Programing and uploding esp32 in a chromebook

Projects General Guidance
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Hi i just bought ans esp32 an the only device i have to use it is a chromebook asus 15gb dd, I can use it? or i need a windows
Thanks

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Whar system does the chromebook use?

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It depends on -- first -- whether the USB-to-Serial chip is supported/blessed by the built-in Linux. I am working with three different devices at the moment. The ones with a CH9102 and CP2104 work. The third I can't find the chip's spec, and it doesn't.

Or didn't. That was a month ago. Apparently about a week ago, a new flag was rolled out: Enable more permissive passthrough for USB Devices which is disabled by default. So you have to turn that on.

There also seems to be a slight change in how USB devices are handled when you plug them in. It used to prompt you with one of those popups in the lower right, when Linux was running: do you want to use it with Linux or the regular Chromebook. But now there is no prompt. Instead they are listed in the Settings under Developer > Linux development environment > Manage USB devices. Plugging one in adds an entry USB JTAG/serial debug unit.

However, turning that on, none of the three devices work anymore. They don't even show up with lsusb.

Apparently it worked for the person that posted about the flag at that link above, but a commenter there said it did not work for them.

So the answer is maybe. After downloading the AppImage, you also need to install several things. This is how I got it working a few months ago:

chmod u+x arduino-ide_2.2.1_Linux_64bit.AppImage 
sudo mv arduino-ide_2.2.1_Linux_64bit.AppImage /opt
sudo ln -s /opt/arduino-ide_2.2.1_Linux_64bit.AppImage /opt/arduino-ide
sudo apt install fuse
sudo apt install libnss3
sudo apt install libsecret-1-dev
sudo apt install python3-pip
sudo pip3 install pyserial

Launch with /opt/arduino-ide

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Chrome os

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Update: with version 123.0.6312.134 of ChromeOS, USB devices are recognized again. Also, the new flag previously mentioned -- Enable more permissive passthrough for USB Devices -- allows my previously unrecognized third device to work.

I also needed to disable support for a GPU, which may now be detectable in the new version of ChromeOS, but doesn't actually work. Otherwise the window just flickers and doesn't display anything.

./arduino-ide --disable-gpu
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