Samsung XE303C12 / Ctrl-U not booting

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Samsung XE303C12 / Ctrl-U not booting

Postby timsan » Fri Feb 26, 2021 5:26 am

Hi All,

Hardware: Samsung XE303C12

Problem: When pressing Ctrl-U to boot into ArchLinuxARM, it does not boot into the OS rather it gives a 'beep' and does nothing.

I tried:

1) Reinstalling Arch on the microSD card (no result)
2) Using another microSD card (no result)
3) Using a 16 gb USB drive (no result).

This problem appeared at the beginning of February after a pacman -Syu and with the latest OS (from Feb 5), the OS will not boot on the Samsung XE303C12. Ctrl-D works just fine.

Thanks, t.
timsan
 
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Re: Samsung XE303C12 / Ctrl-U not booting

Postby stronnag » Mon Mar 01, 2021 3:14 pm

^D does not work if you have Arch on the internal drive.
The problem started with kernel 5.11 (and continues with 5.11.2)
The bootloader complains that is cannot find a Chomeos compatible image "The device you inserted does not contain Chrome OS").

Reverted to 5.10 and it all works again.
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Re: Samsung XE303C12 / Ctrl-U not booting

Postby m040601 » Tue Mar 02, 2021 5:04 am

This was first reported, here, also Samsung XE303C12:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')linux-armv7 kernel 5.10.16 to 5.11.0 cant boot chromebook
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=15148
m040601
 
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Re: Samsung XE303C12 / Ctrl-U not booting

Postby ak404 » Sun Mar 07, 2021 12:29 pm

I dont use arch linux but if you need it working see if the protections screw is not in contact with anything (the cover) and you should be able to boot into the usb..
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Re: Samsung XE303C12 / Ctrl-U not booting

Postby murph » Wed Mar 17, 2021 2:19 am

I've run into the same problem, update with pacman -Syu, machine does not boot, just a beep after <ctrl>u

I have an image of a 5.8.(something) system that I made a while ago.

If I recopy that back to an SD card, it boots off of it just fine, So no hardware issue, no bad card. Tried a different card with the same results)

If I try to re-update, back to just a beep.

I've seen this once before, but I just waited it out, after a while I re-flashed, updated, and it worked.

It's been a while now though.
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Re: Samsung XE303C12 / Ctrl-U not booting

Postby mind5t0rm » Sat Mar 27, 2021 6:38 am

I'm also in the same situation.

I was wondering if there is a way to downgrade/upgrade the kernel on my microSD without erasing everything?

I've done a lot of customizations that I wouldn't want to lose.

Thank you for your help.
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Re: Samsung XE303C12 / Ctrl-U not booting

Postby murph » Sun Mar 28, 2021 4:46 pm

Has anyone had any luck isolating this? I'm going to try another upgrade, but without reflashing the new image. (It's always presented as an option, with a command to do it later.)

It's been a while, I'd like to be able to upgrade and use this laptop a bit.

Thanks.
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Re: Samsung XE303C12 / Ctrl-U not booting

Postby mind5t0rm » Tue Mar 30, 2021 10:17 am

Hey there

Did you manage to isolate and update without re-flashing?

Let us know the steps so we can try it too.

Thank you very much
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Re: Samsung XE303C12 / Ctrl-U not booting

Postby murph » Fri Apr 02, 2021 10:55 pm

No dice. I did the upgrade, did not flash the new image, it still bombed out at <ctl>u

I'm trying a full upgrade today. We'll see if it works.
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Re: Samsung XE303C12 / Ctrl-U not booting

Postby m3lang3 » Sat Apr 03, 2021 7:29 am

I went back to a 5.8 kernel on my Chromebook as that's what I had lying around in /var/cache/pacman/pkg. I've added linux-armv7 linux-armv7-chromebook to the IgnorePkgs line in /etc/pacman.conf for now. I can't find older kernel packages, so I'll be trying to build the 5.10.16 kernel myself.

Maybe someone should link this thread in viewforum.php?f=23 ? I get the feeling they may not read this section.

Here's some step-by-step things that might be useful to others in the same boat.

- follow the directions to create a bootable USB key on the Installation tab here: https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv ... chromebook EDIT: At this time, the kernel in the installation archive is 5.10.13, which works.
- Plug it into the black (not blue) USB slot and hit ctrl-U when booting.
- Do not run pacman -Syu in the USB booted environment! This would upgrade the kernel on the USB key and render it useless (at least until this problem is fixed).
- Connect to the internet. There's a command listed on the installation page. I have a USB Ethernet dongle for this machine, so instead I did: ifconfig eth0 up; dhcpcd
- Get arch-chroot: pacman -Su arch-install-scripts
- mount /dev/mmcblk0p2 /mnt; arch-chroot /mnt
- (note, you should be in the chroot now) cd /var/cache/pacman/pkg; ls -l linux*
- Pick the newest kernel available: pacman -U linux-armv7-5.x.x-1-armv7h.pkg.tar.gz && pacman -U linux-armv7-chromebook-5.x.x-1-armv7h.pkg.tar.gz
- shutdown -r now

Anyway, to build 5.10.16, I'm following these directions: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ke ... ild_System I made a dir on my USB key to compile (yes, this will take days; not a lot of space on mmcblk0p2), saved this https://raw.githubusercontent.com/archl ... 7/PKGBUILD as PKGBUILD, and am going to start looking for all the patches listed in the PKGBUILD that it needs...tomorrow.
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