The Depthboot Project

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New blog post, but this might be a short one. No updates on the job front, but a friend has tipped me off to a project that may finally get a full Linux distro booting on my Thinkpad C13 Yoga Chromebook that I purchased back at the beginning of 2021.

Perhaps I haven’t done enough research into getting it to run, but I haven’t previously been able to get any full Linux distro booting as the main OS on this thing. Perhaps it’s because of the odd AMD Ryzen 5 3500C SoC processor, perhaps it’s due to some hackery that Google has done regarding the booting firmware for AMD processors on Chromebooks in general. Either way, I was unable to get anything booted other than ChromeOS or Linux via an LXC container previously.

Below, I’ll run through a recording of what you need to do, according to the Eupnea Project’s instructions here, to get a bootable install of Linux running from a flash drive on your target Chromebook of choice. The Depthboot Project is an effort from the Eupnea Project’s community to get proper bootable Linux distros installed on Chromebooks without modifying the system’s firmware or hardware. Their scripts build a full bootable install of one of the available distros, utilizing Depthboot and the ChromeOS kernel or Mainline kernel depending on your choices.

For my C13 Yoga Chromebook, I found that only the ChromeOS kernel boots properly on this machine...so far. We’ll explore more later in this post. There are some occasional graphical glitches, and suspend is non-functional, but everything else works perfectly with this installed!

Below I’ll add a screenshot of my currently-installed Fedora KDE w/ChromeOS-kernel image on the system. Now I’ll get that Cinnamon install running the more recent mainline kernel booted and do another recording of the terminal in there on how I install it to the disk.

I then went ahead and setup audio while booting to the Fedora-38-with-Cinnamon-and-Mainline USB that I had built. I also went ahead and ran the install-to-disk script that the Eupnea project had added to image the drive with the current install I was booting from…but it seems asciinema corrupted that recording. So here’s the audio setup recording.

After I had the Thinkpad C13’s audio working fine from that script, and ran the install to drive script, I tried restarting the system from the terminal, but it seemed to hang on the screen that says “system rebooting NOW!” for at least five minutes. I hard powered it off, removed the USB and powered it back on. Things look to be working better now.

Next, I went ahead and installed Steam, Discord, Protonup-QT, my Mullvad VPN etc and took a screenshot :)

While it seems suspend still isn’t working properly on this fresh DE and mainline Kernel in this install, the audio is working fine and I don’t see nearly as many graphical glitches as on the ChromeOS-kernel install. Thanks again, Jade, for recommending them!

Finishing up the T440p repairs, attempting to fix Risk of Rain 2 modding this holiday

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Hello there again everyone! Hope you’re having some happy holidays, for those that celebrate. This week I’ve mainly been working on finishing up the fixing of that T440p I mentioned previously, and attempting to get the r2modman mod manager working again for Risk of Rain 2. On my Nobara and Fedora Linux installs, r2modman previously opened up Risk of Rain 2 with my mods perfectly fine when hitting “Play Modded” however now that is far from the case.

That all said, first let’s take a look at those T440p repairs!

As you can see, I finally got that back panel fastened down with some screws I own!

Next, here we are replacing the LCD since the last one was bad…

…and good to go…nope! Now I’ll put this up on my Projects for Sale page once I replace the screen again. That said, I’ll likely be disabling the store while I’m out of town, then re-enabling it with all the machines I have fixed up and ready for sale when I return the first or second weekend of January. Expect another blog post out around then. I’ll be gone from the 16th of December until the 6th or 7th of January, so I’ll re-enable the store after then, with some new entries from machines I’ve fixed etc.

In other game news, here’s a screenshot of my Core Keeper server’s map! This game is my cozy place, and it’s nice that I have a dedicated server for it now. If you’ve been previously added to my Discord, I’ve pinned the game ID for the server there. Now, on to Risk of Rain 2 modding…

Recently I’ve run into some issues being able to play my favorite game in the way that I wish on Fedora and Nobara, and per my Github bug I made here, I’m experiencing some issues with the r2modman utility I’ve long been using to run Risk of Rain 2 with mods. Going to do further testing these next few days and make another blog post to see if there’s a fix for r2modman running on Linux as an appimage/rpm/deb install so we can get the game running modded again. Going to follow along with troubleshooting r2modman as I get time while I’m with my family. Above is the same video from that Github bug.

Long live my Oryx Pro. The above is a shot of my fourth gen model Oryx Pro, the oryp4 model, running Nobara Linux. Runs fine and graphics switching runs well too. This machine is going to replace the Guest Gaming Xeon machine I was using previously, as a guest gaming setup. As the battery on this doesn’t last longer than 10 minutes, and as parts are becoming harder to find for this machine, it’ll have a place next to the workbench for anyone that comes over who wants to game.

In one last little nugget of info, I’ve acquired an ODROID GO Ultra and I’ll be testing some games on there as well as possibly another tiny handheld that it has been hinted at me being gifted this holiday once I arrive in that part of the country. On the ODROID GO Ultra I flashed the most recent emulationstation image (oddly ubuntu 18.04 based) and if I end up getting a that other little chad handheld, I’ll see about flashing OnionOS on it as I’m told it may be one of the ones to support that. For now though, with the ODROID, we check to see if it can run my n64 and ps1 games from eras past!

To add some cool other things I’ve read about or found recently:

I refurbished a T440p! Or maybe the repairs are ongoing…

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Greetings fellow humans! I’ve been waiting a few weeks for some parts to come in for the T440p I’m upcycling and refurbishing, so someone else out there can continue using this bad boi. While I’ve learned a lot from my various tech support jobs and internships I’ve had during the past 10 years of my life or so, manually fixing modular hardware continues to be calming to my mind.

The current state of things, before rennovations. While this machine was probably one of my craigslist snags in the past two years or so, I found a somewhat-functioning Thinkpad Advanced Dock from a friend’s apartment complex’s e-waste area. That guy just needs a pin bent back into its proper slot and it should connect fine to laptops again. Pic of that below.

Lil pin boyo. If you look at the upper left of the connector, you’ll see the retaining pin that’s bent.

I also have some 8GB modules on hand for upgrading this T440p to 16GB of RAM. Going to give it an isopropyl wipedown next before I start swapping parts. This is the first time I took the CD-to-SATA adapter for this project out of its sleeve, and it looks like it came with a cute little screwdriver as well as screws! That’s cute :)

Changing laptop subjects real quick, above is the Thinkpad X230 I’ve had for a little while. It’s had a keyboard replacement, RAM upgrade, and the like. I will also be putting this up for sale at some point. I think I’ll replace the screen bezel (see bottom left corner) if it isn’t too costly.

Back on the T440p, I went ahead and replaced the CD drive with a SATA slot and a 240GB SSD. If you look real close at the little window-to-sdd-drive from the left of the RAM, you can see that PNY SSD’s serial poking through. Upgraded the RAM to 16GB as well, and swapped out the old 7000 series Intel wifi card for their newer AX201, which should be Wifi 6 compatible. This is shaping up to be a nice lil used machine! I’d say, prior to my moving to a Framework Laptop, this T440p and my subsequent P51 were the most modular laptops I owned.

Also, recently received a free backplate from a friend…but it turns out to have been hopelessly bent…and unable to go on the rear of the machine properly, regardless of bending it back with a vice.

Swapped that bad trackpad.

Here’s a shot of what that looks like from the bottom. As the machine wouldn’t boot with an AX201 card, I kept the original wifi card in there. Might have been due to some BIOS whitelisting. Also now two SSDS are installed!

Also added an i7-4710mq to replace the dual core i5 that was in there. I love swappable processors in laptops! Oh how I miss those days… I’m sorry for the blurry pic here! That was the only one I had before cleaning the rest of the dry thermal muck off, pasting it and screwing the cooler back on.

Since the original replacement back panel to this T440p I wanted to fix was quite bent, I’ve finally replaced it after weeks of waiting!

Here’s the test of Nobara Linux, technically Fedora 36 with newer stacks. As you can see here, the screen is damaged. Once I get a replacement 1080p screen to replace this damaged 768p one, I think I’ll list this project on my store soon.

Short & Sweet Dec Update

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Hi there everyone! Just checking in for this month. I still exist, believe it or not hahaha. I’m planning on working on cleaning up, corebooting and refurbishing some Thinkpads for 2022. Also plan on making a FOSS Meme PC build based around an Optiplex 9010 with a 3rd gen i7 and a low profile RX550 GPU. That’ll have a corebooted motherboard and fairly open-source-friendly components. The wifi module is all I’d have to search for…

One of the many greats

The projects that I’m actively working on are all over in the trackers page here if anyone wants to check them out. After finishing a few corebooted thinkpads and building the optiplex FOSS machine, I intend on making a Ryzen 5 desktop out of leftover parts from 2020-2021 and utilizing that for a secondary gaming machine or possibly a server host. Looking forward to seeing what fun little handhelds and mini-laptops 2022-2023 will bring us, with the upcoming AMD Rembrandt APUs using RDNA2 graphics looking to be pretty awesome.

That is all for now! Whether you celebrate or not, I wish you all a happy holiday and new year!

Here are some fun things I’ve found recently: