Install Gentoo ARM on a HP Chromebook 14 G3 (Tegra K1)

Message

spearthistle · Post by **spearthistle** » Wed Oct 12, 2016 12:41 pm

Hi,

Other specifications of note:

A15-Cortex 32-bit chip.
nyan_blaze

I'd like to install a GPU accelerated Gentoo ARM OS onto an external SD CARD or USB 3.0 drive
and then boot into this at startup using Ctrl-U.

I'd also like the option of backing up the Chromebook OS and installing Gentoo onto the 32GB SSD natively (if this is possible).

Has anybody already achieved either of these as CROUTON is not GPU accelerated?

Best Wishes, Spearthistle.

spearthistle · Post by **spearthistle** » Sat Oct 29, 2016 9:57 am

Hi,

I got this to work using ChrUbuntu.

Here's the thread I posted on Ubuntu Forums: https://askubuntu.com/questions/835755/ ... nyan-blaze (see replies)

Best Wishes, spearthistle

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Sat Oct 29, 2016 11:39 am

spearthistle,

Welcome to Gentoo.

Its a bad idea to reply to your own posts until you have a reply. Any tread with more that one post drops out of the unanswered posts search.
Editing your original post is fine.

The difficult part of a GPU accelerated Gentoo is the GPU.
Most GPUs in ARM systems want a binary blob driver that is tied to a specific kernel version. This mean that only the binary blob authors can update the driver to work with new kernels.
This limits your choice of kernels. The kernel may even be patched, so you have to use a vendor provided kernel.

If you don't need a binary blob driver or a vendor specific kernel, you should be good.

spearthistle · Post by **spearthistle** » Wed Nov 02, 2016 6:32 pm

NeddySeagoon,

Thanks for the warm welcome and reply.

I shall bear in mind what you said about being patient.

The script that successfully installed ChrUbuntu Trusty Tahr 14.04 on the HP Chromebook 14 G3 (Tegra K1, nyan_blaze),
was indeed, like you said, tied to a kernel version, namely 3.10.18, which also had to be "signed" using commands and
private keys, only executable in a Chrome OS shell.

The latest blobs tied to this kernel are presumably here (as this was the file downloaded by the customised ChrUbuntu script):
https://developer.nvidia.com/linux-tegra-r215
Tegra_Linux_Sample-Root-Filesystem_R21.5.0_armhf.tbz2

The GPU acceleration work well and gets 60fps on www.fishgl.com

The strange thing about the ChrUbuntu script, was that even if you selected Xenial Xerus 16.04, you only got Trusty Tahr 14.04.
It's not a problem though, because I can live with it.

Best Wishes, spearthistle.