[tl;dr]: everything working except 2-in-1 tablet mode when you rotate the laptop to a tablet and the keyboard and touchpad should automatically turn off when in this mode. Possibly hinge-sensor driver issue and/or custom uefi firmware not recognizing it? Screen rotates when “touch mode” is set to “always active” in KDE’s general behavior settings with iio-sensor-proxy installed. Lastly, always active causes the boot splash screen to stop working, showing a gray screen with three dots.
Hello everyone! I’ve recently created my account just now to make this post. This post is my report on how CachyOS with KDE Plasma is running on the Dell Chromebook 11 3189 (Kefka) with the Intel Braswell Chipset. CachyOS made this little chromebook run faster than the stock OS and I’ve distrohopped through tons of other distros and ran Windows 10 to find CachyOS being the best for it. Its running 1080p YouTube vids smoother than any other OSes I’ve tried.
[I am typing up this post on another laptop running Bazzite, so I apologize if formatting looks off on this post. I also apologize for making a thread that others have already reported about this issue. The issues of this laptop are unique don’t align with those threads.]
CachyOS seems to be the fastest for it with everything working on it except for the 2-in-1 Auto Rotation feature. The screen will rotate (with iio-sensor-proxy installed) when I’ve set the touch settings to “Always Active” in General Behavior. The physical keyboard and touchpad is always active regardless of the setting changes. Another problem I’ve noticed was when this setting is set to “Always Active”, the Boot Splash Screen doesn’t work anymore and it shows a gray screen with three dots. So I’ve ended up uninstalling Plymouth and the Boot Splash Screen packages in Octopi altogether to get rid of the boot splash, showing text only during boot.
What I’ve installed on CachyOS:
- iio-sensor-proxy (this allowed the screen to rotate)
- evtest
- plasma-keyboard (CachyOS with KDE didn’t come with a virtual keyboard so I went with this one)
Upon diagnosing these issues this is what I’ve found:
systemctl status iio-sensor-proxy
.-------------------------: gestahl@Kefka
.+=========================. -------------
:++===++==================- :++- OS: CachyOS x86_64
:*++====+++++=============- .==: Host: Kefka (1.0)
-*+++=====+***++==========: Kernel: Linux 6.18.6-1-cachyos
=*++++========------------: Uptime: 5 mins
=*+++++=====- ... Packages: 1259 (pacman)
.+*+++++=-===: .=+++=: Shell: fish 4.3.3
:++++=====-==: -*****+ Display (AUO125C): 1366x768 in 12", 60 Hz [Built-in]
:++========-=. .=+**+. DE: KDE Plasma 6.5.5
.+==========-. . WM: KWin (Wayland)
:+++++++====- .--==-. WM Theme: Breeze
:++==========. :+++++++: Theme: Breeze (Dark) [Qt], Breeze-Dark [GTK2], Breeze [GTK3]
.-===========. =*****+*+ Icons: breeze-dark [Qt], breeze-dark [GTK2/3/4]
.-===========: .+*****+: Font: Noto Sans (10pt) [Qt], Noto Sans (10pt) [GTK2/3/4]
-=======++++:::::::::::::::::::::::::-: .---: Cursor: Breeze_Light (24px)
:======++++====+++******************=. Terminal: konsole 25.12.1
:=====+++==========++++++++++++++*- CPU: Intel(R) Celeron(R) N3060 (2) @ 2.48 GHz
.====++==============++++++++++*- GPU: Intel Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Integrated Graphics Controller @ 0.60 GHz [In]
.===+==================+++++++: Memory: 1.22 GiB / 3.76 GiB (33%)
.-=======================+++: Swap: 164.00 KiB / 3.76 GiB (0%)
.......................... Disk (/): 8.78 GiB / 25.03 GiB (35%) - btrfs
Local IP (wlan0): 192.168.4.204/22
Battery (DELL FY): 86% (4 hours, 58 mins remaining) [Discharging]
Locale: en_US.UTF-8
~
❯ systemctl status iio-sensor-proxy
● iio-sensor-proxy.service - IIO Sensor Proxy service
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/iio-sensor-proxy.service; static)
Active: active (running) since Mon 2026-02-02 20:14:46 PST; 4min 26s ago
Invocation: 1f4ac393b7204cd5a3a11a7607c23148
Main PID: 750 (iio-sensor-prox)
Tasks: 4 (limit: 4585)
Memory: 1.8M (peak: 2.2M)
CPU: 1.504s
CGroup: /system.slice/iio-sensor-proxy.service
└─750 /usr/lib/iio-sensor-proxy
Feb 02 20:14:45 Kefka systemd[1]: Starting IIO Sensor Proxy service...
Feb 02 20:14:46 Kefka systemd[1]: Started IIO Sensor Proxy service.
Feb 02 20:14:46 Kefka iio-sensor-proxy[750]: Could not find trigger name associated with /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.0/PNP0C09:00/GOOG0004:00/cros-ec-dev.2.aut>
Feb 02 20:14:46 Kefka iio-sensor-proxy[750]: Buffer '/dev/iio:device0' did not have data within 0.5s
Feb 02 20:14:46 Kefka iio-sensor-proxy[750]: Not a switch [/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.0/PNP0C09:00/GOOG0004:00/cros-ec-dev.2.auto/cros-ec-sensorhub.3.auto/cro>
Feb 02 20:14:46 Kefka iio-sensor-proxy[750]: Could not find trigger name associated with /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.0/PNP0C09:00/GOOG0004:00/cros-ec-dev.2.aut>
Feb 02 20:14:47 Kefka iio-sensor-proxy[750]: Buffer '/dev/iio:device1' did not have data within 0.5s
Feb 02 20:14:47 Kefka iio-sensor-proxy[750]: Invalid bitmask entry for /sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXPWRBN:00/input/input1/event1
~
❯
And
sudo evtest
.-------------------------: gestahl@Kefka
.+=========================. -------------
:++===++==================- :++- OS: CachyOS x86_64
:*++====+++++=============- .==: Host: Kefka (1.0)
-*+++=====+***++==========: Kernel: Linux 6.18.6-1-cachyos
=*++++========------------: Uptime: 6 mins
=*+++++=====- ... Packages: 1259 (pacman)
.+*+++++=-===: .=+++=: Shell: fish 4.3.3
:++++=====-==: -*****+ Display (AUO125C): 1366x768 in 12", 60 Hz [Built-in]
:++========-=. .=+**+. DE: KDE Plasma 6.5.5
.+==========-. . WM: KWin (Wayland)
:+++++++====- .--==-. WM Theme: Breeze
:++==========. :+++++++: Theme: Breeze (Dark) [Qt], Breeze-Dark [GTK2], Breeze [GTK3]
.-===========. =*****+*+ Icons: breeze-dark [Qt], breeze-dark [GTK2/3/4]
.-===========: .+*****+: Font: Noto Sans (10pt) [Qt], Noto Sans (10pt) [GTK2/3/4]
-=======++++:::::::::::::::::::::::::-: .---: Cursor: Breeze_Light (24px)
:======++++====+++******************=. Terminal: konsole 25.12.1
:=====+++==========++++++++++++++*- CPU: Intel(R) Celeron(R) N3060 (2) @ 2.48 GHz
.====++==============++++++++++*- GPU: Intel Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Integrated Graphics Controller @ 0.60 GHz [In]
.===+==================+++++++: Memory: 1.41 GiB / 3.76 GiB (37%)
.-=======================+++: Swap: 148.00 KiB / 3.76 GiB (0%)
.......................... Disk (/): 8.78 GiB / 25.03 GiB (35%) - btrfs
Local IP (wlan0): 192.168.4.204/22
Battery (DELL FY): 86% (5 hours, 24 mins remaining) [Discharging]
Locale: en_US.UTF-8
~
❯ sudo evtest
[sudo] password for gestahl:
No device specified, trying to scan all of /dev/input/event*
Available devices:
/dev/input/event0: Lid Switch
/dev/input/event1: Power Button
/dev/input/event10: chtrt5650 Headset
/dev/input/event2: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard
/dev/input/event3: Video Bus
/dev/input/event4: Elan Touchpad
/dev/input/event5: Elan Touchscreen
/dev/input/event6: PC Speaker
/dev/input/event7: HDA Intel PCH HDMI/DP,pcm=3
/dev/input/event8: HDA Intel PCH HDMI/DP,pcm=7
/dev/input/event9: HDA Intel PCH HDMI/DP,pcm=8
Select the device event number [0-10]: ^C⏎
~ 6s
❯
When I’ve read upon a few threads created on this site, there was someone else who ran the same test and their tablet PC showed an auto tablet switch event. This chromebook doesn’t seem to have it.
My theory to possibly why 2-in-1 feature isn’t working is that it could be the OS doesn’t see the tablet switch due to not being coded into the custom UEFI firmware? Or that it could be these Dell Kefka chromebooks have the most primitive or complex form of hardware that it’s too much of a pain to deal with when it comes to it’s hinge sensor in question. I imagine a script might be a workaround but I didn’t want to tinker with that, potentially breaking something.
If anyone needs anymore diagnostic tests posted here, I would be more than glad to post them in this thread. Thanks!