Acer C7: Anyone else have one?

**AlstonA** · January 13th, 2013

Originally Posted by Warpnow

I picked an Acer C7 Chromebook knowing I could install ubuntu on it. Other than the firmware giving me a nasty message that I've disabled OS verification it works seemingly perfect so far. Haven't tested bluetooth or video out yet though.

Essentially, for $199 you get:

-No Windows
-Dual Core Intel CPU that while not a speed demon, isn't a slouch.
-Webcam
-1366x768 resolution LCD, way better than the 1024x600 ones in netbooks before it.

To me it might be the perfect ubuntu laptop for the price. Anyone else picked one up?

Wondering if anyone's tried to put grub on it. Right now custom scripts boot into chrome or ubuntu per the developer of Chrubuntu's guide. Wondering if anyone knew why grub wasn't used.

Also wondering if anyone's found a better driver for the trackpad. A little frustrating when right clicking.

I just installed this yesterday on my Chromebook and the only problem I seem to be having is that is crashes and displays an out of memory message. I may have to format and re-install it again to get it to work.

**Joespower** · January 18th, 2013

I have the C7 and I've installed chrUbuntu, but I noticed the chrUbuntu install doesn't create a swap partition. I'm sure that would help out with the "out of memory" errors. My interest in creating one is to see if it will allow me to turn on hibernation. Has anyone attempted this yet? Is it difficult (I'm pretty green)...

**AlphaLupi** · February 8th, 2013

I should update from what I said earlier:

DO NOT install an SSD in an Acer C7 Chromebook. It turns out that the C7 BIOS does not support SSD's at all.
Mine kept locking up for no apparent reason. I thought it was a flaw in the Chrubuntu script or something I'd done to it or a problem with the SSD itself. But after talking to the manufacturer, I figured out that the SSD was fine and it was the C7 itself that was causing the problem.
I finally fixed the issue by replacing it with another HDD and now everything's fine.

Sorry for any confusion I caused.

**rickyrockrat** · February 11th, 2013

How do you right-click, anybody? ED: two finger click @ bottom middle. How do you middle-button press??

I'm running a C7 stock with xfce4, and it's quite snappy. A SSD will run, but you have to have the right specifications for it. Check the chromeos developer forums.

A swap can be added, but it will require re-partitioning the drive. When I figure it out, I'll let you know. You will have to use gdisk, since the drive is GPT.

Anybody have a USB mouse working? It seems that someone somewhere broke USB mouse detection. I have a 3.0.4 kernel that the mouse works fine, but 3.4.0 doesn't. It sees it, but fails to detect it as a mouse.

**catco_designs** · February 21st, 2013

I have one. The Acer Chromebook C7 the standard $199 model

I installed the Chrubuntu 12.04 build and I love it.

IMHO Chrome OS is very limited.

The only issues I have are
Trackpad (right/left click) function ;works well with external mouse
OS verification screen requires Ctrl+d to bypass or wait for 30+ seconds to boot

What I do like
several full size usb ports
vga port and ethernet port

for the money not a bad netbook

**Sinsinnati** · March 27th, 2013

I just invested in the C7. Pretty good buy. But there are some bugs to be worked out and that makes it a little more advanced than other machines I've gotten used to over the years. Thankfully, there's always an answer. Right now I'm getting weird messages about repositories when I go to update. So I just unquoted all of the repos, updated and it seems to be working fine.

**thetechguy911** · March 31st, 2013

Hello Warpnow. I have also picked up a C7 and it runs chrubuntu great.
By the way Alphalupi, if you want to wipe your ubuntu partition, turn os verification on, then, plug a 4gb of more flash drive into your computer, then type this in the ominibox
chrome://imageburner
and follow the instructions.
After it tells you that you can remove the flash drive, press esc and F3 together while pressing the power button.
after your device has been restored, reinstall chrubuntu

**rickyrockrat** · 4 Weeks Ago

So I've found some interesting things out. First, NFS is not built into the kernel, and many of the drivers are not built, even as modules, so I built my own kernel. Here's how I did it. I've attached the files that I used, except I changed a few things in linux-build.txt I built all of the code in my $HOME/src directory.
BACK UP before you start:
I backed up /boot and /lib/modules/3.4.0 like so:
cd /
sudo cp -a boot boot.orig
cd lib/modules
sudo cp -a 3.4.0 3.4.0.orig
sudo dd if=/dev/sda6 of=/kernel.orig

You need the keys from the chromeos:
mkdir m
sudo mount -o ro /dev/sda3 m
sudo cp -a m/usr/share/vboot to /usr/share
sudo umount m

The git clone of the kernel is pulling the Linux kernel from GIT, and it's about 1.2G, so it will take some time to download.
If you want to keep the kernel pristine, at the level you did the git command (lndir -> apt-get install xutils-dev), do:
mkdir -p build/kernel
cd build/kernel
lndir ../../kernel
Then run all the commads from there: make oldconfig/make-kpkg kernel_image kernel_headers
In linux-build.txt, Ignore the patch of the base.config, and instead copy the chromiuos-3.4.0.config to .config in the kernel build directory, then do:

make oldconfig

Ignore the part where it does the vbutil_kernel --verify, and use the kernel-cmd.txt file in place of the config-$tstamp.txt

The above config and kernel command line fix drivers not loading, and of course give you a ton more input drivers (for mice and such). This was why one of my USB mice would not work - no driver built. I also added NTFS file systems and other basic optional drivers.

If for some reason the vbuil tools don't work as copied, do this:
sudo apt-get install libyaml-dev liblz-dev liblzma-dev lzma-dev uuid-dev libssl-dev libtspi-dev
git clone http://git.chromium.org/chromiumos/p..._reference.git
cd vboot_reference
make
sudo make install
Cheers!

**TBABill** · 2 Weeks Ago

I have had a Chromebook C7 for months now but ChromeOS is just too limited in abilities for times when I need to work on large spreadsheets or word documents. I thought I could get by with Google Docs, or even Skydrive, but we have some business spreadsheets that just bring it to a slow crawl. I installed 12.04 and it was ok, but Unity was still a large drain. I installed the PPA for cinnamon and I feel like I'm back in Mint heaven again. The desktop is fast and everything works great.

I also installed the Ubuntu Tweak PPA so I could get natural scrolling back. After so long on a Macbook Pro, scrolling in Linux feels so backwards. For some reason I can manage it just fine on a Windows mouse wheel, but in two finger scrolling I feel like I have to retrain my brain. Then I'd grab a Macbook again and feel lost again. Natural scrolling took care of it and Ubuntu Tweak has so much to offer besides just that.

Anyway, loving my C7 with Ubuntu. I'm sure 13.04 is much nicer since it's Unity version is less resource hungry, but I'm not confident enough with Ubuntu on a Chromebook to be willing to attempt 2 upgrades. On a normal machine I would, but it's a lot more work to get it on a Chromebook and working properly. I hate upgrades anyway and prefer fresh installs....look at me just talking myself out of changing anything!