I have an Acer R11 “cyan” Chromebook that currently runs Endeavor OS. That OS works fine, but I want to install Lubuntu so I can give it to my parents, who are less technology-inclined.
I’m using Lubuntu 24.04.3 on a USB drive. I chose this in the SeaBIOS boot menu, and I see the “GRUB loading” and “Welcome to GRUB!” messages, but I don’t see the GRUB selector, and it never boots. I have SeaBIOS version rel-1.11.0-54-g248459e-MrChromebox-2018.09.12. Do I need to update this?
Thanks for any help.
for an EOL device like CYAN, it’s highly recommended to flash the UEFI Full ROM firmware, rather than using a legacy boot payload from 7 years ago
Well, I might have made it worse.
I tried to remove the WP screw, but I think I stripped it. I saw that someone suggested cutting the trace, so I tried to do that, but now OS won’t boot. There was some kind of beep when I was trying to cut the trace. Now I get:
Booting from Hard Disk...
GRUB
and nothing else. Does the “GRUB” mean it is seeing my installation, or is some version of GRUB built into SeaBIOS? Suggestions?
Installing EndeavorOS worked with SeaBIOS so I could try flashing that back to my USB stick, but if I somehow severed the connection to the hard drive that would be kind of pointless.
I was able to get Lubuntu running by using DD mode in Rufus instead of ISO. There’s some lag between the GRUB screen and the bootloader image, but it works.
My hard drive and boot after installation was fine, but the write protection is still intact.
if you have Linux installed to your device using the RW_LEGACY firmware, you are in a bad spot. If the dev_boot_legacy flag gets cleared (error, battery drain, etc) then you won’t be able to boot anymore. I strongly suggest figuring out how to remove the WP screw and flash the firmware before that happens. Removing the screw isn’t that hard with the proper screwdriver bit. Use a rubber band. Tighten first slightly to break it free, then reverse to back it out.