Replies: 10 comments 23 replies
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note: i am not a maintainer first, i would recommend moving away from using an llm. i don't mean that you need to immediately stop and do it yourself, i mean that you should use online documentation and stuff instead, and using it more and more over time will help you learn about linux and nix. that aside (and to be clear, i mean "first" as in my first part, not that you need to do it before this second part) - i believe the reposity you are looking for is ading2210/chromeos-systemd. good luck! |
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Thanks for letting me know, I'll try to limit LLM usage only explaining how the scripts may process rootfs in shimboot. I first have to understand how debian rootfs is created, and see if I'm able to do the same with nixos. It doesn't seem simple so far due to it's non-FHS filestructure. I'm also having trouble patching systemd on newer builds, so maybe I'll have to look into what the patch is supposed to do on debian configuration before seeing if it could be implemented on newer systemd builds or using a specific version on nixos. |
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For this to be realistic, you need to be able to host a repository with prebuilt versions of the patched systemd packages. This is what is already done with Debian. Otherwise you'd have to compile everything on the Chromebook and that would be a big pain. I don't know too much about NixOS, but I suspect that its design might hinder you here. You need to swap out all systemd packages for the patched versions. However, in NixOS, many things like the package paths, are dependent on the package's hash rather than just the name. Also, if you just want to run Hyprland, you can use Debian unstable. https://packages.debian.org/sid/hyprland |
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Progress update: With assistance from LLMs, we began initializing a fork to use nix expressions (using existing scripts as a reference) in attempt to create and parse shimboot rootfs and kernel declaratively. I used a Nix overlay that applies the necessary I've also set up a public Cachix binary cache from the forked shimboot-nixos repo here: Right now, I'm trying to see if I can use buildFHSEnv in attempt to construct a FHS rootfs that looks like a standard Linux distro, but is declaratively built and reproducible. This FHS environment should contain the patched For the shim, I'll focus on I'm also simultaneously trying to familiarize the build processes used for Debian shimboot with READMEs and LLMs. It's honestly a lot to digest, especially with little to no programming experience, but hopefully it clarifies the process I need to take to get a shimbooted nixos running. The wip tree is on my fork here: https://github.com/PopCat19/shimboot-nixos/tree/nixos |
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Nice work, keep it up! |
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that's awesome! watching the repo, i'll check out what you're doing. |
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Progress update (It's 3am in my time, some things may be unclarified for now) : Using I then flashed ~
❯ sudo dd if=/home/popcat19/shimboot-nixos/shimboot_nixos.bin of=/dev/sdc bs=4M status=progress
[sudo] password for popcat19:
42+1 records in
42+1 records out
179306496 bytes (179 MB, 171 MiB) copied, 30.4468 s, 5.9 MB/s
~ took 34s
❯ lsblk /dev/sdc
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sdc 8:32 1 119.5G 0 disk
├─sdc1 8:33 1 1M 0 part
├─sdc2 8:34 1 32M 0 part
├─sdc3 8:35 1 32M 0 part
└─sdc4 8:36 1 104M 0 part
And a directory list of sdc4: ~
❯ sudo mount /dev/sdc4 /mnt
[sudo] password for popcat19:
~ took 3s
❯ eza -1 --icons=auto /mnt
bin
etc
example -> /nix/store/7aj2vhqlz3ws8c5rkri8m95j0hs602sx-systemd-257.5/example
lib
libexec -> /nix/store/87fck6hm17chxjq7badb11mq036zbyv9-coreutils-9.7/libexec
lost+found
sbin -> /nix/store/7aj2vhqlz3ws8c5rkri8m95j0hs602sx-systemd-257.5/sbin
share
~
❯
After mounting and pressing Initially, nixos wasn't present in the selection list, but after troubleshooting with LLMs and changing partition label to be recognized by the bootloader, it showed When I select nixos from the selector, the screen blackens (no backlight) and reboots back into exit developer mode screen. There, I'm thinking the issue is occurring because of I'll need to find a way to see if I can retrieve any crash dumps, or have logging in place to troubleshoot further. I also have to familiarize myself with what's expected to happen during Here's what Out of personal curiosity, I've tried selecting ChromeOS_ROOT-A with |
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After waking up with enough sanity, I finally noticed some problems that would've been obvious from the start. First, since the kernel is pretty old (~5.05), the shim kernel couldn't even mount / # ls newroot
/ # fdisk -l
Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT
Disk /dev/mmcblk1: 61063168 sectors, 1144M
Logical sector size: 512
Disk identifier (GUID): bcadfd17-be21-7348-b505-5002f0317a8e
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 61063134
Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Name
1 17076224 61063119 20.9G STATE
2 69 65604 32.0M KERN-A
3 8687616 17076223 4096M ROOT-A
4 65605 131140 32.0M KERN-B
5 299008 8687615 4096M ROOT-B
6 65 65 512 KERN-C
7 66 66 512 ROOT-C
8 135168 167935 16.0M OEM
9 67 67 512 reserved
10 68 68 512 reserved
11 64 64 512 RWFW
12 167936 299007 64.0M EFI-SYSTEM
Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT
Disk /dev/sda: 250626566 sectors, 3592M
Logical sector size: 512
Disk identifier (GUID): c699df9e-021f-4a9b-833d-541c217869db
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 2048, last usable sector is 350174
Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Name
1 2048 4095 1024K STATE
2 4096 69631 32.0M kernel
3 69632 135167 32.0M BOOT
4 135168 348159 104M shimboot_rootfs:nixos
/ # ls -la /dev/sda*
brw------- 1 0 8, 0 Jun 11 17:15 /dev/sda
brw------- 1 0 8, 1 Jun 11 17:15 /dev/sda1
brw------- 1 0 8, 2 Jun 11 17:15 /dev/sda2
brw------- 1 0 8, 3 Jun 11 17:15 /dev/sda3
brw------- 1 0 8, 4 Jun 11 17:15 /dev/sda4
/ # dmesg | tail -20
[ 1.628245] usb 1-8: new full-speed USB device number 3 using xhci_hcd
[ 1.756339] usb 1-8: New USB device found, idVendor=8087, idProduct=0026, bcdDevice= 0.02
[ 1.756356] usb 1-8: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=0, SerialNumber=0
[ 7.562860] scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access Samsung Flash Drive FIT 1100 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
[ 7.568771] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 250626566 512-byte logical blocks: (128 GB/120 GiB)
[ 7.569033] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[ 7.569042] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 43 00 00 00
[ 7.569195] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 7.579849] Alternate GPT is invalid, using primary GPT.
[ 7.579856] sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4
[ 7.580621] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI removable disk
[ 8.390908] EXT4-fs (sda3): mounting ext2 file system using the ext4 subsystem
[ 8.392459] EXT4-fs (sda3): mounted filesystem without journal. Opts: (null)
[ 33.819688] EXT4-fs (sda4): couldn't mount RDWR because of unsupported optional features (10000)
[ 33.819703] EXT4-fs (sda4): couldn't mount as ext3 due to feature incompatibilities
[ 33.820535] EXT4-fs (sda4): couldn't mount RDWR because of unsupported optional features (10000)
[ 33.820543] EXT4-fs (sda4): couldn't mount as ext2 due to feature incompatibilities
[ 33.821251] EXT4-fs (sda4): couldn't mount RDWR because of unsupported optional features (10000)
[ 62.562824] PDLOG 2025/06/11 17:15:36.623 P0 Disconnected
[ 62.563406] PDLOG 2025/06/11 17:15:36.624 P1 Disconnected
/ # blkid /dev/sda4
/dev/sda4: LABEL="ROOTFS" UUID="84a6d119-8c19-4064-ab77-1b80594810ac" TYPE="ext4"
/ # blkid | grep -i nixos
/ # blkid | grep shimboot
/ #
| mkfs.ext4 -L ROOTFS "${image_loop}p4"with mkfs.ext4 -L ROOTFS -O ^metadata_csum,^64bit "${image_loop}p4"to eliminate that compatibility issue. After rebuilding, flashing, and booting the image, / # dmesg | tail -20
[ 1.398806] usb-storage 2-3:1.0: Quirks match for vid 090c pid 1000: 400
[ 1.398826] scsi host0: usb-storage 2-3:1.0
[ 1.520963] usb 1-6: New USB device found, idVendor=0408, idProduct=5188, bcdDevice= 0.02
[ 1.520980] usb 1-6: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 1.520988] usb 1-6: Product: HP TrueVision HD Camera
[ 1.520995] usb 1-6: Manufacturer: Quanta
[ 1.521001] usb 1-6: SerialNumber: Quanta
[ 1.637305] usb 1-8: new full-speed USB device number 3 using xhci_hcd
[ 1.765337] usb 1-8: New USB device found, idVendor=8087, idProduct=0026, bcdDevice= 0.02
[ 1.765354] usb 1-8: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=0, SerialNumber=0
[ 7.650661] scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access Samsung Flash Drive FIT 1100 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
[ 7.658201] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 250626566 512-byte logical blocks: (128 GB/120 GiB)
[ 7.658343] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[ 7.658346] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 43 00 00 00
[ 7.658484] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 7.671120] Alternate GPT is invalid, using primary GPT.
[ 7.671128] sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4
[ 7.671896] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI removable disk
[ 8.412276] EXT4-fs (sda3): mounting ext2 file system using the ext4 subsystem
[ 8.418956] EXT4-fs (sda3): mounted filesystem without journal. Opts: (null)
/ #
| / # mkdir /newroot && mount /dev/sda4 /newroot
/ # ls && ls newroot
bin etc lib log mnt opt root sbin sys
dev init lib64 lost+found newroot proc run share tmp
bin etc example lib libexec lost+found sbin share
/ #debug console enabled on /dev/pts/0
[Bootstrap Debug Console]
/ # ls -la /newroot/sbin/init
ls: /newroot/sbin/init: No such file or directory
/ # ls -la /newroot/bin/systemd
ls: /newroot/bin/systemd: No such file or directory
/ # ^C
/ # ls /newroot/bin | head -10
ls: /newroot/bin: No such file or directory
/ # ls /newroot/sbin | head -10
ls: /newroot/sbin: No such file or directory
/ # ^C
/ # ls -la /newroot/lib64/
ls: /newroot/lib64/: No such file or directory
/ # ls -la /newroot/lib/ld-*
ls: /newroot/lib/ld-*: No such file or directory
/ # ^C
/ # file /newroot/bin/bash 2>/dev/null || echo "bash not found"
bash not found
/ # file /newroot/sbin/init 2>/dev/null || echo "init not found"
init not found
/ # ^C
/ # lsblk && fdisk -l /dev/sda
sh: lsblk: not found
/ # fdisk -l /dev/sda
Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT
Disk /dev/sda: 250626566 sectors, 3592M
Logical sector size: 512
Disk identifier (GUID): 2f5463df-45d5-4f56-8f1f-9e067e1021f7
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 2048, last usable sector is 350174
Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Name
1 2048 4095 1024K STATE
2 4096 69631 32.0M kernel
3 69632 135167 32.0M BOOT
4 135168 348159 104M shimboot_rootfs:nixos
/ #
| ~
❯ eza -1 --icons=auto -l /mnt
dr-xr-xr-x - root 31 Dec 1969 bin
dr-xr-xr-x - root 31 Dec 1969 etc
lrwxrwxrwx - root 31 Dec 1969 example -> /nix/store/7aj2vhqlz3ws8c5rkri8m95j0hs602sx-systemd-257.5/example
dr-xr-xr-x - root 31 Dec 1969 lib
lrwxrwxrwx - root 31 Dec 1969 libexec -> /nix/store/87fck6hm17chxjq7badb11mq036zbyv9-coreutils-9.7/libexec
drwx------ - root 11 Jun 02:13 lost+found
lrwxrwxrwx - root 31 Dec 1969 sbin -> /nix/store/7aj2vhqlz3ws8c5rkri8m95j0hs602sx-systemd-257.5/sbin
dr-xr-xr-x - root 31 Dec 1969 share
| After discussing this with LLMs, we're deciding to abandon Although, I still think the symlink approach can still be viable by going through nixos liveiso and seeing how they handle their symlinks and rootfs structure. If it was missing |
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Progress update: We're finally getting somewhere! (at least I think we are) Since buildEnv approach with shimboot-nixos on nixos took 2s
❯ nixos-generate --list
amazon
azure
docker
do
gce
hyperv
install-iso-hyperv
install-iso
iso
kubevirt
linode
lxc-metadata
lxc
openstack
proxmox-lxc
proxmox
qcow
raw-efi
raw
sd-aarch64-installer
sd-aarch64
vagrant-virtualbox
virtualbox
vm-bootloader
vm
vm-nogui
vmware
I first tried ~
❯ sudo dd if=/home/popcat19/shimboot-nixos/shimboot_nixos.bin of=/dev/sdc bs=4M status=progress && \
sudo partprobe /dev/sdc && \
sudo mount /dev/sdc4 /mnt && \
eza -1 --icons=auto -l /mnt && \
sudo umount /mnt && \
lsblk /dev/sdc
[sudo] password for popcat19:
989855744 bytes (990 MB, 944 MiB) copied, 1 s, 988 MB/s
391+0 records in
391+0 records out
1639972864 bytes (1.6 GB, 1.5 GiB) copied, 30.4139 s, 53.9 MB/s
Warning: Not all of the space available to /dev/sdc appears to be used, you can fix the GPT to use all of the space (an extra 247423494 blocks) or continue with the current setting?
dr-xr-xr-x - root 31 Dec 1979 boot
dr-xr-xr-x - root 31 Dec 1979 EFI
dr-xr-xr-x - root 31 Dec 1979 isolinux
drwx------ - root 13 Jun 07:06 lost+found
.r--r--r-- 343M root 31 Dec 1979 nix-store.squashfs
.r--r--r-- 12 root 31 Dec 1979 version.txt
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sdc 8:32 1 119.5G 0 disk
├─sdc1 8:33 1 1M 0 part
├─sdc2 8:34 1 32M 0 part
├─sdc3 8:35 1 32M 0 part
└─sdc4 8:36 1 1.5G 0 part
Instead, I went with ~
❯ sudo dd if=/home/popcat19/shimboot-nixos/shimboot_nixos.bin of=/dev/sdc bs=4M status=progress && \
sudo partprobe /dev/sdc && \
sudo mount /dev/sdc4 /mnt && \
eza -1 --icons=auto -l /mnt && \
sudo umount /mnt && \
lsblk /dev/sdc
[sudo] password for popcat19:
3925868544 bytes (3.9 GB, 3.7 GiB) copied, 126 s, 31.1 MB/s
937+1 records in
937+1 records out
3931111424 bytes (3.9 GB, 3.7 GiB) copied, 286.099 s, 13.7 MB/s
Warning: Not all of the space available to /dev/sdc appears to be used, you can fix the GPT to use all of the space (an extra 242948614 blocks) or continue with the current setting?
.r-xr-xr-x 5.7k root 31 Dec 1969 activate
lrwxrwxrwx - root 31 Dec 1969 append-initrd-secrets -> /nix/store/mmz4qa42fhacp04wfjhwlslnlfffyxjv-append-initrd-secrets/bin/append-initrd-secrets
dr-xr-xr-x - root 31 Dec 1969 bin
.r--r--r-- 605 root 31 Dec 1969 boot.json
drwxr-xr-x - root 31 Dec 1969 dev
.r-xr-xr-x 2.1k root 31 Dec 1969 dry-activate
drwxr-xr-x - root 31 Dec 1969 etc
.r--r--r-- 0 root 31 Dec 1969 extra-dependencies
lrwxrwxrwx - root 31 Dec 1969 firmware -> /nix/store/ir6rlshly8xh6jhn31xa7k6hg85x4ckn-firmware/lib/firmware
.r-xr-xr-x 4.4k root 31 Dec 1969 init
.r--r--r-- 9 root 31 Dec 1969 init-interface-version
lrwxrwxrwx - root 31 Dec 1969 initrd -> /nix/store/1xwn6zx5qq9ahxcpgdcmdylpga6qv6iy-initrd-linux-6.12.32/initrd
lrwxrwxrwx - root 31 Dec 1969 kernel -> /nix/store/h3w4lxpqlgsimj93ajlzakqdxa5khap3-linux-6.12.32/bzImage
lrwxrwxrwx - root 31 Dec 1969 kernel-modules -> /nix/store/7f327c4abvvas77jwh1ki5g97n08ysqp-linux-6.12.32-modules
.r--r--r-- 32 root 31 Dec 1969 kernel-params
drwx------ - root 13 Jun 08:16 lost+found
drwxr-xr-x - root 31 Dec 1969 nix
.r--r--r-- 182k root 31 Dec 1969 nix-path-registration
.r--r--r-- 12 root 31 Dec 1969 nixos-version
drwxr-xr-x - root 31 Dec 1969 proc
dr-xr-xr-x - root 31 Dec 1969 specialisation
lrwxrwxrwx - root 31 Dec 1969 sw -> /nix/store/f2i942x8r564z0vq5pcakii0111f6vs5-system-path
drwxr-xr-x - root 31 Dec 1969 sys
.r--r--r-- 12 root 31 Dec 1969 system
lrwxrwxrwx - root 31 Dec 1969 systemd -> /nix/store/343lc8igwgb1097j7ify1aplflwz7kly-systemd-257.5
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sdc 8:32 1 119.5G 0 disk
├─sdc1 8:33 1 1M 0 part
├─sdc2 8:34 1 32M 0 part
├─sdc3 8:35 1 32M 0 part
└─sdc4 8:36 1 3.6G 0 part
| As suggested by LLMs, we first tried to configure Afterwards, I was able to boot and finally have systemd started up: [ 17.547061] systemd[1]: Startup finished in 15.490s (kernel) + 2.055s (userspace) = 17.546s.and some extra after idling: [ 17.547061] systemd[1]: Startup finished in 15.490s (kernel) + 2.055s (userspace) = 17.546s.
[915.305622] systemd[1]: Starting Cleanup of Temporary Directories...
[915.338061] systemd[1]: systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service: Deactivated successfully.
[915.344135] systemd[1]: Finished Cleanup of Temporary Directories.Now, I'll continue to figure out what we can do from here. Hopefully, I'll be able progress enough to see TTY shell soon.
|
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I created a new repo since the methods vastly changed for non-FHS builds compared to this repo. Since my final school year starts at Aug 25, I'd want to get this working before I have to hand in the chromebook. Though, I could buy the same model on ebay, if it has a bargain price. I've also updated the README to reflect what I've tried so far, and what I'm planning to do next. It's been a long journey so far, yet I still anticipate for nixos shimboot becoming a reality. Looking forward to hear any feedbacks. |
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NixOS Shimboot finally boots past LightDM and into Hyprland! Still had to use scripts for partitioning due to Nix sandbox, which also need to use |
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network functional. moving onto implementing local nixos-rebuild and configuration. |
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hyprland running on a chromebook is awesome |
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a little unfortunate you created the build process for specifically dedede rather than making it board-friendly, but nonetheless an amazing fork showing that most distros are possible |
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It can be tweaked to use any x86_64 boards listed in cros.download via fetch-manifest.sh but untested other than dedede for now. I'll also have to tweak flake to handle multiple boards. |
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I'm almost ready to support other boards than dedede. If anyone wants to test nixos-shimboot on a specific x86_64 board supported by shimboot, let me know your board name and whether if you prefer to build the image or download a flashable image. ^^ |
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here is the video promised copy_90790311-AD87-41AB-923A-0B1B6E314C23.movhad to shorten it alot and make the quality worse because github is picky, but that appears upon booting from the usb |
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Thanks for the video. So far I think there's something up with the shim patch and rma-initramfs didn't execute the right I've also ran a workflow for another image here: https://github.com/PopCat19/nixos-shimboot/actions/runs/18886062937\ TMI: you can upload to catbox.moe to share larger videos if needed |
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On the other hand, could you confirm the upstream shimboot debian still works on the same device? |
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yeah i was using bookworm via shimboot the same day |
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I noticed that your shim doesn't unmount If you can, could you record the boot sequence for your bookworm shimboot to compare with? 
|
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I'm interested in building NixOS for shimbooting on
dededebecause it's easier to reproduce (also just wanted to see if I can get hyprland running as well).Despite recently installing and daily driving NixOS on desktop, I'm still inexperienced, so I'll rely on LLM guidance to devise a plan.
Repo: https://github.com/PopCat19/nixos-shimboot
Feedback and assistance is welcome.
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