I've been using Ubuntu on my Chromebook for years without any issues. However, after an update recently, I find myself on the 6.8.0.101-Generic kernel and I'm facing some serious hardware issues—specifically, my touchpad isn't working, and there's no WiFi or Ethernet connection available. Bluetooth is also out of the picture. I spent an entire day trying to roll back to a previous kernel, but SeaBIOS is proving to be a hurdle. I managed to install version 5.15 and uninstalled all instances of 6.8, but SeaBIOS isn't recognizing the change, forcing me to reinstall 6.8 just to boot up. I've even tried installing the Debian firmware package for iwlwifi via USB, but it hasn't helped. This situation is really frustrating since I can't download packages without internet access and I'm constantly swapping USB drives. Does anyone have a solution for getting my internet working again? I'm reluctant to reinstall my older version of Ubuntu because I've spent countless hours configuring containers on it.
2 Answers
It seems like you're having issues with how SeaBIOS interacts with your boot process. Typically, if you do a kernel removal with `apt`, it should prompt a `update-grub`, allowing the old kernel to boot by default. Just to clarify, are you using GRUB to boot your system? If not, that might be part of the problem. If SeaBIOS is not recognizing the GRUB menu, that could be why you're stuck.
The kernel version shouldn't be the root issue here—SeaBIOS doesn't care about kernel numbers when it comes to booting. It all hinges on GRUB and how it’s configured.
I don't see how SeaBIOS is the culprit here, as it generally just boots from a specified list of devices. Make sure your GRUB is set up correctly, as that's the part that allows you to select the kernel you want to boot from. If you're chrooting from a USB but struggling with the internet connection, did you consider that you might be able to use the live image's internet access? That could save you a lot of hassle instead of relying on USB swapping.
The live image does have internet access, but it’s painful because my machine is quite slow to launch that Ubuntu live environment. Is there a guide that could help me find the right `apt` packages for Chrome OS kernel modules?
I might not have implemented GRUB correctly. I suspect the system is skipping GRUB at startup entirely. My goal is to get the right kernel modules working on this 6.8.0.101 so I can reconnect to the internet.