328 thoughts on “About Me”

  1. Hi Arnold I need help with touch screen drivers. I install chromium os on a touch screen Acer aspire M5 and everything works including the touch screen. Then I use Seth’s guide below to “upgrade” it to flash a factory Chrome OS image. I picked the Chromebook Pixel 2015 image and the Acer c720 since both are touch screen chromebook. Both images work fine but this time the touch screen doesn’t work. I’m sure it’s because the touchscreen hardware is slightly different. So I was wondering if you could help me copy the right drivers from the chromium OS install to the chrome OS install. It should be possible with root access to the shell. I’m pretty savvy with the Linux environment but I don’t have prior experience with driver in Linux.

    Thanks

    http://zzsethzz.blogspot.com/2013/02/install-chromium-upgrade-it-to-chrome.html?m=1

    1. Figured it out… I was able to check the hardware installed and flash a chrome os image that included the same touch screen hardware. I know have the ultimate chromebook that’s not a chromebook pixel. Thanks

  2. Hi, I’m trying to install Chromium os on an HP mini 2133. I get a line shortly after booting that said it couldn’t mount as ext3 due to feature compatibility.
    It is then followed by several lines with time stamps and “map pfn expected mapping type uncached-minus for [mem 0x00000000-0x00003fff], got write-back”

    I can ctrl-alt-f2 to log in with chronos /password. but it seems as though it is not seeing the hard drive. Listing the drives only shows the usb stick. Any idea what would cause it to not see the hard drive?

    The installation worked on a Toshiba notebook, but I only have one of those to convert and several HPs…

    Any help would be appreciated.

        1. Still haven’t found a solution… I decided to try again after a few months away from this project and still no luck. I emailed HP to see if they would have a reason. Someone told me that there was some kind of lock in place on some of these computers, but the bios does not have anything activated so I’m stumped.

    1. Hello I had a similar question along the same lines. I have found another article about enabling KVM support in chromium OS but the laptop I am attempting to run it on (Thinkpad e420) only behaves well with the special builds. The KVM module needs to be built into the source and not sure how to go about accomplishing this and take advantage of all of the drivers you have added to the special builds thus far. The article below is the reference to enabling KVM before compiling. Not sure if anyone else would be interested in having KVM available under chromium OS but for me it would provide great assistance to being able to run productivity tools and/or other security related tools such as Kali Linux side by side with the OS. Please let me know if you have interest in possibly adding this package.

  3. Kudos for your work arnoldthebat!

    I was wondering if there’s any chance you might create a “custom” branch of Chromium OS with an additional set of preinstalled packages, such as git or ruby. I’d be more than happy to help out in this — I just don’t have a clue where to start!

    Thanks again mate.

      1. woot!! Thanks for taking this into consideration.

        I’ve been thinking about this and I think a HUGE win would be to let portage/emerge have access to the packages in the official Gentoo repository at https://packages.gentoo.org/. Would that be possible?

        If, in addition to that, we could have the emerge command accessible by default (not having to do a dev_install, which by the way wipes out everything in /usr/local), this might very well become the Most Perfect Linux Distribution Ever.

        – boot/install from USB
        – open shell via Ctrl + Alt + T
        – emerge gcc (or something)
        – the world is yours

        (I have some other ideas too. Feel free to reach out if you want some help)

  4. I am trying to install it on a eeepc 900sd netbook. Upgraded the ram to 2 gb, and have a 16gb sd card for extra storage or to install another os. When I try to boot chromium os, it takes me to a chromium flash screen.. Tells me it can’t find the ext4 file system. Then it tells me it is repairing my computer, and clocks this for 6 minutes. Then it reboots and goes through this again. Is there a better, image to install for this machine? I formatted this to ext4 with an ubuntu disk, so there is an ext4 file system. Please email me.

    1. I’m in a similar situation with my HP mini 2133. I tried the latest build as well as the latest special build. I can get to a command line with ctrl alt f2, but if I list disks, the HDD is not listed… only the usb is.

      I’ve run lubuntu and pepermint os on this machine so I know the disk works.

  5. Also, is there a forum I can go to, which would be a better place to aske for help. I feel you bear a big burden, as a developer and support staff.

  6. Hi Arnold! Love your work, it’s superb! When I try and install chrome to my hard drive it completes successfully but then after reboot my asus s200e boots to the bios? Any ideas anyone??

  7. Arnold! Thx so much for offering up the builds..

    Jack of all trades here myself..
    I have given compiling a shot myself under linux mint cinnamon and got the whole thing built for amd64-generic but I can’t quite figure out the conversion part over to vm. Google supplies the image_to_vm.sh script, in src/scripts and they say it offers the –format=vmware flag in the build doc — it doesn’t. My target is actually virtualbox — can you tell me how to convert the bin over to vdi? I was so close! Appreciate it and Cheers!

    1. Hi

      I dont use the switches as such just the following:
      ./image_to_vm.sh –from=../build/images/x86-generic/latest –board=x86-generic #convert to KVM by default
      VBoxManage convertfromraw $LDIR/chromiumos_qemu_image.bin #then convert using VirtualBox

      You can use the vmware flag and just add the vmdk file into VirtualBox however.

  8. looking to install chromium onto a old Toshiba satellite A200-28P and was wondering which download would best suit that machine…

  9. I am trying to use your chromium os build and when I try to boot the special build I do not get into a gui(kindof like xinit is not being run) any help?

  10. My net book has an Intel GMA3600.
    whenever I try to boot a special build(needed for wireless), I get an error “trying to get vblank count for empty pipe 0”. The boot process stops there and hangs. Is there anything I can do?

  11. I got the special build running on an HP Mini 110. After doing sudu su I try the following to update:

    update_engine_client –update –omaha_url=http://chromebld.arnoldthebat.co.uk:9090/update

    I get 3 lines…
    Forcing an update…
    Initiating update and check and install
    Waiting for update to complete

    After waiting over an hour nothing happens.

    So I tried misspelling the url and I get the same 3 lines so apparently nothing is happening!

    Is that link to update still valid?

    thanks!

  12. I have currently been assigned a project of getting old Dell laptops running Chromium OS to distribute to schools.

    I have had very little experience with developing Operating Systems.

    The main issue I’m having is the issue that everyone seems to be having, touchpad drivers.

    I downloaded an old image from hexxah, and applied the touchpad fix on github. It half worked. I could move the mouse with the touchpad, but it would be offset from where the cursor actually was.

    We have to maintain our own build of Chromium OS, since it is going to schools. However, I could use your help on how you have been working on the touchpad drivers. I do not know where to begin. Any point in the right direction would be very appreciated!

    1. Hi

      You need to build in support for synaptics drivers or fix the CMT conf file to work with your laptop touchpad..

      A quick fix is to simply type synaptics into the make.conf as per this example: INPUT_DEVICES=”keyboard mouse evdev synaptics”

      That wont allow ChromiumOS to detect the touchpad settings however. You will need to add INPUT_DEVICES=”keyboard mouse evdev cmt” and then add a conf file to suit your touchpad to fix that.

  13. We have about 100pcs of old dell 2120 mini Notebooks with Broadcom wifi etc. Windows is too heavy. Special build with right drivers works nice but… So ChromeOs runs nice… The only problem with ArnoldTheBat is our GAFE-accounts which do not work to log in. Login recognize up to that the account really exists and account is spelled correctly but login tell the password is invalid, even if it is absolute correct. If i try use normaly google/gmail account login works perfectly.
    So I think is there any workaround… Login with browser window or something, so when user try GAFE account that redirects the browser to ADFS server?
    Is it possible to use browser window with ChromeOS login or something other fix or modification? =) best move maybe is recycle this scrap notebook, but…

    1. Hi

      I have a strong suspicion this will be a lack of API support in the build (this also stops Google Drive working as well). Ill email you separately since I might be able to sort this, but don’t have accounts I can test with.

  14. Hi,

    Really great work. I am just starting to play with Chromium, and I would really appreciate if you could tell me how can I increase the amount of disk space. I have used a 16Gb USB stick but most of it is not used. If I look at the disk through GParted, I can see a lot of partitions. Two of the largest are ROOT-A and STATE. Both are mostly full and I have a large unallocated part at the end. I can easy extend STATE, but will that be sufficient or should I do the same with ROOT-A? I would prefer not to mess with it but if I have no choice that would be ok I guess. Thank you in advance.

    Regards,
    Jovan

  15. Hi! I mount the last Daily builds, to load from USB. Then welcome screen where it could not see my wired network. Tell me what to do. Thank you!

      1. I run it on a desktop computer with AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5200+ × 2 on the ASUS motherboard. I have ARRIS CM820 for wired network and NETGEAR WNR1000 for wifi.

  16. how do i format my usb drive back for using in windows.

    Its listed is GPT partition in disk management, using diskpart i deleted the gpt partitions but the drive is unusable now, formatting gives me a write protect error.
    Tried editing and changing write protect value in registry
    used hpusb format tool and easeus partition manager.
    Nothing worked, what is to be done

    1. You can use SDCARD formatting tool hosted at sdcard.org just install the tool and use overwrite option for formatting, it will take time but will do the work. It worked for me when my flash drive was in same condition

  17. Sir, I am trying to install your builds on vmware but when I boot with usb it shows the chromium logo and sticks with booting the kernel

  18. Just followed your recipe to add Chromium to an old HP Compaq laptop running Vista. Big improvement in usability. Thanks.

    Had previously tried getting an os upgrade to Win 7 (failed completely due to missing links and download that weren’t quite what they were supposed to be), another sites’s suggestion for Chromium, also a bust due to missing links (looks as though its old) and some things that required Chrome to be there already, apparently.

    Any suggestion to get the touchpad and the wifi on the laptop functional would be appreciated. A microsoft wireless mouse works (to my surprise) and wired ethernet works, but it would be helpful to get wireless working – everything else is wireless now.

  19. I tried to follow the instructions, on how to put a chromium .img file, on the USB stick, via the Windows-method, and the Linux-method as it was mentioned but I ran into a problem. When I booted from the USB, it said “Loading Kernel.” for 1 minute and then it restarted my pc. The second time i tried to boot, it said the same thing but it kept going and didn’t stop. Is it my BIOS that’s causing the problem or is it the use of a USB stick?

    Is it possible to convert the chromium release files (.img) to .iso?

  20. Hey Arnold,

    I’m trying to install on an Asus Transformer Book. I’m able to get a couple of the builds to install but I can’t for the life of me get the broadcom drivers working. When i try to boot using the Special Broadcom build the devices goes to a black screen after selecting boot device.

    Any suggestions?

    I will buy you more than a beer, more like a case or keg of beer if you can help me figure this one out! LOL.

      1. I can get you that information from one of your other Special builds, but I can’t get the Broadcom build to boot. It goes into a black screen after GRUB.

        If I use one of the other builds to output that information will that work?

  21. Arnold,
    1) Attempting to install ChromiumOS on an ASUS Eee-PC Netbook currently running Linux Mint- I used a Seagate external HD as my boot drive and imaged the most recent x86 ChromiumOS iso off your page. It booted up into ChromiumOS just fine, but I do not have any Wi-fi networks showing up on the dropdown list and a message saying that Wi-fi is off (the Wi-fi radio is enabled on the laptop). Do I need a special image file due to the type of wi-fi radio installed on the Eee-PC?
    2) Is it possible to restore functionality to the Seagate to use as a Windows external HD again? I tried reformatting creating a simple volume thru the Disk Managment on W10 but it gives me a “Incorrect Parameter” error. Is this drive hosed entirely, even for use as with a new ChromiumOS image?

    1. Hi

      1. Can you post lspci and lsusb to pastebin please? That should tell me what the device is. Otherwise let me know what Mint sees it as.

      2. Yes, you need to use diskpart in Windows or the disks tool in Mint, to remove all the partitions that ChromiumOS creates. You should get your drive back once all partitions are removed since then you can do a full reformat.

  22. Hi Arnold
    Your special build runs on my Tohsiba-Notebook because its use of X11 instead of ozone/freon.
    I would like to build an own version with X11. Do you know a tutorial where I’m told how to do this? Chromiumos just doesn’t build what I intend to …
    Thanks

  23. Hi

    1st thanks for all your build work!

    Do you have a list of PC hardware that your Chromium OS builds will work?

    If not is there a general list for Chromium X86?

    Last, since you are working with VMware, Chromium, Linux, Windows is there an email or PM that can discuss what am trying to do?

    Thanks again!

    KenO

  24. Hey Arnold, great work man. Awesome 🙂

    I was just fooling around with Enterprse enrollment on my desktopk and I noticed that after enrollment device id is listed as “nonchrome-“. Do you happen to know the reason behind this, because my actualAcer Chromebooks device id is listed properly.

  25. Hi Arnold.
    First of all, great work, it is working like a charm on my Asus TP300-L.
    Just one question, do you know if I can install the play store ? Coz I heard about the new play store integration for the new Chromebook.. is it possible for us?

      1. Hi Arnold, would you be willing to make a build for me?
        I am a devout Chrome AND Chromium OS user, I used to have an Acer C720 but the screen and HMDI broke unfixably. Cloudready has severe problems with my hardware, I have tried literally all of your builds but none work, but Hexxeh’s 2014 Vanilla build works for the most part. (Just no WI-FI and no apps since the version of Chromium is so out – of – date) Windows is terribly slow, and Ubuntu screws up my PC’s graphics and hard-drive, I use this PC for school and drums mostly, so I need something lightweight and fast, I found Hexxeh’s builds superb, I really appreciate your work. I just need a version of Chromium OS that is up to date.
        My laptop is the Inspiron 3135 3000 series. It has an AMD A6 1450 Temash APU, Radeon HD 8250, 8GB Ram, touchscreen, and, Synaptics touchpad, Dell Wireless-N 1705 @ 2.4GHz + Bluetooth 4.0, USB 3.0 (2), USB 2.0 (1), and an 11.6 inch LED Backlit Touch Display with Truelife and HD resolution (1366 X 768)

        If this is not possible then I thank you for reading this anyway.

        1. Hi

          The problem will be the Radeon HD 8250. Currently the latest builds are very broken on pretty much anything other than Intel graphics (again). Im working on it, but progress is very slow.

          1. Ok thank you for getting back to me, I tried the special build https://arnoldthebat.co.uk/wordpress/2014/11/29/new-chromiuomos-special-build-available/

            And it works! The only problem is I have no sound through the headphones, I need sound for playing drum and school, the internal speakers work but not the headphone jack, do you have a fix? Also when I check for updates on this build there are none found, but this build was made in 2014, how can this be? Am I doing something wrong?

            Thank You, keep up the amazing work!

  26. Also, I have no Bluetooth, so I cannot connect my Bluetooth headphones, is there a script I need to run to get sound and Bluetooth, or do I need to buy adapters?

  27. Hi Arnold! Hope this comment isn’t finding you too late.

    I recently installed your chromium build onto my System76 lemur laptop and found that trackpad gestures (and some keyboard keys like PgUp) aren’t working.

    I’ve tried the trackpad fix you posted much earlier: https://arnoldthebat.co.uk/wordpress/2013/01/08/how-to-get-the-touch-pad-working-in-chromium-os/
    but it doesn’t seem to work.

    If you know a way to fix, please let me know. Thanks!

      1. Hi! Here are the lspci and lsusb:
        http://pastebin.com/jK4v0kCX

        The build version is the Developer Build – vanilla.

        Some more info: running “cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-touchpad-cmt.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-touchpad-cmt.conf.bak” gives me the response that the directory is not found.

        A friend suggested that I try installing the special build — do you think that might solve it?

        Thanks.

  28. Hi Arnold,

    Is there any way to expand the size of the downloads/ folder? I installed chromium os to a 16gb usb stick, but 8gb of it were left blank, and I am often running out of space. Hope you can help 🙂

  29. Way to Change the serial number? Would like the device to show up in enterprise with hardware identifier relatable to the actual hardware.

  30. Hello.
    I have problem with wifi. When I want to switch on the button, it will go back from on to off. When I useb version from cloudready (neverware) it worked perfectly. What shoul I do?

    Thanks in advance for the answer.

  31. Why people ask questions about builds in a “About Me” section is beyond me. Makes everything so much harder on those searching for (and answering to) answers. Maybe they think “it’s personal” and they’ll get answers here. The site’s empirical data shows this is NOT the case!

    Maybe the proper way to do it and keep this place organized is to ask IN THE THREAD of the build you are commenting about. This way you’ll get specific solutions for your problem(s) AND also help others that may be affiliated by the same or similar problems.

    So, Without further ado, to the proper subject of this venue:

    Hey Arnold! Very cool project, thanks for the effort to bring this OS to the masses. Altho I do not use it (in a prod. env.), it is always nice to have some option handy for general purposes. Thanks mate.

  32. Hi,
    You are obviously busy but could you make a 32 bit version of the OS that includes the extra DRM extensions which were introduced recently?
    By the way in the latest 32 bit version (R60) the touchpad was very insensitive for some reason, seemed very erratic.
    I am running it on an eee PC 1000HE
    Thanks – I will definitely buy you a beer if you can help out 😉

    By the way, I was wondering, could I make a more efficient OS by building if from the Chromium OS website instructions or are the more generic builds just bigger because of extra hardware support but just as efficient?

  33. Hello arnoldthebat.
    My HP Pavilion 15 p004nx has nvidia graphics and broadcom wi-fi adapter. Do you have a build that includes Android support? Can I use linux apps and Android Studio?

    Thanks

  34. Do you have any public scripts to build releases rather than simply download pre-built?

    I’ve got r56 building for raspberry pi (public source available on github). Someone I know is interested in what steps you took with your x86 & x64 builds to get his schools Dell OptiPlex 745 with Intel GMA 3000 to boot. He says building standard chromium doesn’t work, but your images do.

  35. Mr Arnold I have quite a specific question in regards to your Chromium OS series of builds. Simply, and somewhat bluntly, put, my question is, would it be possible for you to enable/include in kernel, drivers for Wacom penabled devices? I know it is a lot of work to compile all those builds, both special and Vanilla for us the end users of your software, however there are plenty of tabletPC’s out there which would use a chance at second life, yet sadly any availiable Chromium OS based OS doesn’t really tap to their fullest potential, making them simply laptops with a bit less processing power and features than their competitors. Looking forward to response Mr. Bat, and if there shall be none, that is also quite ok with me 🙂

  36. Hi Arnold

    When I boot from the USB, my wifi is around 40MBPS.
    But when I do a local install, it’s around 6mbps.

    Any solution?

  37. Good afternoon,

    I was wondering if any of your builds include support for an USB wireless adapters or wireless cards?

    Thank you!

  38. Any Chance for the touch screen to be added? I have an old HP 2-in-1 laptop that loves your build. Keep up the hard work.

    -Scot

  39. Great work on this. Really appreciated.

    Don’t suppose you know if anyone has had any success getting wifi to work on the Acer Switch 12 (with the QCA61x4a wifi card)?

    On checking the filesystem in the latest special build, I can see that the QCA6174 drivers are in the firmware directory under ath10k, but there are no .ko files in the modules folders for ath10k (only ath9k). I’ve tried copying them over from a cloudready install but just get a module exec error when I try to modprobe. Is there a build that contains the required ath10k.ko files?

  40. Hi Arnold, great work on this, it’s really appreciated.

    I’m trying to get an MSI Wind all-in-one working with Chromium and hopefully eventually Chromefy. T4500, 3GB RAM, nVidia graphics, touchscreen. I had to switch to Special to get it to boot (Vanilla hangs at “booting the kernel”). Play Store doesn’t work (as expected) but I can’t get Google Drive integration to work either. When I first booted from the USB, I saw a google drive link in the file explorer, but it wouldn’t connect to my google drive and eventually disappeared. After installing to the HD, Google Drive never showed up. Music, Pictures, and VIdeos showed up, but they disappeared after I tried accessing them.

    Also, i’m occasionally seeing the screen flash black (or random pixels) and then drop back to the chromium desktop or to a new Chromium browser window with a note about Chromium closing unexpectedly. Any thoughts?

    Thanks in advance!

  41. Hi,
    I have one small question, because I want to reanimate my old EEE PC’s (4G & 1015PN ), and I’m trying to make bootable SSD 16GB card, but every time I boot it on the beginning I get info like this:

    “Your system is repairing itself”

    and I’m stuck on it. I’ll try to wait but after 40 min I stop. The SSD card is new (two days ago bought) so it’s not a problem from card.

    I’m wondering about making bootable SSD card, it’s the same way like with bootable USB drive? Or formatting/making partition is different?

    Thank You!

  42. Hi. I faced a problem when I was trying to install the latest builds. After a few minutes of running OS, the notebook just shuts down. No matter if that’s LiveUSB or installed OS, it turns off constantly. My CPU is Intel Celeron N2840 with integrated graphics, 500 GB of storage and 8 GB of RAM.

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The general witterings of a nerd