3 ms·
Are you sure about that? I've got a Samsung chromebook (Snow) from about 3 years ago, and yet... localhost / # uname -a Linux localhost 3.8.11 #1 SM
by fattire 10y ago
Are you sure about that? I've got a Samsung chromebook (Snow) from about 3 years ago, and yet...
localhost / # uname -a
Linux localhost 3.8.11 #1 SMP Mon Sep 26 02:48:53 PDT 2016 armv7l ARMv7 Processor rev 4 (v7l)
SAMSUNG EXYNOS5 (Flattened Device Tree) GNU/Linux
Recently built kernel. Unless things have changed from a few years back (when I last played with it), there are multiple (3) kernel partitions in ChromeOS:
https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chromiumos-design-docs/disk-format#TOC-GUID-Partition-Table-GPT- https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chromiumos-design-docs/...
...and you can manually select between them by using the "cgpt" command from the shell:
So on an ARM device, you could say:
sudo cgpt add -i 6 -P 5 -S 1 /dev/mmcblk0
If I'm not mistaken, this would mean to set partition 6 (a kernel) with a priority of 5 (compared to other partitions at boot), successful flag set to 1 on mmc block device 0-- (the internal mmc, where mmcblk1 is the external sdcard). I think if that kernel fails, that flips the successful flag to 0 and it falls back to the next priority kernel on the reboot. But like I said, it's been a while so don't quote me.
See more here: https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chromiumos-design-docs/disk-format#TOC-GUID-Partition-Table-GPT- https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chromiumos-design-docs/...
Also, if you weren't aware, to get into the shell:
ctrl-alt-T
shell
sudo bash
cgpt --help
if you play with cgpt, be VERY careful. Also, if you're thinking of replacing kernels or whatnot, be aware that on most (all?) devices, the partitions are signed, so you'll have to turn off any checks first.
- digi_owl 10y agoWell it was Google's excuse for how only certain Chromebooks of a recent vintage would be getting Android app support.
- fattire 10y agoMaybe they meant the major version number of the kernel wouldn't get an upgrade, though I suspect maybe performance/memory limitations are the real issue. It may be possible to backport whatever features are missing to an older machine's kernel and see...