HP 11a Chromebook Alpine Setup Script

Introduction

This is a guide for using the setup-kappa.sh script to install Alpine Linux and herbstluftwm on the HP 11a Chromebook.

• Alpine Linux
• herbstluftwm tiling window manager

Additional software installed by the script includes firefox, mpv, sakura (terminal), pipewire, and other utilities.

All files needed for the steps below can be downloaded from the repo.

Boot from USB and Install Alpine to Internal eMMC

1. Download the current boot image file from the repo (eg. hp-kappa-5.15.59.img.tar.gz)
2. Extract the .img file from the tar archive and write to USB stick (use the right device path!)

~$ wget http://www.sodface.com/repo/cb/hp-kappa/hp-kappa-5.15.59.img.tar.gz
~$ tar xzvf hp-kappa-5.15.59.img.tar.gz
~$ sudo dd if=hp-kappa-5.15.59.img of=/dev/sdb bs=4096
~$ sync

3. Boot from USB stick (ctrl-u)
4. Login as root with no password
5. Run ./install-mmc.sh (located in root’s home dir)
6. Reboot

Boot Alpine from Internal eMMC and Setup

1. Boot Alpine from internal eMMC (ctrl-d)
2. Login as root with no password
3. Set the clock to the current date and time

# date -s 202209302012

4. Connect to wifi, enter your network name in place of [SSID]

# iwctl station wlan0 connect [SSID]

5. Verify internet connectivity before continuing

# ping www.google.com

6. Run through setup-alpine, some notes below

# setup-alpine

Notes:

• Enter done when asked which network interface to initialize, we’ll use iwd to control wlan0
• Enter n for manual network configuration
• Enter no to setup a user, the setup-kappa.sh script will create a user
• Enter none when asked what disk to use since we are already running from eMMC
• I usually enter “none” for apk cache location to save space on the internal eMMC but it probably doesn’t matter if you choose the default cache location

Just re-run setup-alpine again if you want to change a response.

7. Download and run setup-kappa.sh, enter the username you want in place of [username]

# wget http://www.sodface.com/repo/cb/hp-kappa/setup-kappa.sh
# chmod +x setup-kappa.sh
# ./setup-kappa.sh [username] 2>&1 | tee setup-kappa.log

You will be prompted to set the password for the user and then the script should run without errors until you see “Done, please reboot."
Review the setup-kappa.log file for errors if needed.
Reboot and login as the created user.
The herbstluftwm GUI should automatically start.
Press alt+enter to open a terminal.
Press alt+d to display the dmenu app launcher.
Review the default keybindings and theme settings in ~/.config/herbstluftwm/autostart