Combined with Libreboot, an AR9271 or AR7010 WiFi dongle, and a libre OS (like Debian with the main repos, the one built by PrawnOS) the Asus c201 is a fully libre machine with no blobs, or microcode, or Intel Management Engine.
### WARNING: flashing libreboot to asus c201 chromebooks that have recently been updated to a new version of chromeOS may leave the device in a non-functional (bricked) state.
If you do not have a way to recover your device by using an external flasher as described in the second part of this page https://libreboot.org/docs/install/c201.html it would be safest to wait until this issue is resolved. I have opened a bug with libreboot, which can be found here https://notabug.org/libreboot/libreboot/issues/666 If you have any information that may help with debugging, please post it there.
_The install process of PrawnOS does not flash your bios, so it is safe to use along with the default coreboot/depthcharge and does not risk bricking your device_
In the world of free and open-source software, the term is used to refer to proprietary device drivers, which are distributed without their source code, exclusively through binary code; in such use, the term binary blob is common.
Build the `PrawnOS-...-.img` by running `sudo make image`
This has only been tested on a Debian stretch VM, and borrows some components from the host system to setup apt/debootstrap during the build process so I would recommend using a Debian Stretch VM to avoid any issues.
Write the 2GB image to a flash drive. Make sure to replace $USB_DEVICE with the desired target flash drive or SD card device. If you're not familiar with dd, check out Debian's
* Booting from an external device allows you to try PrawnOS without removing Chrome OS or whatever Linux you are running on your internal storage (emmc), but it is a much slower experience as the c201 only has USB 2.0.
If you are running stock coreboot and haven't flashed Libreboot, you will first have to enable developer mode and enable USB booting. A quick search should get you some good guides, but if you're having issues feel free to open an issue here on github.
#### If you simply want a basic Linux environment with no desktop environment or window manager:
Make sure it's the only storage device plugged in, and run this script to expand the partition and filesystem to the full USB drive. This will reboot when complete, so you'll have to press `control+u` again to boot to the external media.
Congratulations: you are done! Welcome to PrawnOS. You should probably change the root password and make a user, but I'm not your boss or anything so I'll leave that to you.
Then run this script which installs either the xfce4 or the lxqt desktop enviroment, sound, trackpad, and Xorg configurations as well as prompts you to make a new user that automatically gets sudo privileges.
If you are running stock coreboot and haven't flashed Libreboot, you will first have to enable developer mode and enable USB booting. A quick search should get you some good guides, but if you're having issues feel free to open an issue here on github.
WARNING! THIS WILL ERASE YOUR INTERNAL EMMC STORAGE (your Chrome OS install or other Linux install and all of the associated user data) Make sure to back up any data you would like to keep before running this.
_This will show a bunch of scary red warnings that are a result of the emmc (internal storage) being touchy and the kernel message level being set low for debugging. They don't seem to effect anything long-term._
The device will then reboot. If you are running the stock coreboot, you will have to press `control+d` or wait 30 seconds past the beep to boot to the internal storage.
If you are running Libreboot, it should boot to the internal storage by default. If it doesn't, turn off the device and remove the flash drive before turning it on again.
Which installs either the xfce4 or the lxqt desktop enviroment, sound, trackpad, and Xorg configurations as well as prompts you to make a new user that automatically gets sudo privileges.
If you just want a basic environment without xfce or lxqt can skip running InstallPackages.sh. You can connect to WiFi using wpa_supplicant by running the following commands:
The script `UpgradeKernel.sh` located in `/InstallResources` can be ran be used to copy the kernel, modules, and ath9k firmware from a newer version of PrawnOS running on a USB drive or SD card onto an older version of PrawnOS installed on the laptops internal emmc storage.
To use it, write the new PrawnOS image to a USB drive or SD card, boot the laptop to it by pressing `control+u` at boot, navigate to the `/InstallResources` folder, and run the script.
`make kernel_config` cross compiles `make menuconfig` Cross compiling is required for any of the Linux kernel make options that edit the kernel config, as the Linux kernel build system makes assumptions that change depending on what platform it is targeting.
`make kernel_inject` Injects a newly built kernel into a previously built PrawnOS.img located in the root of the checkout. Usually, this will be a copy of the -BASE image made by make filesystem. Only use this if you already have a built kernel and filesystem -BASE image.
You can use the environment variable `PRAWNOS_SUITE` to use a Debian suite other than `stretch`. For example, to use Debian Buster, you can build with `sudo PRAWNOS_SUITE=buster make image`. Note that only `stretch` and `buster` have been tested.
You can use the environment variable `PRAWNOS_DEBOOTSTRAP_MIRROR` to use a non-default Debian mirror with debootstrap. For example, to use [Debian's Tor onion service mirror](https://onion.debian.org/) with debootstrap, you can build with `sudo PRAWNOS_DEBOOTSTRAP_MIRROR=http://vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion/debian make image`.
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