4 ms·

Running Ubuntu on the Lenovo IdeaPad Duet

4 points by vhaudiquet 20d ago

thesuperbigfrog 18d ago
This is a great write-up about installing Linux on Chromebook. Thank you for sharing it!
stratosmacker 18d ago
Wow! Serendipitous, I was just doing the same thing on my duet (trogdor) but I was focused on using Claude to enable the camera (missing in the device tree). I taught it to use depthcharge to reboot into the previous Kernel if a build failed; otherwise boot and start the same Claude chat so I could just let it iterate for days. It took a day to get something usable, pretty amazing. Then I setup `howdy` to use the camera for auth. now I’m just trying to figure out if I’m allowed to submit this upstream. Postmarketos explicitly rejects LLM submission, but I can submit it to linux-next. Seems to me a shame, this enables folks who have devices and want to fix things (but lack the time/knowledge) to use these LLM powers for a very good cause. Plasma mobile has been really great for me, you should try it out!
- Clap404 17d ago
  I tried (and gave up) to do the same on my trogdor with postmarket because it was the only thing really missing for it to be a daily driver. Any chance you could publish what Claude did ? This article and thread tells me there are more people hacking on the duet than I thought. Maybe we'll be a handful to use your patch.
  - stratosmacker 17d ago
    Absolutely I plan to! I think I’ll just publish a quick and dirty repo of patches and work on mainlining the camera driver separately. IMO it’s a waste for folks to not share, which is why I’m bummed about the pmOS LLM rules
  - stratosmacker 17d ago
    https://github.com/jesse-osiecki/trogdor-bootstrap https://github.com/jesse-osiecki/trogdor-bootstrap
    - Clap404 16d ago
      Thank you !
denysvitali 17d ago
I just did something similar to bring mainline Linux to my Daylight DC-1 [1] [2], although possibly more difficult since I had to start from scratch. I can guarantee the same amount of work, without AI, takes probably 10x or more time (I did it in the past w/ the Google Pixel C [3]). Unfortunately it looks like pmOS is against AI [4], so I'll likely switch away from pmOS and never contribute a single line in the future. Too bad, I was a huge fan [5]. [1]: https://daylightcomputer.com/product https://daylightcomputer.com/product [2]: https://x.com/DenysVitali/status/2091238391710888416 https://x.com/DenysVitali/status/2091238391710888416 [3]: https://github.com/pixelc-linux/documentation https://github.com/pixelc-linux/documentation [4]: https://docs.postmarketos.org/policies-and-processes/development/ai-policy.html https://docs.postmarketos.org/policies-and-processes/develop... [5]: https://blog.denv.it/posts/pmos-k3s-cluster/ https://blog.denv.it/posts/pmos-k3s-cluster/
- officeplant 17d ago
  Sometimes I have to log in just to ask: Why would you think one of the more beloved projects for linux mobile phones would be pro-AI?
  - spijdar 17d ago
    Because one of the biggest hurdles to porting the Linux kernel and device-specific software to more hardware and making existing hardware work better is one of the things that "AI" can (seemingly, caveat) do surprisingly well? Not to say PM (or any other project) should/shouldn't use AI. There are plenty of other salient reasons to reject AI. But given (from what I remember) postmarket's goal is basically saving as many phones from becoming ewaste as possible, well, an LLM could actually be a formidable way to get more hardware than ever running.
    - denysvitali 17d ago
      This. Why would you waste 2 years to port Linux to an old / a device when you can literally do it in ~10 days and save many devices from turning into e-waste? I really don't get their approach. Besides, Linux (and Linus) accepts and are doing AI contributions, so their argument makes no sense (since they're a Linux distro)
cvhc 17d ago
Cool but my Duet is the later generation with MediaTek Kompanio 838 :( I really like the form factor. I use my PC at home and corp laptop for work, and I don't need another powerhouse laptop. A lightweight 2-in-1 tablet works well for me. But I never found an OS doing well in both desktop and tablet modes. Most Windows and Linux apps are for desktop. ChromeOS with ArcVM is supposed to work but the performance is terrible. I hope Android desktop mode would do better.
w0m 17d ago
someone needs to do this for the arm Surface Pro 11.
whalesalad 17d ago
Recently I was in the market for what I would call a 'low cost linux netbook/tablet' and settled on the Chuwi Minibook X. It has an Intel N150 processor, 16GB of memory and a 512GB nvme drive. For less than $300. I am wildly impressed by it. Touchpad is really terrible but otherwise it is a surprisingly compelling little device. I am still fine tuning the tablet mode stuff -- it doesn't have any hinge measurement sensors it relies on an accelerometer in each half. Codex has been helping me write some cool tools to debug and parse those raw readings into "im in laptop mode" or "im in tablet mode, disable kb/touchpad". I just installed KDE Plasma Mobile yesterday which is quite a cool alternate DE that is more suited to tablets. Here is a video of that codex tooling to help debug the hinge situation: https://www.threads.com/@whalesalad/post/DdYNriIAFO4 https://www.threads.com/@whalesalad/post/DdYNriIAFO4
- pcardoso 17d ago
  Got my Minibook X U300 yesterday and I’m facing the same issues. Please share your findings as you go, this a cool little machine for Linux.
- vegasje 17d ago
  I've been thinking about getting one of these. I'm currently using a Surface Go 2, and I'm addicted to the small form factor, but it's not as quick to open and start typing as a laptop would be. How is the battery life and fan noise? Not sure I can go back from fanless.
  - whalesalad 17d ago
    [dead]
krttherealest 17d ago
kinda cool, looks like a laptop
mkesper 17d ago
For x86 based ChromeOS devices check https://docs.mrchromebox.tech/docs/supported-devices.html https://docs.mrchromebox.tech/docs/supported-devices.html It allows installing a standard UEFI environment if supported.
tombert 17d ago
I went to LinuxFest Northwest a few months ago, and there was a booth giving away Chromebooks that had been wiped and had a version of NixOS installed on there for free. I very seriously considered grabbing one, but I was only traveling with a backpack which was already pretty full, and I think my wife would (rightfully) give me a dirty look if I hoarded more tech that I'll only use like twice a year. I kind of regret it now. Oh well, I'll probably come across another cheap Chromebook soon enough to play with.
nater5000 17d ago
I actually just pulled out my old Duet and took a quick look to see if I could just put proper Linux on it. Didn't seem feasible for the amount of effort I was willing to put into it, so I bailed. Reading this, though, I now see I was definitely right and I'm glad I didn't sink much time into the endeavour lol Cool post nonetheless!
- rossy 17d ago
  Note that postmarketOS is proper Linux. It runs almost-perfectly (sans camera) out-of-the-box on most Duets, and has for a while. Once you enable developer mode in ChromeOS, the install process is just like a PC laptop. The article seems like more of a sidequest to (promote AI and) install Ubuntu specifically by getting uboot and a UEFI environment, but postmarketOS doesn't need that because it can boot from ChromeOS' bootloader. Installing postmarketOS on my Duets (homestar and wormdingler) was probably the best decision I've made with those devices, and they might be some of the best arm64 devices of that form factor to run Linux on.
  - vhaudiquet 17d ago
    Yes, this was definetely a side quest, but postmarketOS indeed is a real Linux distribution that is perfectly usable! I just want to experiment with this tablet, and with U-Boot providing an EFI environment now adapted, I (or anyone) should be able to boot any distribution (Arch Linux ARM, Debian, etc). Ubuntu was just my personal choice here :)
bityard 17d ago
I recently put Debian on an old 13" Asus Chromebook. It was surprisingly easy! I don't remember doing much other than removing a screw and installing a UEFI firmware on it. Everything worked out of the box. It works pretty well too, as long as you temper your expectations around 4GB of RAM and aren't expecting to watch YouTube on it. (Older machines and phones are just not at all happy about 60fps videos.)
- yjftsjthsd-h 17d ago
  IME it's generally trivial for x86 Chromebooks, but still hit-and-miss for ARM.
- FlowingRiver 17d ago
  The lowest spec machine I have been able to get 60fps 720p video out of Youtube is a 2nd Gen i5 2.4Ghz. Anything lower and the frames start dropping. It is funny that during that time period, Intel's media decoders got significantly faster in a very short period of time. My 4th gen 2Ghz i5 decodes video better than my 2nd Gen 3.8Ghz i7.
aljgz 17d ago
I was shocked, in 2026, to know how hard it is to find a good tablet. iPad is out of question for me, gifted mine to my gf (the only apple device I ever bought). Landed on a Lenovo Idea Tab pro, which has so much junk pre-installed that keep installing other malware on it. We need rules that take companies responsible when they trick people into hands of scammers. As long as I can't unlock its bootloader, it's not much better than that iPad.
- popopo73 17d ago
  I have the Idea Tab (not pro, 10"), and yeah there's a lot of junk. The only way to keep these usable is to not use the google sign-in, disable as much as you can, sideload F-Droid, and install a lightweight launcher.
- hulitu 15d ago
  > We need rules that take companies responsible when they trick people into hands of scammers. Who do you think makes the rules and who do you think are the scammers ? Regards, Microsoft, Google. /s
edg5000 17d ago
I have an Acer Flip 1 (4GB, passively cooled Intel CPU). And I find GNOME to run really well on this. Compiling large C++ codebases is where the slowness gets in the way. Even VS Code kinda ran. Mostly used this in a lab for data logging, note taking. Just want to say this because the popular "GNOME is heavy" argument is not something I've experienced myself. GNOME 3 is already so old, maybe it was heavy when it came out, like how Crysis was heavy but will now run on anything and pretty well too.
ThePinion 17d ago
This is too cool. I actually have this exact tablet, and have basically barely ever used it because ChromeOS just crawls no matter what you do with it on that device. Every once in a while I do a search to see if anyone has done anything interesting with it, and it seems that day has finally come. I will give your image a try later tonight!
throwa356262 17d ago
"I also now work at Canonical..." You know the guy doesn't easily give up if he has gone through Canonicals famous 10-20 round interviews.

4 points by vhaudiquet 20d ago

This is a great write-up about installing Linux on Chromebook. Thank you for sharing it!

Wow! Serendipitous, I was just doing the same thing on my duet (trogdor) but I was focused on using Claude to enable the camera (missing in the device tree). I taught it to use depthcharge to reboot into the previous Kernel if a build failed; otherwise boot and start the same Claude chat so I could just let it iterate for days. It took a day to get something usable, pretty amazing. Then I setup `howdy` to use the camera for auth. now I’m just trying to figure out if I’m allowed to submit this upstream. Postmarketos explicitly rejects LLM submission, but I can submit it to linux-next. Seems to me a shame, this enables folks who have devices and want to fix things (but lack the time/knowledge) to use these LLM powers for a very good cause. Plasma mobile has been really great for me, you should try it out!

Clap404 17d ago
I tried (and gave up) to do the same on my trogdor with postmarket because it was the only thing really missing for it to be a daily driver. Any chance you could publish what Claude did ? This article and thread tells me there are more people hacking on the duet than I thought. Maybe we'll be a handful to use your patch.
- stratosmacker 17d ago
  Absolutely I plan to! I think I’ll just publish a quick and dirty repo of patches and work on mainlining the camera driver separately. IMO it’s a waste for folks to not share, which is why I’m bummed about the pmOS LLM rules
- stratosmacker 17d ago
  https://github.com/jesse-osiecki/trogdor-bootstrap https://github.com/jesse-osiecki/trogdor-bootstrap
  - Clap404 16d ago
    Thank you !

denysvitali 17d ago

I just did something similar to bring mainline Linux to my Daylight DC-1 [1] [2], although possibly more difficult since I had to start from scratch. I can guarantee the same amount of work, without AI, takes probably 10x or more time (I did it in the past w/ the Google Pixel C [3]). Unfortunately it looks like pmOS is against AI [4], so I'll likely switch away from pmOS and never contribute a single line in the future. Too bad, I was a huge fan [5]. [1]: https://daylightcomputer.com/product https://daylightcomputer.com/product [2]: https://x.com/DenysVitali/status/2091238391710888416 https://x.com/DenysVitali/status/2091238391710888416 [3]: https://github.com/pixelc-linux/documentation https://github.com/pixelc-linux/documentation [4]: https://docs.postmarketos.org/policies-and-processes/development/ai-policy.html https://docs.postmarketos.org/policies-and-processes/develop... [5]: https://blog.denv.it/posts/pmos-k3s-cluster/ https://blog.denv.it/posts/pmos-k3s-cluster/

officeplant 17d ago
Sometimes I have to log in just to ask: Why would you think one of the more beloved projects for linux mobile phones would be pro-AI?
- spijdar 17d ago
  Because one of the biggest hurdles to porting the Linux kernel and device-specific software to more hardware and making existing hardware work better is one of the things that "AI" can (seemingly, caveat) do surprisingly well? Not to say PM (or any other project) should/shouldn't use AI. There are plenty of other salient reasons to reject AI. But given (from what I remember) postmarket's goal is basically saving as many phones from becoming ewaste as possible, well, an LLM could actually be a formidable way to get more hardware than ever running.
  - denysvitali 17d ago
    This. Why would you waste 2 years to port Linux to an old / a device when you can literally do it in ~10 days and save many devices from turning into e-waste? I really don't get their approach. Besides, Linux (and Linus) accepts and are doing AI contributions, so their argument makes no sense (since they're a Linux distro)

cvhc 17d ago

Cool but my Duet is the later generation with MediaTek Kompanio 838 :( I really like the form factor. I use my PC at home and corp laptop for work, and I don't need another powerhouse laptop. A lightweight 2-in-1 tablet works well for me. But I never found an OS doing well in both desktop and tablet modes. Most Windows and Linux apps are for desktop. ChromeOS with ArcVM is supposed to work but the performance is terrible. I hope Android desktop mode would do better.

w0m 17d ago

someone needs to do this for the arm Surface Pro 11.

whalesalad 17d ago

Recently I was in the market for what I would call a 'low cost linux netbook/tablet' and settled on the Chuwi Minibook X. It has an Intel N150 processor, 16GB of memory and a 512GB nvme drive. For less than $300. I am wildly impressed by it. Touchpad is really terrible but otherwise it is a surprisingly compelling little device. I am still fine tuning the tablet mode stuff -- it doesn't have any hinge measurement sensors it relies on an accelerometer in each half. Codex has been helping me write some cool tools to debug and parse those raw readings into "im in laptop mode" or "im in tablet mode, disable kb/touchpad". I just installed KDE Plasma Mobile yesterday which is quite a cool alternate DE that is more suited to tablets. Here is a video of that codex tooling to help debug the hinge situation: https://www.threads.com/@whalesalad/post/DdYNriIAFO4 https://www.threads.com/@whalesalad/post/DdYNriIAFO4

pcardoso 17d ago
Got my Minibook X U300 yesterday and I’m facing the same issues. Please share your findings as you go, this a cool little machine for Linux.
vegasje 17d ago
I've been thinking about getting one of these. I'm currently using a Surface Go 2, and I'm addicted to the small form factor, but it's not as quick to open and start typing as a laptop would be. How is the battery life and fan noise? Not sure I can go back from fanless.
- whalesalad 17d ago
  [dead]

krttherealest 17d ago

kinda cool, looks like a laptop

mkesper 17d ago

For x86 based ChromeOS devices check https://docs.mrchromebox.tech/docs/supported-devices.html https://docs.mrchromebox.tech/docs/supported-devices.html It allows installing a standard UEFI environment if supported.

tombert 17d ago

I went to LinuxFest Northwest a few months ago, and there was a booth giving away Chromebooks that had been wiped and had a version of NixOS installed on there for free. I very seriously considered grabbing one, but I was only traveling with a backpack which was already pretty full, and I think my wife would (rightfully) give me a dirty look if I hoarded more tech that I'll only use like twice a year. I kind of regret it now. Oh well, I'll probably come across another cheap Chromebook soon enough to play with.

nater5000 17d ago

I actually just pulled out my old Duet and took a quick look to see if I could just put proper Linux on it. Didn't seem feasible for the amount of effort I was willing to put into it, so I bailed. Reading this, though, I now see I was definitely right and I'm glad I didn't sink much time into the endeavour lol Cool post nonetheless!

rossy 17d ago
Note that postmarketOS is proper Linux. It runs almost-perfectly (sans camera) out-of-the-box on most Duets, and has for a while. Once you enable developer mode in ChromeOS, the install process is just like a PC laptop. The article seems like more of a sidequest to (promote AI and) install Ubuntu specifically by getting uboot and a UEFI environment, but postmarketOS doesn't need that because it can boot from ChromeOS' bootloader. Installing postmarketOS on my Duets (homestar and wormdingler) was probably the best decision I've made with those devices, and they might be some of the best arm64 devices of that form factor to run Linux on.
- vhaudiquet 17d ago
  Yes, this was definetely a side quest, but postmarketOS indeed is a real Linux distribution that is perfectly usable! I just want to experiment with this tablet, and with U-Boot providing an EFI environment now adapted, I (or anyone) should be able to boot any distribution (Arch Linux ARM, Debian, etc). Ubuntu was just my personal choice here :)

bityard 17d ago

I recently put Debian on an old 13" Asus Chromebook. It was surprisingly easy! I don't remember doing much other than removing a screw and installing a UEFI firmware on it. Everything worked out of the box. It works pretty well too, as long as you temper your expectations around 4GB of RAM and aren't expecting to watch YouTube on it. (Older machines and phones are just not at all happy about 60fps videos.)

yjftsjthsd-h 17d ago
IME it's generally trivial for x86 Chromebooks, but still hit-and-miss for ARM.
FlowingRiver 17d ago
The lowest spec machine I have been able to get 60fps 720p video out of Youtube is a 2nd Gen i5 2.4Ghz. Anything lower and the frames start dropping. It is funny that during that time period, Intel's media decoders got significantly faster in a very short period of time. My 4th gen 2Ghz i5 decodes video better than my 2nd Gen 3.8Ghz i7.

aljgz 17d ago

I was shocked, in 2026, to know how hard it is to find a good tablet. iPad is out of question for me, gifted mine to my gf (the only apple device I ever bought). Landed on a Lenovo Idea Tab pro, which has so much junk pre-installed that keep installing other malware on it. We need rules that take companies responsible when they trick people into hands of scammers. As long as I can't unlock its bootloader, it's not much better than that iPad.

popopo73 17d ago
I have the Idea Tab (not pro, 10"), and yeah there's a lot of junk. The only way to keep these usable is to not use the google sign-in, disable as much as you can, sideload F-Droid, and install a lightweight launcher.
hulitu 15d ago
> We need rules that take companies responsible when they trick people into hands of scammers. Who do you think makes the rules and who do you think are the scammers ? Regards, Microsoft, Google. /s

edg5000 17d ago

I have an Acer Flip 1 (4GB, passively cooled Intel CPU). And I find GNOME to run really well on this. Compiling large C++ codebases is where the slowness gets in the way. Even VS Code kinda ran. Mostly used this in a lab for data logging, note taking. Just want to say this because the popular "GNOME is heavy" argument is not something I've experienced myself. GNOME 3 is already so old, maybe it was heavy when it came out, like how Crysis was heavy but will now run on anything and pretty well too.

ThePinion 17d ago

This is too cool. I actually have this exact tablet, and have basically barely ever used it because ChromeOS just crawls no matter what you do with it on that device. Every once in a while I do a search to see if anyone has done anything interesting with it, and it seems that day has finally come. I will give your image a try later tonight!

throwa356262 17d ago

"I also now work at Canonical..." You know the guy doesn't easily give up if he has gone through Canonicals famous 10-20 round interviews.