From Chrome OS to Debian on a Chromebook

I recently acquired an old Acer Chromebook 13 from 2014. The hardware still works perfectly well, but the device has not received any updates since 2019 and is stuck on Chrome 77.

Switching to Linux proved trickier than expected. The Tegra K1 processor is based on 32-bit ARM, which means the usual x86 guides don’t work. What’s more, the write-protect security feature stubbornly remained enabled.

In this presentation, I’ll show how he eventually installed Debian 13 Trixie with kernel 6.12 on the Chromebook, what pitfalls he encountered, and how to go about this safely. A real-life account that could easily save you two evenings of fiddling around.