Bug#950687: ITP: depthcharge-tools -- Tools to manage the Chrome OS bootloader
Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist
Owner: Alper Nebi Yasak <alpernebiyasak@gmail.com>
X-Debbugs-Cc: debian-devel@lists.debian.org
* Package name : depthcharge-tools
Version : 0.3.0
Upstream Author : Alper Nebi Yasak <alpernebiyasak@gmail.com>
* URL : http://github.com/alpernebbi/depthcharge-tools
* License : GPL-2.0+
Programming Lang: sh
Description : Tools to manage the Chrome OS bootloader
This project is a collection of tools that ease and automate
interacting with depthcharge, the ChromeOS bootloader. Depthcharge is
built into the firmware of ChromeOS machines, uses a custom verified
boot flow and usually cannot boot other operating systems as is. This
means someone who wants to use e.g. Debian on these machines need to
either replace the firmware or work their system into the format
depthcharge expects. These tools are about the latter.
This is the main part of my attempt to get Debian and Debian installer
to work on ChromeOS devices with stock firmware. What I'm aiming for is
a fully automated solution that makes installing and using Debian on
these systems as easy as doing so on ordinary x86 laptops. Right now it
only supports the one arm64 chromebook I own, but I hope this project
can evolve to be the go-to solution for running Linux on these devices
in the future.
For most x86 models people usually flash third-party firmware, but such
an option is not readily available for ARM ones. Other than that, users
have to jump through a lot of hoops just to get a bootable system, and
still have to do device-specific work on every kernel/initramfs change.
Although not included in that specific repo, I've also implemented a
Debian installer step and Debian-specific integration to fully automate
ChromeOS bootloader management from the installed system. These are
available on salsa [0]. I have been using my system with these over the
course of multiple kernel upgrades already.
It's similar to flash-kernel in its purpose, so I'm OK with maintaining
this under the installer team (though I don't want to cause them too
much work, so I'm also OK with maintaining it myself). I need a sponsor
and will file an RFS soon.
[0] https://salsa.debian.org/alpernebbi-guest/depthcharge-tools
Reply to: