Acer Chromebook Spin 13 coreboot

[david]

youtu.be/TCwrBrliNxQ

Recently i saw good deal for this 13.5' Touchscreen IPS Chromebook for 150 usd and decided to buy it.
Acer Spin 13 Intel Core i5-8350u/8GB/64GB eMMC

Our telegram group for fast updates!
https://t.me/+h2K5CX5jEZA0MWJk

After quick test it seems this chromebook use some problematic audio and here is the fix for most popular linux distros:

Make sure you have:
firmware-intel-sound

https://github.com/WeirdTreeThing/chrom ... inux-audio

Here is lspci -nnk output of the device:

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lspci -nnk
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v6/7th Gen Core Processor Host Bridge/DRAM Registers [8086:5914] (rev 08)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v6/7th Gen Core Processor Host Bridge/DRAM Registers [8086:5914]
	Kernel driver in use: skl_uncore
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation UHD Graphics 620 [8086:5917] (rev 07)
	DeviceName: VGA compatible controller
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:2212]
	Kernel driver in use: i915
	Kernel modules: i915
00:04.0 Signal processing controller [1180]: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor Thermal Subsystem [8086:1903] (rev 08)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor Thermal Subsystem [8086:1903]
	Kernel driver in use: proc_thermal
	Kernel modules: processor_thermal_device_pci_legacy
00:14.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP USB 3.0 xHCI Controller [8086:9d2f] (rev 21)
	Kernel driver in use: xhci_hcd
00:14.1 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:9d30] (rev 21)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:9d30]
	Kernel driver in use: dwc3-pci
	Kernel modules: dwc3_pci
00:14.2 Signal processing controller [1180]: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP Thermal subsystem [8086:9d31] (rev 21)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP Thermal subsystem [8086:9d31]
	Kernel driver in use: intel_pch_thermal
	Kernel modules: intel_pch_thermal
00:15.0 Signal processing controller [1180]: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP Serial IO I2C Controller #0 [8086:9d60] (rev 21)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation 100 Series PCH/Sunrise Point PCH I2C0 [Skylake/Kaby Lake LPSS I2C] [8086:9d60]
	Kernel driver in use: intel-lpss
	Kernel modules: intel_lpss_pci
00:15.1 Signal processing controller [1180]: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP Serial IO I2C Controller #1 [8086:9d61] (rev 21)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP Serial IO I2C Controller #1 [8086:9d61]
	Kernel driver in use: intel-lpss
	Kernel modules: intel_lpss_pci
00:15.2 Signal processing controller [1180]: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP Serial IO I2C Controller #2 [8086:9d62] (rev 21)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP Serial IO I2C Controller #2 [8086:9d62]
	Kernel driver in use: intel-lpss
	Kernel modules: intel_lpss_pci
00:15.3 Signal processing controller [1180]: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP Serial IO I2C Controller #3 [8086:9d63] (rev 21)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP Serial IO I2C Controller #3 [8086:9d63]
	Kernel driver in use: intel-lpss
	Kernel modules: intel_lpss_pci
00:19.0 Signal processing controller [1180]: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP Serial IO UART Controller #2 [8086:9d66] (rev 21)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP Serial IO UART Controller #2 [8086:9d66]
	Kernel driver in use: intel-lpss
	Kernel modules: intel_lpss_pci
00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP PCI Express Root Port #4 [8086:9d13] (rev f1)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP PCI Express Root Port #4 [8086:9d13]
	Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1e.0 Signal processing controller [1180]: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP Serial IO UART Controller #0 [8086:9d27] (rev 21)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP Serial IO UART Controller #0 [8086:9d27]
	Kernel driver in use: intel-lpss
	Kernel modules: intel_lpss_pci
00:1e.2 Signal processing controller [1180]: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP Serial IO SPI Controller #0 [8086:9d29] (rev 21)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP Serial IO SPI Controller #0 [8086:9d29]
	Kernel driver in use: intel-lpss
	Kernel modules: intel_lpss_pci
00:1e.3 Signal processing controller [1180]: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP Serial IO SPI Controller #1 [8086:9d2a] (rev 21)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP Serial IO SPI Controller #1 [8086:9d2a]
	Kernel driver in use: intel-lpss
	Kernel modules: intel_lpss_pci
00:1e.4 SD Host controller [0805]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:9d2b] (rev 21)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:9d2b]
	Kernel driver in use: sdhci-pci
	Kernel modules: sdhci_pci
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point LPC/eSPI Controller [8086:9d4e] (rev 21)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point LPC/eSPI Controller [8086:9d4e]
00:1f.2 Memory controller [0580]: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP PMC [8086:9d21] (rev 21)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP PMC [8086:9d21]
00:1f.3 Multimedia audio controller [0401]: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio [8086:9d71] (rev 21)
	DeviceName: Multimedia audio controller
	Kernel driver in use: snd_soc_avs
	Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel, snd_soc_avs, snd_sof_pci_intel_skl
00:1f.4 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP SMBus [8086:9d23] (rev 21)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP SMBus [8086:9d23]
	Kernel driver in use: i801_smbus
	Kernel modules: i2c_i801
00:1f.5 Non-VGA unclassified device [0000]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:9d24] (rev 21)
	Kernel driver in use: intel-spi
	Kernel modules: spi_intel_pci
01:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Wireless 7265 [8086:095a] (rev 59)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265 [Stone Peak 2 AC] [8086:9010]
	Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi
	Kernel modules: iwlwifi

Good news is ME is gone!
After some resurching i understand that Google designs Chromebooks for security they want to minimize ME attack surface but can’t remove it entirely. So i`m currious really what google did but i will need full flash dump to understand it!

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./intelmetool -m
Bad news, you have a `Sunrise Point LPC/eSPI Controller` so you have ME hardware on board and you can't control or disable it, continuing...

Can't find ME PCI device

Here is flashrom -p internal

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flashrom -p internal


flashrom 1.4.0 on Linux 6.16.1-061601-generic (x86_64)
flashrom is free software, get the source code at https://flashrom.org

Cannot open file stream for /dev/mtd0
coreboot table found at 0x7aa22000.
Found chipset "Intel Kaby Lake U w/ iHDCP2.2 Prem.".
Enabling flash write... Warning: Setting BIOS Control at 0xdc from 0x8b to 0x89 failed.
New value is 0x8b.
SPI Configuration is locked down.
FREG0: Flash Descriptor region (0x00000000-0x00000fff) is read-only.
FREG1: BIOS region (0x00200000-0x00ffffff) is read-write.
FREG2: Management Engine region (0x00001000-0x001fffff) is locked.
Not all flash regions are freely accessible by flashrom. This is most likely
due to an active ME. Please see https://flashrom.org/ME for details.
At least some flash regions are read protected. You have to use a flash
layout and include only accessible regions. For write operations, you'll
additionally need the --noverify-all switch. See manpage for more details.
OK.
Found Winbond flash chip "W25Q128.V..M" (16384 kB, Programmer-specific) on internal.

It seems by default mr.chromebox coreboot only flashing bios region not changing Flash Descriptor and Management Engine region!

Mirror in our forum:

[david]

As we have intel GPU we can enable DRI3 (Optional)Direct Rendering Infrastructure (DRI3) can improve performance and reduce tearing.

Edit or add to the /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf

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sudo mkdir -p /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d
sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Intel Graphics"
    Driver      "intel"
    Option      "TearFree" "true"
    Option      "DRI" "3"
EndSection