close!

wstein@penguin:~$ sudo docker run -it centos bash

Unable to find image 'centos:latest' locally

latest: Pulling from library/centos

a02a4930cb5d: Extracting 75.17MB/75.17MB

docker: failed to register layer: ApplyLayer exit status 1

stdout: stderr: operation not permitted.

See 'docker run --help'.

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#29

Post by drcode »

robert_foss wrote: post #9

As a developer of this, it's built using Virgil3D[1], which is rather interesting tech, that allows virtualized guests to get hardware accelerated 3D graphics. It works by having the guest run a Mesa3D (Linux Userspace graphics) driver called virgl in the guest, which takes all of the OpenGL/OpenGL ES commands and send them through through Linux VirtIO[3] to the guest, where they are executed by the virglrenderer[1]…

Does this mean it won't accelerate 2d graphics? Should I expect acceleration in gimp/emacs/etc after the Crostini patch is available?

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#30

Post by zozbot123 »

pqz wrote: post #12
lostmsu wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, why don't you just use Windows or Mac laptop? You'd have all the same advantages without hardware/firmware problems.

I don't know if this is his reason, but at the price range of a Chromebook I assume all Windows notebooks are crap and Macs are non-existent.

A "crap" Windows notebook becomes perfectly usable, even quite snappy, when the Windows install is wiped out and replaced with Linux. (Barring hardware issues, of course.) It's not like low-end Chromebooks have better hardware specs for the price.
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