Someone gave me a Hisense C11 Chromebook and I’m wondering if there’s absolutely anything I can do with it. It seems like a piece of junk and the Linux stuff I’ve seen for Chromebooks specify that they don’t work with the ARM processor. Is there any distro that would work on it? Any other ideas about how to repurpose it?
Note: I don’t have direct access to an Ethernet cable/router for setup. Also don’t have the most technical knowhow.
The biggest roadblock will be whether the bootloader will allow another OS. You should be able to search xda forums for your device as a start.
Linux can be installed on ARM, no problem.
Does chromebook hardware need special distros? Debian has an armv7 port, there’s Arch Linux ARM, Gentoo packages build for arm (though I feel like you’ll have a horrible time building anything on that piece of junk), etc.
Though ARM is notoriously horribly inconsistent when it comes to bootup so I don’t know if any of these will work on this specific device.
ARM is shit at hardware discovery in general. So no, chromebooks don’t need a special distro. They however need a kernel adapted to the specific hardware, often down to the model (that’s also the reason Android updates take so long on phones and there is very time limited support… there’s always someone needed to adapt new updates to the specific hardware for each device, so they don’t bother for anything but their latest products).
I know ArchLinuxArm (a fork of the ArchLinux project) supports the Hisense C11. It does seem to be a fairly involved procesd, and (potentially?) requires using external media rather than the onboard eMMC storage to boot a Linux system.
Your particular Chromebook contains the same SoC (Rockchip RK3288) as an Asus C201, which Debian has an install guide for. Once again, a fairly involved process and this one may not be guaranteed to work if the C11 has some quirks not present in the C201.
I think the real question is, what do you want to repurpose it for?
Because the answer to your question is yes, it is usable, but whether or not it’s capable of what you want to use it for, we can’t say without more information.
Linux installation appears to be possible. This is a wiki to an Arch on ARM distro, but you might want to look for something a bit more user friendly if you’re not comfortable with Arch.
https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv7/rockchip/hisense-chromebook-c11#installation
Just remember, it’s a fairly low spec machine. Think of it like a Raspberry Pi with a keyboard and monitor built in, in terms of what you can hope to run on it.
I am using a couple of old chromebooks for LibreELEC and am pretty happy with that result
What is that?
It’s ‘just enough OS to run Kodi.’
I’ve done away with all rokus and apple TVs.
I use an emby server addon to play my local media. It has addons for streaming services, visualizers for music, RSS feeds on the Ui, screensavers that use my local pictures, integrates with home assistant, and libreelec has docker addons for more cool stuff!
No tracking, one easy to use UI for everything I’m trying to enjoy, and less attack platform for ads.
It’s cool!
Considering how poorly “the remarkably well supported ARM” Raspberry Pi is at playing video, I am shocked.
if nothing else, if you create a wifi network with a separate VLAN and no internet access, you could use it for Grocy in the kitchen, or for HomeAssistant/openHAB, as a remote controller for Jellyfin or Kodi, or something like that. basically as a touch screen for some internal service.
Strictly with no internet access, though. Make sure to verify it. Maybe also install an app, or write a script that periodically checks this and notifies you if this has changed, not too frequently though to not drain the battery significantly.
The Nock Nock app from F-droid may be good for this with the JavaScript evaluation mode and a simple conditionThere’s nothing you can do with that one I think, for two reasons:
- MrChromeBox’s firmware doesn’t support this model. That’s the guy’s site that tells you how to unlock the bootloader and install the new firmware on it, that allows you to then install another OS.
- It only has 2 GB of RAM. For a better online experience with any modern Linux, you need a minimum of 4 GB. You could install though something like Kodi, or librelec, or some game emulation distro instead of a desktop OS. But without #1, you can’t do that either. That’s a landfill laptop AFAIC.
Man, imagine how hard people worked to make sure that perfectly good hardware would turn into a useless paperweight one day.
It’s fucking crazy how much work goes into shitting out thousands and thousands of slightly different models of android phone and tablet and chromebook. Slap together a board design based on buying two trays of some SOC. Open up the Android source, slap some NDA drivers in, build an image, burn it into a production run. Don’t bother saving your changes, these devices will never get an update. Two weeks later, change out the whole design for a different chip, repeat.
on the more technical side, for x86, chromebooks have a special UEFI firmware that only makes it possible to boot chromeos, and so the first step is to replace it with the firmware distributed by MrChromebox, which makes it work similarly to a regular laptop.
but, MrChromebox does not have firmware for ARM chromebooks, so replacing the OS may not be that “easy” in your case. if you don’t find a way, it’s best to treat it as an untrusted device, and follow what I have written in my other comment
Looks like it is supported in Postmarket os. I just installed that on a Lenovo Duet arm based Chromebook.
Off the top of my head, GalliumOS or nix
GalliumOS is x86/64 only, and has been deprecated for years. Mainline distros have good support for the Chromebook quirks now.
Cadmium, on the other hand.
Lol shows how much I pay attention
There are a few dozen ARM distros. Just do a web search for your favorite + ARM.
