How to go into developer mode in chromebook with bad keyboard?

[wizard]

@mouldy

I hope she at least tries BookwormPup. I was going to put MINT on there at the end of the SSD, cause it probably feel little more familiar to casual windows user

Years ago I worked on a project that refurbished computers and donated them to non-profits and schools. Installed Puppy on some but found that if it was to "foreign" it was abandoned. The answer was to make the look and feel as familiar as possible, so we changed the wallpaper, icon labels, etc., then added additional help files to make doing common task as close to what the user was accustomed to.

Also why I'm a proponent of packaging more help files with Puppy. If you're interested, added help files for F96CE_4 and BW64 can be found here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/wizard ... t/download
https://sourceforge.net/projects/wizard ... t/download

f95-W11.png (411.59 KiB) Viewed 1273 times

wizard

[mouldy]

Yea unfortunately lot of the charity stuff isnt valued. The theory being if its free, how good can it be, especially if its "different".

Honestly as phone centric as people are anymore, might be more productive to install PrimeOS or BlissOS, android maybe being even more familiar to people than windows. Course unless its a touch screen, they are going to find it bit clunky with mouse and keyboard.

Or I suppose that FlexOS that Google offers for old windows and mac machines. Oddly they dont like people putting it on EOL chromebooks.... LOL

My friend uses a Tracfone and didnt appreciate them forcing her to upgrade to smartphone. So android not a consideration for her. And she isnt interested in a chromebook.

Actually I think if you can get somebody to actually try linux for a while that they find out its not some DOS-like wannabe stuck in the early 90s, though obviously the commandline gives user lot power and options.

[mouldy]

Got my pkt of four m.2 wifi to m.2 nvme adapters. $2.50 each this time since I ordered 4 but still the long wait for the slow boat from you know where.. Put one in the HP Stream along with a 256GB nvme ssd. Yea the youtube was right, you need rEFInd with the nvme driver to boot anything on the added drive. I first got it working going through the EFI boot menues... after pushing F9. But some tinkering and now first screen when I turn on the Stream is rEFInd screen. Push the windows icon and it boots Tiny10 on the eMMC. Push the linux icon and it boots BookwormPup on the nvme. Probably can be cleaned up further as it has some dummy spaces that if clicked wont do diddly. And could shorten boot delays to minimal. Nice. Not a fan of this N3060 celeron after playing with my friends computer with the N5095. This Stream seems only slightly faster than that N2840 on the converted Dell chromebook. Youtube videos kinda sluggish in Tiny10, not as choppy as with windows on the Dell, but still playing catchup, but do fine with Puppy on the nvme. Oh this stream is the ax 14 model so the RAM can be upgraded from one 4GB stick RAM to one 8GB stick RAM. Oh and it was hot so checked the heat sink. Yea the thermal grease had dried out so redid that and ran lot cooler.

[mouldy]

I was just wondering why the N3060 seems even slower than the N2840 sometimes. I think its the heat. BookwormPup on both. Its showing under 30C temp on the N2840. Literally twice that on the N3060. Yea even after the new thermal grease. Now luckily the converted Dell chromebook with the N2840 has 4GB RAM. Lot of the netbooks with the N2840 only had 2GB RAM. BookwormPup64 idling takes 1.24GB RAM. Gosh I still remember running early Puppy on old computer with less than 32MB RAM.....

[wizard]

@mouldy
The perception of "speed" is complex, depending on a lot of factors. You might try running some of the benchmarks in HardInfo.

Also: wizard's rule #12 "All computer hardware is not created equal"

wizard

[bigpup]

BookwormPup64 idling takes 1.24GB RAM. Gosh I still remember running early Puppy on old computer with less than 32MB RAM.....

Welcome to everything is larger in size and uses more memory.

How BookwormPup64 actually controls memory usage, is vastly different, than the days when Puppy worked on 32MB of RAM.
When Puppy was around 50MB in total size and setup to use that low an amount of memory.
That amount of memory could not even run a modern web browser today.

Linux in general has changed how memory is controlled.

BookwormPup64 is now using zram for swap.
That changes the complete way memory is used.

Read about zram to understand it better.

[mouldy]

@mouldy
The perception of "speed" is complex, depending on a lot of factors. You might try running some of the benchmarks in HardInfo.

Also: wizard's rule #12 "All computer hardware is not created equal"

wizard

Ah but perception is everything. Just cause some test says one is faster in some composite of tests, if it doesnt feel faster the way I use it, exactly what good does that do me? I am still going to avoid using it cause well it feels clunky. And yea some processors might be faster doing some things but slower doing other things in direct comparison. So which is more important? If it feels faster over all to me in the way I use it, then thats what matters.

Now my friends N5095 is four core processor. This was interesting. Just from playing bit with different systems on it, would say some systems are better tuned to take advantage of more than 2 cores. Full Ubuntu really flew on that thing and I am not a fan of Gnome or Ubuntu. Now guess I never tried Ubuntu derivatives on it. Been interesting to see Lubuntu and Bodhi on it. MINT was ok but not as snappy feeling as full Ubuntu. Hmm, also should tried Fedora with Gnome. See if Gnome is part of it.

[mouldy]

BookwormPup64 idling takes 1.24GB RAM. Gosh I still remember running early Puppy on old computer with less than 32MB RAM.....

Welcome to everything is larger in size and uses more memory.

How BookwormPup64 actually controls memory usage, is vastly different, than the days when Puppy worked on 32MB of RAM.
When Puppy was around 50MB in total size and setup to use that low an amount of memory.
That amount of memory could not even run a modern web browser today.

Linux in general has changed how memory is controlled.

BookwormPup64 is now using zram for swap.
That changes the complete way memory is used.

Read about zram to understand it better.

LOL, yea I have been around long enough to see the progression of bloat. I had an Ascentia laptop that had win95 on it, the early version without IE and installed via series of floppies. It had some proprietary video card that linux didnt support. BeOS could run but with a black and white only screen. Win98 would run but slowed it to a crawl...

As experiment I even once installed win95 on was it a 286 or might been a 386, too long ago. My gosh you should heard that thing constantly thrashing the hard drive with swap files just trying to boot and idle. I dont remember RAM it had but it werent much. It did finally boot, and could play couple very simple games, but that was about it. Yea, computer abuse, but hey had to try.... LOL

Think same thing happened to any system that stuck around long enough to bloat up.

I think true of any system that sticks around long enough to bloat up.

[mouldy]

Cant win them all. Got the mPCIE to m.2 nvme adapter, the one with a ribbon. Nope, the D430 not having anything to do with it. Tried it in wwan and wlan slots, and just flashes lights, wont boot. So Clover never has a chance. The Dell somehow can tell that the correct card is not in the slot. Now there is that other one that I would have to nest but not looking like it will show. They gave it a fake tracking number. So likely when the extended delivery time allowed by ebay is up, have to get ebay to pry back a refund. These adapters are always kinda crap shoot whether they will work as I think some of sellers are clueless as to what they are selling. The ones to go from M.2 wifi to M.2 nvme do definitely work and work well.

[rcrsn51]

Read how I did this in the Daedalus Starter Kit project. May 29, 2024

[mouldy]

Read how I did this in the Daedalus Starter Kit project. May 29, 2024

Thats great, but like I say, the D430 just blinks its lights at me with the adapter + nvme ssd. It doesnt post or anything. I took out the nvme and it boots normally, but that doesnt help. The problem isnt that the nvme doesnt boot an operating system, its that the computer wont post with it installed in the adapter. Yes tried it in both the wlan socket and the wwan socket. Not all that important to get it working, was just curious how much it would speed it up. It has an old PATA ZIF drive now. Always liked that laptop, but its just aged out and quite slow.

[rcrsn51]

Any chance that you can disable wifi in the BIOS?

[mouldy]

It looks like I can disable wlan and wwan in bios. However looks like it needs a new cmos battery, it reverts to default on reboot. But yea if it expects a wifi card or wwan card and finds a something else, its no doubt confused. May even have only some whitelisted cards it accepts.

[dancytron]

@mouldy
The perception of "speed" is complex, depending on a lot of factors. You might try running some of the benchmarks in HardInfo.

Also: wizard's rule #12 "All computer hardware is not created equal"

wizard

I find turning off all the animation and compositing makes slow computers seem faster. Same with phones.

[rcrsn51]

It looks like I can disable wlan and wwan in bios. However looks like it needs a new cmos battery, it reverts to default on reboot.

I would be interested in hearing how this turns out. I suspect that my success may have been a fluke. It certainly would NOT work with Lenovo, who whitelists their wifi adapters. And many laptops with half-height adapters would not have the room to cram in the extra hardware.

I checked the product description of my purchase on ebay. It states that the intended purpose is for a temporary file transfer tool. You could move the content on the nvme drive into another computer via the wifi socket (instead of putting it in a USB enclosure). This strikes me as a cute idea without much practical value.

[mouldy]

The m.2 wifi to m.2 nvme adapters work both in the converted chromebooks (with mrchromebox uefi bios) and on the HP Stream "ax" model with m.2 wifi, had too use rEFInd. This is first I have tried mpcie wifi to nvme ssd.

Now think I posted this link before. The earliest HP Streams had mpcie wifi cards as did lot older laptops, and there is a youtube of a Chinese guy using an adapter to install a mSATA card in it. He gave link to card he used but it was a China only site and of course all in Chinese. The ONLY mpcie to mSATA adapter I found were for old Asus EEE laptops. They came with some proprietary oddball mpcie flash drive. The adapter let you replace that with an mSATA ssd. Whether it would work in anything else???

But there really isnt any guarantee of universality about any adapter. You might get lucky, you might not. And if the manufacturer whitelists the cards that can work in a particular socket, then out of luck I suspect. And I havent seen anybody using one of these adapters like I tried on the Dell D430, its mpcie to nvme. Which maybe asking a little too much. mpcie to msata or m.2 sata probably easier.

As popular as this work around has become with HP Streams, wouldnt surprise me if they whitelisted cards that can work in wifi socket on newer models or on bios updates for older models. Cause they really dont want people expanding storage capabilities on these. Whole idea was to force people to do everything online. Like a chromebook.

I will put new cmos battery in the D430 and give it a try to see if shutting off the wifi/wwan helps. Not buying one of the ten dollar batteries, just solder leads from exisiting one to a bare $1 battery and wrap with tape. None of this is probably economically worthwhile when you can buy a much more powerful laptop for $20 to $40. One that can be easily upgraded, unlike the limited use throwaways.

Now suppose another way to go would be to edit the bios, but thats pretty iffy. Its one thing to use a pre-written bios like mrchromebook but another thing to edit the existing bios to try and change its limitations.

[mouldy]

Ok some batteries cant be soldered... Its never great idea, they usually spot weld leads to a battery. But anyway, after ruining one of those coin batteries I just taped the heck out of leads to the next one. This was good enough. Settings held on reboot.

So with wlan and wwan OFF, I still got the three little lights that stayed on and it wouldnt post with adapter in either slot. So thats that. They must have the mpcie slots whitelisted to certain cards I assume. Its a Dell and they even get obnoxious if you use a non-Dell power supply. Hey Dell dudes, get a life, jeesh.

Only way to upgrade drive on this Dell would be to get one of those ZIF to mSATA converters. No room for a 2.5in drive, have to be mSATA or m.2 sata. And as much as I hate saying it, probably not worth it. Do all that and still have something slower than one of those $10 chromebooks with celeron N2840. Or certainly no better. Shame as I really like the trackpad and keyboard on the D430. I do not like the trackpads on the netbooks/cloudbook/chromebooks, though have couple chromebooks where the keyboard isnt too bad. But modern trackpads, especially low end ones truly suck. Why they thought copying the mac trackpads and the super skinny laptop profile was a good idea.... same genius that thought skinny jeans were a good idea.

[wizard]

@mouldy

Did you already look at something like this for the D430?
https://www.amazon.com/Luejnbogty-Msata ... 127&sr=8-1

Here's a howto on a conversion showing before/after speeds:
http://vastmeridian.blogspot.com/2014/1 ... aptop.html

wizard

[rcrsn51]

This whole exercise is a mystery to me. Some business in China was able to design and manufacture these cables without any clearly defined purpose or target market, then sell the occasional unit to hobbyists like us, and ship them halfway around the world for almost nothing.

How is there any profit to be made here? There must be a whole lot of people buying these cables who can't get them to work and just scrap them.

[mouldy]

This whole exercise is a mystery to me. Some business in China was able to design and manufacture these cables without any clearly defined purpose or target market, then sell the occasional unit to hobbyists like us, and ship them halfway around the world for almost nothing.

How is there any profit to be made here? There must be a whole lot of people buying these cables who can't get them to work and just scrap them.

I think they probably work on some computers, but not universal. I have had no problems with the m.2 wifi to m.2 nvme adapters. They have worked on both the chromebooks converted via mrchromebox UEFI and on that "ax" HP Stream. The fellow in the above video had no problem with the mpcie wifi to msata ssd in the first generation HP Stream.

[mouldy]

@mouldy

Did you already look at something like this for the D430?
https://www.amazon.com/Luejnbogty-Msata ... 127&sr=8-1

Here's a howto on a conversion showing before/after speeds:
http://vastmeridian.blogspot.com/2014/1 ... aptop.html

wizard

Yes I was looking at it but I dont know that it would be worth it. As they point out in your referenced article, its a PATA interface so its not greatly faster. Somebody mentioned mpcie adapter to msata as alternative. But nobody got back with results. Somebody tried just sticking an mSATA ssd in the mpcie wifi slot but of course that wouldnt work. I do wonder if that Asus EEE adapter would work. I cant find one like the Chinese guy used in the video. The ones for the Asus EEE seem only ones easily available from Ebay, etc.

And of course one comes back to the D430 having significantly slower passmark score than even the older chromebooks/cloudbooks with that N2840. I mean if you are patient you can get one of those for $10, the whole laptop. And the m.2 wifi slot with adapter can use nvme ssd.

[wizard]

@mouldy

Here's the speed test for the zif conversion:

Screenshot(2).jpg (19.31 KiB) Viewed 924 times

Looks considerably faster, though not like a m.2

Probably worth it if you really like the keyboard/trackpad.

wizard

[mouldy]

Been reading more and I am starting to suspect the reason the mpcie to nvme adapter didnt work is because this is earlier generation mpcie. Remember the D430 has PATA bus interface. Guessing this adapter I bought, might well work on say that first generation HP Stream 13 in the video, which is probably SATA based even though it has no actual SATA port. Nobody seems to want to give lot detail in descriptions. And the devil is always in the details.

Trying to retrofit either older tech or low end tech kinda depends on sentimentality vs economics. You can make some of this stuff usable for basic 2024 uses, but its never going to be "fast" or have a long term future. And for not much more than this kind computer, plus upgrades like this costs, you can buy a much more powerful computer. Which begs the question, ok can see say an HP Stream if you can buy it for $20 or less, add an adapter and 256GB nvme ssd for another $20. But how the heck do they sell new ones for like $300? They sort of filled a niche when they sold new on sale for $100, but $300+????? Kinda like the Yugo car did few decades back. Whats worse the sort person that can make one useful is not the person that is going to buy one new. Same way no mechanic would have ever bought a Yugo. Person that buys one new is going to try and use it as it came from the factory and has been brainwashed to think they need 5 virus programs and to allow all the marketing bloat from M$ "for security reasons" and "to be safe". Its a crazy world. Even worse tech writers that should know better, promote this type thinking, along with the idea that everybody needs the latest greatest gaming computer for beaucoup bucks. But guess sales of this stuff new is what pays their salaries in the end. You rarely see truly consumer based reviews, its more sales hype than serious consumer review.

[mouldy]

2. Please make sure that the MINI PCIe slot of your motherboard supports pcie. Slots with the same appearance support different protocols. For example, some slots can only recognize hard disks, some slots can only recognize WiFi wireless network cards, and some slots can only recognize wireless network cards. The slot can only recognize 3G 4G wireless network card. If your machine’s MINI PCIe slot can recognize WiFi wireless network card, it can basically be judged that it supports PCIe protocol. In theory, this product can be used, but because of compatibility issues, it is not guaranteed to support MINI PCIe slot PCIe protocol will definitely work! The MINI PCIe slot of many old machines cannot recognize NVMe hard drives.

It does make one wonder if mpcie slot of old machines can recognize msata? It does indeed get complicated with details, things that look alike dont necessarily have same capabilities. And indeed no adapter can do everything. Now since we already know that the ZIF to mSATA adapter does work on the D430, well it can deal with SATA so possibly a mpcie to msata adapter could work where the mpcie to nvme wont. Besides just pure curiosity would be nice if msata from mpcie works, then could keep the ZIF for storage. Oh there are adapters to plug in a ZIF drive and convert it to SATA interface, so you can theoretically use ZIF drive on computer without ZIF interface.

Oh and since I rigged a cmos battery that holds settings, it is more pleasant to use even with puppy on the ZIF drive. Its just slow. Not like you can read a novel while page loads or anything, but its not exactly snappy and imagine complicated web pages would time out. But definitely usable for email and light surfing, well better than nothing. Maxxes out the processor pretty fast and with 2GB RAM gets into the swap. This is probably about like last of the pre-chromebook win7 netbooks, when they got the dual core ATOM processors.

[mouldy]

Found this old 2012 thread. Yea looks like Dell was rather anal about controlling how one used the mpcie slots. Doesnt surprise me as they get testy if you use a non-Dell power supply.

Jan 11, 2012

I spent a couple hours reading BIOS modding posts. I did some practice by flashing my old Dell d430 with a modded BIOS. Now I feel sufficiently clueless to start asking questions.

(1) Most of the more interesting posts (including sticky) originate from 2009, although some threads are thousands of pages long up to the current date. It's hard to digest the history and content of these huge threads. Most links for modding tools are dead. Is there a current post or thread that shows availability of the latest generation of BIOS modding tools?

(2) I am trying to put a mPCIe SSD into my Dell Latitude e6220 with factory BIOS A02. The SuperTalent mPCIe SSD is actually a native mPCIe card (not a mSATA) with an integrated SATA controller. Upon first boot, the BIOS picked up the drive and POSTed. Windows wouldn't boot, but I successfully booted Unbuntu from USB. Subsequent boots won't POST anymore unless I remove the card. So I suspect there is a whitelist preventing POSTing with a non-authorized mPCIe card (but why did it POST the first few times?). Any opinions?

Thanks.

[wizard]

@mouldy

It does indeed get complicated with details, things that look alike dont necessarily have same capabilities.

Yes, the whole m.2 spec is a maze of confusing choices to work through.

wizard

[rcrsn51]

@mouldy Do you have another wifi card that you could plug into the D430? That would tell you if it's using a whitelist.

[mouldy]

@mouldy Do you have another wifi card that you could plug into the D430? That would tell you if it's using a whitelist.

Bingo. Just thought of that thin client. Has a mpcie wifi shorty card but that should work. Plus top on it wasnt screwed down so no digging to get to it. Thin clients and NUCs nice as things more accessible than on a laptop. So next time downstairs can try it in the Dell. If it doesnt post, then yea pretty sure the Dell has a whitelist. If it does boot, then still could mean the mpcie slot is restricted to only wifi cards. Yea no idea why anybody would go to all the trouble to micromanage stuff that few people will bother to ever try to use for unintended purposes, but they do. One wishes they would put all that effort into something that actually made the computer work better.

[mouldy]

Ok, the native card was a Broadcom B43. The one from the thin client was an Atheros. So after re-enabling wifi on the D430, booted Puppy with the Atheros. It saw it and was able to try using it. I didnt set up a hotspot to see if it could actually use it, but it was able to use it to search so assume it probably would work. I also didnt want to mess with the tiny antenna wires. Guy who designed those was sadistic.

Meaning either the Atheros is whitelisted for the D430 or that all mpcie wifi cards work in the slot, that perhaps the slot is restricted to only wifi cards. Or could be it just didnt like the adapter trying to use nvme ssd and it might work with a mpcie to msata adapter and card. Take your pick. It would be interesting to see if an mpcie to msata adapter and msata ssd would work. Those mpcie data cards like guy I quoted too rare and expensive to be worth trying. Though such would take any adapter stumbling blocks out of the equation.

Now who knows in 2024 but did see mentioned in threads that some msata ssds work in adapter and some dont. Again this was dozen or more years ago. Maybe more standardized now.

[mouldy]

Ok, was curious enough just ordered a mpcie to msata card, one of those sold for Asus EEEpc cause seriously couldnt find any others, that one the Chinese guy used on his HP Stream is a rare bird, least far as being sold in USA. Who knows how universal, may actually only work on that old Asus, but??? Anyway $3.35 later... Now another 3 to 4 week boat ride.... But hey when you can satisfy your curiosity for $3... Lucky to find cup coffee for that anymore. I have some small msata cards so dont need to buy an msata card. If I were going to use it then would buy larger one.