Repos / hi.imnhan.com / 891c6c1e46
commit 891c6c1e46536ab90e07143b2c23bedfb8f16f25
Author: Nhân <hi@imnhan.com>
Date: Sun Apr 23 01:02:15 2023 +0700
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Date: 2023-04-22 15:55
Slug: acer-chromebook-spin
Category: consoom
+Thumb: images/voxel_battery.jpg
+
**TL;DR:** bright crisp screen, acceptable keyboard, thin & light build, buggy
-touchpad even on ChromeOS, almost usable on MrChromebox UEFI + Arch Linux
-except for the fact that sound crashes most of the time. It's absolutely not
-worth the sticker price at [$1,099.99][1] (lol). Maybe consider buying if you can
-find it at a heavy discount and the Linux sound issue has been fixed somehow.
+touchpad on both ChromeOS and Linux, almost usable on MrChromebox UEFI + Arch
+Linux except for the fact that sound crashes most of the time. It's absolutely
+not worth the sticker price at [$1,099.99][1] (lol). Maybe consider buying if
+you can find it at a heavy discount and the Linux sound issue has been fixed
+somehow.
## Context
-Sometime in 2022 I was looking for a replacement for my T530---something
-lighter with a better screen---and saw a listing for a used Acer Chromebook
-Spin 713-3W at only 10mil VND ($425, give or take). A recently released HiDPI
-laptop with an i5-1135G7 at 425 freedom dollars? And I get to play with
-ChromeOS/Crostini on a not-pathetically-weak x86 device? Sign me right up, I
-thought. The plan was to run ChromeOS/Android apps for GUI stuff, and install
-my usual tmux+vim based development [environment][2] on Crostini.
+Around 2022 I was looking for a replacement for my T530---something lighter
+with a better screen---and saw a listing for a used Acer Chromebook Spin 713-3W
+at only 10mil VND ($425, give or take). A recently released HiDPI laptop with
+an i5-1135G7 at 425 freedom dollars? And I get to play with ChromeOS/Crostini
+on a not-pathetically-weak x86 device? Sign me right up, I thought. The plan
+was to run ChromeOS/Android apps for GUI stuff, and install my usual tmux+vim
+based development [environment][2] on Crostini.
+
+## The hardware
+
+- Specs: i5-1135G7 (Tiger Lake), Xe graphics, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD
+- Keyboard: acceptable
+- Screen: 2256x1504 (3:2) at 13.5" (200dpi). Subjectively speaking, it's
+ bright, colorful and delivers crisp text---I have nothing but praise here.
+- Speakers: worse and quieter than my Samsung Tab S8 tablet
+
+Here it is sandwiched between a Samsung Tab S8 and a Thinkpad T530:
+
+
+
+
## ChromeOS/Crostini
-As advertised, the laptop can run ChromeOS apps, Android apps, and Linux apps
-via containers. By default I got a Debian container, but since I need
+> I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Linux,
+> is in fact, CHROME/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, CHROME
+> plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another
+> free component of a fully functioning CHROME system made useful by the CHROME
+> v8, css utililties, and other vital system components comprising a full OS as
+> defined by the W3C.
+>
+> _-- [some weird internet person][6]_
+
+As advertised, the laptop could run ChromeOS apps, Android apps, and Linux apps
+via containers. By default I got a Debian container, but since I needed
up-to-date software for development, I set up an Arch container instead. [The
process][3] itself was straightforward enough.
@@ -30,9 +56,92 @@ ## ChromeOS/Crostini
managed to wrangle traffic correctly for programs running inside Crostini too!
The only hiccup was that Magic DNS didn't work, so I needed to put the
hostname-IP pairs into /etc/hosts manually. I also had to change the temp dir
-from /tmp to ~/tmp for golang tools to work, because Crostini programs weren't
-allowed to exec files inside /tmp or something like that.
+from /tmp to ~/tmp for [Go][4] tools to work, because Crostini programs weren't
+allowed to exec files inside /tmp. Once I'd worked out those kinks, I could
+open up a terminal and start working as if I were on one of my Arch PCs. Hell,
+even docker/docker-compose Just Worked™ inside the container.
+
+But then came the papercuts.
+
+The touchpad would randomly lag, as in, dragging still
+worked but there was a noticeable delay between my dragging and seeing the
+cursor actually moving. The problem would just go away as randomly as it
+happened.
+
+Back when I used an actual Linux machine, I was used to having 10 virtual
+desktops, numbered from 1 to 10, with Alt-n mapped to "jump to desktop #n", and
+Windows-n mapped to "move window to desktop #n" (the `0` key maps to
+desktop #10, naturally). While ChromeOS has a "workspaces" feature, there's no
+way to navigate and juggle windows between them precisely and instantly.
+_Instantly_ is an important keyword here: many tasks, while doable, suffered
+from gratuitous animations and tedious step-by-step navigation. This reminded
+me of when I tried to use a Macbook professionally: things kinda worked, but
+the experience would always be intrinsically worse.
+
+While Linux GUI programs were automagically put on the ChromeOS applications
+list as first class citizens, certain quality-of-life features didn't work. For
+example, on KDE I used to be able to drag a video streaming link from the
+browser onto MPV's taskbar icon [to play it][5]. This no longer worked on
+ChromeOS.
+
+So I jumped ship.
+
+## Real Arch Linux on MrChromebox UEFI
+
+Installing _real_ Linux on this device requires installing the MrChromebox
+custom UEFI firmware, which in turn requires disabling the firmware write
+protection. Fortunately, for this device all I needed to do was opening up the
+laptop and [disconnecting the battery][7]:
+
+
+
+
+
+If you need more detailed instructions, here's the [official manual][8].
+
+Then go [here][9] for instructions on how to download and run the MrChromebox
+utility script. In my case, I also needed to enable developer mode to get
+access to the chrosh shell.
+
+After this I got a normal UEFI boot menu so I could pop in an Arch installer
+USB drive and carried out the installation as usual.
+
+I managed to install KDE plasma and everything worked except for audio: the
+usual "default" audio profile wouldn't show up, even after I installed the
+necessary packages: `sof-firmware` (sound firmware for recent Intel
+generations) and `alsa-ucm-conf` (so-called topologies for these newer
+devices). After some desperate googling I found
+<https://github.com/eupnea-linux/audio-scripts> which installed some missing
+configs lifted straight from ChromeOS upstream. Sure enough, the device showed
+up:
+
+
+
+And it would actually play sound... for a while until it crashes.
+
+I collected logs and tried googling but nothing comes up that matches my case.
+Asking in the eupnea discord server yielded an uncertain response:
+
+> looks like yet again intel broke something
+
+Oh, and the random touchpad delay issue was still there, so I'm starting to
+think the touchpad hardware itself is problematic.
+
+And that's where I'm at. I'll probably gather more logs and submit an issue to
+the SOF project. For now, consider this a warning: the laptop as of now is
+probably not worth buying. Hell, in Vietnam you can get a second hand X1 Carbon
+6th gen with an i7-8650U and 16GB of RAM for $460 right now from
+<https://chotot.com>; that's a guaranteed best-in-class keyboard, decent
+screen and Linux compatibility, at just a slight decrease in performance.
+
+But hey, I would have never known any of this if I hadn't tried, right?
[1]: https://www.acer.com/us-en/chromebooks/acer-chromebook-enterprise-spin-713-cp713-3w/pdp/NX.AHAAA.006
[2]: https://git.sr.ht/~nhanb/neodots
[3]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Chrome_OS_devices/Crostini
+[4]: https://go.dev/
+[5]: /images/put.io_01_mpv.mp4
+[6]: https://orib.dev/interject.html
+[7]: https://wiki.mrchromebox.tech/Firmware_Write_Protect#Hardware_Write_Protection
+[8]: /images/voxel_chromebook_cp7133w.pdf
+[9]: https://mrchromebox.tech/#fwscript