Weekend firmware hacking gets Ubuntu running on a Lenovo IdeaPad Duet
Running Ubuntu on the Lenovo IdeaPad Duet
After postmarketOS 26.06 broke boot on his Lenovo IdeaPad Duet Chromebook, Valentin Haudiquet—now working on Ubuntu bring-up at Canonical—spent a weekend replacing the rootfs and hacking U-Boot. He discovered Depthcharge loads a FIT image from a hidden ChromeOS kernel partition, not the /boot partition, and that Ubuntu requires a UEFI environment. The result: a working Ubuntu install on the ARM64 tablet.
I expected everything to crash, nothing to work, since I didn't know the bootloader and assumed the kernel wouldn't get the right DTB. I rebooted. To my surprise, the machine booted normally.
- denysvitali
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
[2]: https://x.com/DenysVitali/status/2091238391710888416
[3]: https://github.com/pixelc-linux/documentation
[4]: https://docs.postmarketos.org/policies-and-processes/develop...
- edg5000
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.
- aljgz
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.
- mkesper
For x86 based ChromeOS devices check https://docs.mrchromebox.tech/docs/supported-devices.html
It allows installing a standard UEFI environment if supported.
- stratosmacker
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!