Arch Linux Laptop Battery indicator

I wanted battery indicator for my HP chromebook11 Arch linux laptop. After some googling I found cbatticon and installed it with pacman. When install finished add it to somewhere in the pannel. Now I can see battery indicator in my panned.

Suspend (sleep) laptop Arch Linux

To suspend laptop simply run
$ pm-suspend
pm-suspend is pm-utils's command. You can install pm-utils by pacman.
$ pacman -S pm-utils
You can modify /etc/acpi/handler.sh to let your laptop suspend when it is closed.
reference

Enable audio on arch linux

source here

1. install alsa-utils
2. Run alsamixer as root
3. Arrow right util you see four items starting with Left Speaker Mixer, and press M on all four channels to un-mute them.
4. Arrow right some more until you find four more starting with Right Speaker Mixer and un-mute them as well.
5. Arrow all the way back left to the Speaker channel and raise the volume a little, Keep it low (< 50ish), since alsa will let you get dangerously high for these speakers.

It seems simple but it wasn't actually.
It says un-mute Left Speaker Mixer and Right Speaker Mixer but for my HP Chromebook 11 there was no exactly "Left Speaker Mixer".
What I found was "Left SPK Mixer" and there were ten of them. Each are

• Left SPK Mixer INA1
• Left SPK Mixer INA2
• Left SPK Mixer INB1
• Left SPK Mixer INB2
• Left SPK Mixer Left DAC1
• Left SPK Mixer Left DAC2
• Left SPK Mixer MIC1
• Left SPK Mixer MIC2
• Left SPK Mixer Right DAC1
• Left SPK Mixer Right DAC2

These are same for Right SPK Mixer. I unmuted INB2, Left DAC1, Left DAC2, for Left SPK Mixer and INA2, INB1, INB2, Left DAC1, Left DAC2, for Right SPK Mixer. Though I didn't try thoroughly, for many other combinations speaker didn't work or keep beeping loudly.

After installation

After I managed to install arch linux and mate desktop environment. I found configurations about keyboard, screen, backlight, touchpad are also challenging.
I was able to set backlight brightness and set user account but still configuring touch pad and keyboard and fix problems like never come back when sleeping were seems to be not solved just skimming the web.
So I find myself to have to understand more about arch linux system itself and need to read this and this

Setting up Arch Linux on HP chromebook 11

Setting up laptop

Arch wiki

• About laptop
• ACPI

backlight

$ ls /sys/class/backlight/
$ ps8622-backlight
This is the directory for controlling my HP chromebook11's backlight. The name depends on the graphics card. intel_backlight for intel graphics card, acpi_video0 on an ATI card. I eventually found mine is from a company called Parade. A company from Taiwan.

moving on.

$ ls /sys/class/backlight/ps8622-backlight
$ actual_brightness brightness max_brightness ....
What is the maximum value of brightness
$ cat /sys/class/backlight/ps8622-backlight/max_brightness
$ 255
What is actual? $ cat /sys/class/backlight/ps8622-backlight/actual_brightness

The brightness can be set by writing number to brightness. It is possible to go any higher than the maximum brightness
$ tee /sys/class/backlight/ps8622-backlight/brightness <<< 35

touchpad

• xorg.conf
• about synaptics
• https://wiki.debian.org/SynapticsTouchpad
• http://www.x.org/archive/X11R7.5/doc/man/man4/synaptics.4.html
• http://www.uplawski.eu/technology/linux/touchpad_en.html

Trying to enable touch pad actions like tap to click, two finger scroll or so

Current settings are in the configuration file downloaded from here when installing the system

It is found in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d

Check out available input-device and their ids

$ xinput --list

and verify the properties of touch pad device

$ xinput --list-props 8

It shows Synaptics Tap Action (261): 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0

It's weird because I set up TapButton1 to TapButton3 in conf file (/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf).
I can enable tap action via
$ synclient "TapButton1"="1"
So it's not that my touchpad is not configurable but somehow it fails to configure at boot process by .conf file
I found it is because I'm using MATE as desktop environment. MATE needs some setting for enabling configure touchpad right. (see here)

Added new user on my arch linux

Added new user
# useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/bash
and set password
# passwd username

Next to do

• use sudo as normal user
• setting up sound
• find way to two finger scroll on track pad
• find way to set brightness of screen

Yeah! I made it! Successfully install and setup arch linux on my HP Chromebook 11

Since it seemed that I lost boot.scr.uimg in someway, I forked archarm repo and added line to download it in install.sh (github repo)
And in installation process, used my install.sh and it worked! I successfully install arch linux on my chromebook and boot on it again.
I came here last time and failed post-install.sh. So this time I didn't use post-install.sh. Instead I installed packages by hand one by one for each packages in post-install.sh. Also I edited /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist to comment out geo location based mirror selection and use Singapore, Taiwan and California.
After installed all packages successfully (sometimes systemd-journald.service got watchdog=1 message scared me but wasn't cause serious problem also I got kernel panic when I run pacman -S mate this also scared me but wasn't cause serious problem.).
Because I failed many times and take long time to come so far I couldn't feel it's gonna work even though all packages seem to be installed without problem.
I rebooted the system. After some text lines flowed as usual, graphical interface appeared to require login info. I logged in as root. The desktop appeared!! I finally got my first linux laptop!!

note: I also found an error in post-install.sh. the line echo "exec mame-session >" should be echo "exec mate-session"

boot.src.uimg

last time I figured out that there is no boot.src.uimg so my installation of arch linux was failed. However there is no line in install.sh to download boot.src.uimg. I thought it was in the ArchLinuxARM-chromebook-latest.tar.gz but in this another tutorial for sumsung chromebook boot.src.uimg is downloaded as another process. I'm confused why this install.sh script doesn't contain the line to download boot.src.uimg.
Anyway adding the line to download boot.src.uimg might solve this problem.

more mess on installing arch linux on chromebook11

Since it completely mess up when I installed xorg on my arch, I decided to do whole installation of arch linux again.
I rerun the install.sh but this time installation of arch linux is failed. When I run install.sh prompt said
cp: cannot stat 'root/boot/boot.scr.uimg': No such file or directory
Actually there are no boot.scr.uimg in /tmp/root/boot/boot.scr.uimg.
This is weird because last time install.sh run without problem and boot.scr.uimg should be extracted from ArchLinuxARM-chromebook-latest.tar.gz. Similar issue posted on arch linux arm

Stories so far about installing arch linux on my hp chromebook 11

Stories so far

Before I try to install arch on my chromebook again, let's recap what I've done so far.

References

• blog
• video

I followed these blog and video to install arch on my chromebook and it seems successfully installed but after install when I run post-install.sh for installing some packages some packages failed to be installed. After that I tried installing some packages on my chromebook. Some were successfully installed (python, ruby) but when I tried to install mate and xorg something wrong happened especially lightdm and xorg (after installed xorg I couldn't start arch because the screen blink forever and refused any command).

What is to be tried next?

When I failed running post-install.sh problems occured because I couldn't reach to the mirror server. It occurs when I tried to install packages manually by pacman and it was solved by modifying the mirror server list by editing /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist. So if I edit mirrorlist to set several mirrors, it may solve the problem when running the post-install.sh.
Another thing I should try is to understand post-install.sh and install.sh both are here on github.

Install xorg and complete mess

Installed xorg

Last time I tried install xorg on my arch linux, it was failed because I didn't reach the mirror server (which is in Taiwan I choosed because I couldn't find mirror in japan). So this time I selected several servers in /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist (Taiwan, Singapore and California).
And force pacman to refresh the package lists.
$ pacman -Syy
After this, tried to install xorg.
$ pacman -S xorg
And it worked! I successfully installed xorg. I tried start mate by executing startx but system said no such command. So I think I should reboot and then I rebooted and ...

and complete mess

After reboot it seems to be fine before the screen blinking oddly. Now it completely failed. I can't back to shell and can't run any command. Screen is blinking endlessly. Sigh

TTY demystified

http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/tty/
Must be good article. Read it later.

plymouth, mate, xorg and mirror

Alright, I got confused after the last post.
I found the boot process is stopped because system can't find plymouth.
So I tried install plymouth $ pacman -S plymouth but it saids error; target not found: plymouth. I searched another way to install plymouth on the web and found some people reports plymouth is buggy. It makes me think that I have to find the way to start Desktop without plymouth. But wait, when I checked installed packages $ pacman -Qe there was no mate, gnome or other desktop environment.
So what does lightdb try to start? I thought it tried to start desktop environment.
Anyway, I also found I didn't install xorg. It must be there if I want to start desktop environment. I installed mate via pacman and tried to install xorg but it failed. Again I couldn't reach mirror server (this time was Taiwan). I don't know this is because me or my machine setting is wrong or it occurs from time to time. But it is hard to think xorg can't be available because some settings are bit wrong because it's essential package for arch linux. Maybe I should work on mirror server setting.

some issues about lightdm

I installed arch linux on my hp chromebook 11.
I run post-install.sh and it seems that I installed desktop environment and now when I boot from usb, arch start desktop but error occurred about lightdm and it stuck.
So I try to fix it.
First the system said "check out 'systemctl status lightdm.service'", so I typed in shell. It shows bunch of messages and it seems loaded successfully
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/lightdm.service; enabled)
but it failed to be activated
Active: failed (Result: start-limit) since Sat 2014-08-09 14:40:38 UTC; 14min ago
These are not very much helping. As long as I found there is something wrong about lightdm.
So I read a man page of lightdm a bit and I found something when typed $ lightdm -d. -d means debug mode and it dumped debug messages. (logged at /var/log/lightdm/lightdm.log)
In debug messages I found
"DEBUG: Could not run plymouth --ping: Failed to execute child process "plymouth" (No such file or directory)
"DEBUG: Using VT 1
"DEBUG: Seat: Starting local X display on VT1
"
This is useful. It seems I didn't install plymouth on my arch. I also found
I need to do some research about plymouth

Do it again /* installing arch linux on my chromebook */

Yesterday, I found setting server manually than geo based server selection will fix the problem that some packages didn't installed because mirror server was unreachable.
So I decided to do it again from start.

I already downloaded install.sh at /home/root so process is simpler

1. become the root
   $ sudo su -
2. $ cd /home/root
3. run install.sh (it's already there)
   $ sh install.sh /dev/sda
4. after installed arch linux to usb,
   $ reboot + ctrl+U
5. login as a root
6. change the mirror server for pacman
   $ nano /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
7. connect to wifi
   wifi-menu mlan0
8. check network status
   $ ping -c 3 www.google.com
9. install wget
   $ pacman -S wget
10. download post-install.sh
    $ wget https://raw2.github.com/omgmog/archarm-usb-hp-chromebook-11/master/post-install.sh
11. run post-install.sh
    $ sh post-intall.sh

I thought it should work but it didn't. Again I encountered server unreachable problem for some packages.
I tried servers located in Canada and Singapore but both wasn't success.

Some issue seems to be solved about installing Arch Linux on my chromebook

Try again

Since I failed twice to install Arch linux on my chromebook, I tried once again tonight.
I followed same steps of last time and installed arch on my usb and booted. (in fact in last two times I successfully installed arch linux on my usb but due to some errors occurred when running post-install.sh I thought whole installation process was completely failed)

Then I tried to run post-install.sh but same error occurred. I quit to tackle post-install.sh and switched to manually installing packages by using packman.
First, I installed Python3.4
$ pacman -S python
It was success! Now I can run python script on my chromebook!

Next I tried to install desktop environment. First I tried GNOME pacman -S gnome but failed by error. Next tried mate but also failed by error.
The error was when downloading from mirror somehow I couldn't mirror and it turned out as an error.
after I searched web I found this.
In that web page, someone said we can manually select mirror site rather than geo based selection. So I modified a file to manually pick mirror.
$ nano /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
I switched to a mirror located in somewhere in Canada. After that, once again I tried to install mate and .... it worked like a magic!
Installation of mate and all dependencies were successfully done. So I rebooted and it should have been completely alright.
Actually, it wasn't. When I rebooted boot process was stopped saying
[FAILED] Failed to start Light Display Manager
see 'systemctl status lightdm.service' for details
Now I got another problem to solve.
I also found that switching mirror before running post-install.sh it might work well.

Reinstalling Arch Linux to my HP chromebook11

Yesterday, I failed to install arch linux to my HP chromebook11.
I followed the video and blog but it was not successful.
Maybe I failed to follow some steps so I try again.

---

Go back to start line

I reformatted my USB on my mac and I also need to restore my chrome book since I installed arch yesterday not only to my USB but to my chromebook.
After I searched, I found chromebook powerwash. I firstly thought I have to restore chrome os by rebooting from USB, but powerwash seems to do the job easily.
So let's do it!

powerwash

1. Click the status area in the lower-right corner, where your account picture appears.
2. Select Settings and click Show advanced settings
3. Find the "powerwash" section and click Reset
4. In the dialogue box that opens, select Restart

Actually, third step's there was no reset in powerwash section, instead there was powerwash.
I pushed powerwash and it asked to restart so I select restart.
Then it restart and show big exclamation mark probably because I'm still using it as dev mode so I hit ctrl+D and Chromebook says "powerwash is in progerss". So far so good.

Set up chromebook again and confirmed it was all cleaned up!
Now I can start from the beginning.

---

Install Arch Linux to HP chromebook11 [again]

Go to chrosh by ctrl+alt+T ( video using ctrl+alt+F3 different from blog but I stick with blog version )
From now I record all steps.

• Become the 'root'
  >> sudo su -
• Enable booting from USB stick
  >> crossystem dev_boot_usb=1 dev_boot_signed_only=0
• Change to the root user home
  >> cd /home/root
• Download install.sh script
  >> wget https://raw2.github.com/omgmog/archarm-usb-hp-chromebook-11/master/install.sh
• Insert USB stick and dismiss the window
• Run the install.sh
  sh install.sh /dev/sda
• Finished run install.sh execute commandreboot
• When reboot ctrl-U to reboot from USB
• login as root alarm login: root
• do wifi-menu mlan0
• update pacman and install wget
  pacman -S wget
• download post-install.sh
• run post-install.sh
• some error occurred
  
  1. some packages couldn't installed by error
  2. prompt says There are 14 members
So this time also installation doesn't work. After searched comments of omgmog's blog, found that some packages have some problems for installing. If those problems are fixed, it should be fine to run arch linux on my chromebook.