Does Kali run on the Acer C720 Chromebook?

[buscape]

Hi there,

Some of you might know of the hugely popular Acer C720 Chromebook that's a popular choice for a cheap linux machine. Anyway, I haven't seen any documentation on whether it can run Kali linux.

Can anyone answer this for me?

Thank you.

[illwill]

you can run from a usb w/persistence if you'd like so you dont have to kill the chromeos
Step 1 - Enable Developer Mode
Step 2 - Enable SeaBIOS
Step 3 - Boot from Legacy using Ctrl+L
Step 4 - create a liveusb w/persistence using instructions in the kali wiki
Step 5 - when you get the kali bootmenu hit Tab then spacebar and type this: mem=1536m persistence

the only issue youll have is no touchpad drivers, so you would need an external mouse to get it working
everything else works out of the box including the wifi into monitor mode

[SharkBait]

I can confirm it does work, just follow illwill's instructions, but choose install, then you can get the touchpad and keyboard shortcuts working by following the instructions on the archwiki (the arch guys have it all figured out.). Just take care as I recall I needed to modify a few steps due to the differences in kali vs arch. Lastly, I also had to slightly modify the kernel patching script to get it to work (again due to kali vs arch differences).

Note: the only think not working is hardware acceleration for the HD 4600 igpu, the xserver-xorg-video-intel driver in the kali repos is too old. Do NOT install it from the dev repo or from sid or testing, you'll just break X among other things.

[custard]

Does Sound and bluetooth work on this chromebook?
I have a samsung chromebook model XE303C12-A01UK and sound and bluetooth does not seem to work

[SharkBait]

Does Sound and bluetooth work on this chromebook?
I have a samsung chromebook model XE303C12-A01UK and sound and bluetooth does not seem to work

I know this is an old thread, but I figured I would answer for the sake of those still googling this; yes sound and bluetooth work OOB.

Just in case anyone was wondering, everything except hardware acceleration for the HD4600 iGPU works, though sleep, touchpad (and touchscreen depending on the model) require patching the kernel, or using kernel 3.17 or newer.

[zoggnoff]

if you want to get rid of chrome os and slap linux on it like a normal pc laptop

1. remove the 13 screws (12+1 under warranty sticker) underneath the chromebook and then remove the write protect screw in this picture (screw number 7)
http://www.chromium.org/_/rsrc/13819...ed-innards.png
2. put the c720 back together without screwing in the 13 screws but replacing the bottom panel
3. turn off machine then esc + refresh + power
4. enable developer mode at boot up, ctrl + d (you may need to do it twice)
5. boot up and enter your google password
6. launch crosh, ctrl + alt + t
7. to open shell in crosh type shell then hit enter or return
8. plug in usb thumb drive (any will do)
9. cd; rm -f getnflash_johnlewis_rom.sh; curl -k -L -O https://johnlewis.ie/getnflash_johnlewis_rom.sh; sudo bash getnflash_johnlewis_rom.sh
10. after the above code finishes without errors you should have legacy boot mode forever, without losing it even if your power goes out
11. power off the machine
12. replace the write protect screw in the motherboard then replace all 13 screws
13. plug in usb thumb drive with kali linux, boot the machine, hit esc when it tells you, choose your thumb drive then install like normal

[zoggnoff]

first you should

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

then replace every line with the following



deb http://http.kali.org/kali kali main non-free contrib
deb http://security.kali.org/kali-security kali/updates main contrib non-free

deb-src http://http.kali.org/kali kali main non-free contrib
deb-src http://security.kali.org/kali-security kali/updates main contrib non-free



steps for touchpad

1. sudo apt-get update
2. sudo apt-get upgrade
3. sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`
4. download this script http://pastebin.com/XsA272Jy
5. do bash /path/to/script.sh
6. open in text editor /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf
7. paste the following into anywhere in that conf and then save

Section "InputClass"
Identifier "touchpad catchall"
Driver "synaptics"
MatchIsTouchpad "on"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Option "FingerLow" "10"
Option "FingerHigh" "16"
EndSection

8. after saving conf reboot

[redhern]

I can confirm that it does work!

[igoogledit]

I'm not able to get this working. I've flashed the John Lewis BIOS and try to boot the Kali 1.0.9a image. I get the loader screen which allows me to select what I'd like to boot, but after proceeding to (Live), I get a beep and then a black screen with a blinking white cursor. Safe mode doesn't work and I also tried setting the memory value which didn't change anything. Anyone have any tips?

[zoggnoff]

I get the loader screen which allows me to select what I'd like to boot, but after proceeding to (Live), I get a beep and then a black screen with a blinking white cursor. Safe mode doesn't work and I also tried setting the memory value which didn't change anything.

could be image, could be media, could be software used to burn image. i would check md5 sums if possible, burn with different software and use a different stick. Don't be fooled by a loader screen--that's no indication of a healthy installation media.
i know that OpenSuSE uses their own image writer so for whatever reason some images are very picky on how you burn them.

some distros have an integrity check, use it when and if you can and always check those md5 or sha1 sums when possible.