Drivers for Chromium

[cw2290]

Recently downloaded Vanilla and Lime Hexxeh builds, very disappointed that my laptops wifi and touch pad wasnt supported..

This leads to me wondering how chromium handles drivers for its system?

it seems a shame that it doesnt have an accessible "drivers" folder, that you could take drivers (e.g.: Limes touch pad driver works but not vanillas)  across, allowing people to chop and change drivers.. it would allow a greater compatibility..

am i missing something?

potentially a process could be added for first time use, that the chromium looked for drivers on the system already (e.g.: a previous installation of windows)? or do the drivers take a different format?

I was extremely keen on this OS for speeds sake when just accessing internet for menial tasks (facebook) but disappointed it wasn't more customisable to different hardwares.

[Zdenek Behan]

On Fri, Aug 31, 2012 at 11:47 AM, cw2290 <monster...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Recently downloaded Vanilla and Lime Hexxeh builds, very disappointed that my laptops wifi and touch pad wasnt supported..

This leads to me wondering how chromium handles drivers for its system?

it seems a shame that it doesnt have an accessible "drivers" folder, that you could take drivers (e.g.: Limes touch pad driver works but not vanillas)  across, allowing people to chop and change drivers.. it would allow a greater compatibility..

am i missing something?

You're missing how Linux kernel drivers work. What you're suggesting is simply wrong and impossible. Not sure what drivers does Hexxeh put into which build, but depending on your hardware (whose model you forgot to mention), this may or may not be fixable.

 

potentially a process could be added for first time use, that the chromium looked for drivers on the system already (e.g.: a previous installation of windows)? or do the drivers take a different format?

I was extremely keen on this OS for speeds sake when just accessing internet for menial tasks (facebook) but disappointed it wasn't more customisable to different hardwares.

--
Chromium OS discuss mailing list: chromium-...@chromium.org
View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe:
http://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/group/chromium-os-discuss?hl=en

[Sigge]

Is there anyone who can point me in some direction of understanding how to add/remove drivers? I have do some kernel compliing in the past, but much has changed since then. Any help is much appriciated.

[cw2290]

well thats what im saying, i dont understand how they work, but i didnt mention hardware because i wish to use it from a usb flash disk over multiple platforms, thus i wanted to be able to add the necessary drivers for the hardware as it would be in three locations mainly so the drivers from those locations could be added.

I was simply asking, i havent had much experience with the linux side of things, only just looking into it all.

How do they work?

[Jonathan Kliegman]

Chromium OS uses drivers in the standard way that other Linux systems use them (/lib/modules/..., modprobe and similar tools).  If you are interested in learning more about this, understanding how they work on Linux in general should be easier than learning on a Chromium OS device.

If you're doing your own builds, you can modify the kernel configuration to include all the drivers that you'll need on different systems and modprobe should do the right thing and load the correct ones based on what machine you boot on.  If not, you'll need to ask the maintainer of your builds to add the drivers for you.

[cw2290]

So in theory.. i could have all known drivers for everything ever used with chrome OS and more? I would just have to do my own builds..? presumably this would then slow the performance, though how much would be an interesting experiment.

I guess the real question is then how do i do my own builds?

[Jonathan Kliegman]

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 3:54 AM, cw2290 <monster...@hotmail.com> wrote:

So in theory.. i could have all known drivers for everything ever used with chrome OS and more? I would just have to do my own builds..? presumably this would then slow the performance, though how much would be an interesting experiment.

I guess the real question is then how do i do my own builds?

Correct, however some drivers might conflict or make things unstable.  But you could do it.

http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/quick-start-guide and related pages tell you how to do your own builds.

http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/how-tos-and-troubleshooting/kernel-configuration talks about the kernel configuration specifically. 

On Tuesday, September 4, 2012 3:14:52 PM UTC+1, Jonathan Kliegman wrote:

Chromium OS uses drivers in the standard way that other Linux systems use them (/lib/modules/..., modprobe and similar tools).  If you are interested in learning more about this, understanding how they work on Linux in general should be easier than learning on a Chromium OS device.

If you're doing your own builds, you can modify the kernel configuration to include all the drivers that you'll need on different systems and modprobe should do the right thing and load the correct ones based on what machine you boot on.  If not, you'll need to ask the maintainer of your builds to add the drivers for you.

[Mike Frysinger]

i don't think performance would be impacted. you're building them all
as modules which means they'd only get loaded & used as needed. yes,
it'd take up more diskspace, and yes there is an insignificant
performance difference between building drivers directly into the
kernel vs loading as modules, but neither should be a perceptible
issue for the user.
-mike

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 3:54 AM, cw2290 <monster...@hotmail.com> wrote:

[Olof Johansson]

By the way, in general we're quite happy to turn on any drivers needed in the Chromium OS configs, as long as they are part of the upstream kernel tree we're using.

We can't always pick up firmware for some of the devices though, etc. And we can't enable binary or out-of-tree drivers.

-Olof

[John Novicki]

I just went the route of downloading and installing the Hexxah vanilla build, but have been unable to get the touch pad to work (EEE PC 1000HE).  I have an Elan touchpad.  Any suggestions on what to do, as I am a total newbie at this.  Thanks.

 

John

[skudooq]

@ John:

The ironic part of the story is that in earlier versions of Vanilla as well in the very last Lime version the eee pc touchpad of my eee pc 1000H worked just fine. However with those versions (at least as for the ones I tried out) WIFI was not working.

I very much appreciate the thread starter's approach only that I don't have the time to dig into it and do it myself. I could provide two versions in which either device (WIFI + Touchpad) works with an eee pc 1000H.

For the time being the current Vanilla runs on an eee pc 1000H fine if you plug in a usb mouse.

Regards.

Bernd

[skudooq]

EEE PC 1000H Vanilla touchpad issue solved

Hello John and all.

I managed to solve the issue with the help of a link I found in another thread:

http://arnoldthebat.co.uk/wordpress/2013/01/08/how-to-get-the-touch-pad-working-in-chromium-os/

(chronos password on vanilla is facepunch, also once you change to superuser (sudo su))

Although the poster did it for a Dell device the fix works also for your eee pc 1000HE 

Since I did not exactly follow the path they offered I found the root cause.

In the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-touchpad-cmt.conf

the current vanilla references the driver

Driver "cmt"

but we need

Driver "synaptics"

Thats all!

Since this fix also works for Dell devices I could imagine that many other devices will work with the synaptics driver rather than with the cmt.

Anywas now I finally can revive my old EEE PC 1000 H and utilize it as a usable surf device.

Have fun!

Regards Bernd

[teke...@gmail.com]

hi,all:

  Do anybody know where is the wireless drive config file in chromium os..

[Jack Smith]

Is this still the case ?

I would really like to see a generic USB picture transfer driver:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picture_Transfer_Protocol

My Canon PowerShot A810 does not provide USB Mass Storage.

[Mike Frysinger]

pretty sure there is no such kernel USB driver for PTP or MTP. there
is an project to integrate MTP support directly into Chrome which
should (afaik) also handle the PTP case.

you should direct any PTP or MTP questions though to the chromium list
since it isn't specific to chromium os.
-mike

[Marc Tremblay]

Hi Olof,

 I work for a school board in Montreal and we received 24 Toshiba Satellite Pro L650′s that we want to turn into Chromium books for a special needs class. The students are very excited but we have hit a wall.

I have tried the VAnilla Build from Hexxah and also the CX86 build from Arnold the bat.

In both cases I am able to boot from a USB with the  image but on the welcome page it does not detect the network. (wireless or Ethernet). I searched through your site to find a fix but was unsuccessful. Do you have an image that would work with this model or a fix i could use.

I have limited Linux knowledge but maybe you could point me in the right direction. Is there any way for me to add the right drivers for the Toshiba L650?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Olof Johansson]

Hi Marc,

I suspect your device lacks the right drivers, or right firmware, for wireless. I don't know what the Arnold the Bat builds include with respect to drivers, but I think Hexxeh just builds our generic overlays without modification.

So, yes, you might be able to add the right drivers to make the hardware functional, it might (or might not) be quite a bit of work. You will likely be better off asking on the user forums for the builds (i.e. the one for Arnold's builds) for advice from others who have gone through the same.

-Olof

--

[Un Lo]

Hi Marc Tremblay 

I also have converted quite a few netbooks into chrome books using ArnoldtheBat's builds. I also have run into your 

issue of not being able to move forward b/c of the network issue. Note: you can still install to the drive by entering 

Alt + ctrl + f2 and getting to sudo su and running chromeos-install command. 

Granted you still won't be able to get into the OS without the network. What i've done to get around this is order

new mini pci-e network cards from ebay at a very cheap price and open up the netbooks and replace the either broadcom 

or similar unsupported network card with one that is supported. 

Put everything back together. Presto. 

hope this helps