Liberating a X200
operand.ca
Liberating a X200
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Re: Liberating a X200
#2Welcome to the bright side. I've been enjoying my Chromebook with coreboot and nerf'ed Intel ME for years. It's not as hard as many of us would think.
By the way, Chromebooks are cheap and is a fantastic platform to experiment with coreboot/de-intel-ME. Acer C720s are $100 right now.
There are 2 spererate tasks: Flashing coreboot and De-blob'ing Intel ME. If you just want to try coreboot with the Chromebook, then you can do it with software and don't need an external programmer. All you have to do is just remove the BIOS write-protect screws - MrChromebox's website is a great resource. If you need to de-blob the chromebooks, then you'd need an external programmer, such as a Raspberry Pi.
As a shameless plug, I have released a tool so one doesn't have to be an electrical engineer and/or a Linux expert to flash many Chromebooks/Thinkpads with a Raspberry Pi [1]. You don't really have to have a breadboard to flash the Chromebooks like you do with the Thinkpad in the article. Also, the cool thing about it is that it prepares the image on your x86 computer so you literally don't have to configure the pi and get/compile stuff afterwards. I didn't know that the X200 needs a patch. I will integrate the x200 support into ezpi4ME so people don't have to manually patch and wait for it to compile on the Pi.
1: github.com/htruong/EzPi4ME
Edit: I noticed OP has a blog post complaining about Acer 720s having problems. It hasn't happened to me, at least with MrChromebox's firmware. I did have problem with John Lewis' firmware builds, though.
Re: Liberating a X200
#3Welcome to the bright side. I've been enjoying my Chromebook with coreboot and nerf'ed Intel ME for years. It's not as hard as many of us would think. By the way, Chromebooks are cheap and is a fantastic platform to experiment with coreboot/de-intel-ME. Acer C720s are $100 right now. There are 2 spererate tasks: Flashing coreboot and De-blob'ing Intel ME. If you just want to try coreboot with the Chromebook, then you…
How easy is it to put just a boring linux distro on a cheap chromebook? I'm thinking of going lightweight, cheap, and linux for a replacement to my 10 year old laptop, but I still want to be able to fool around with small programming projects and watch netflix in bed.
Re: Liberating a X200
#4Welcome to the bright side. I've been enjoying my Chromebook with coreboot and nerf'ed Intel ME for years. It's not as hard as many of us would think. By the way, Chromebooks are cheap and is a fantastic platform to experiment with coreboot/de-intel-ME. Acer C720s are $100 right now. There are 2 spererate tasks: Flashing coreboot and De-blob'ing Intel ME. If you just want to try coreboot with the Chromebook, then you…
How easy is it to put just a boring linux distro on a cheap chromebook? I'm thinking of going lightweight, cheap, and linux for a replacement to my 10 year old laptop, but I still want to be able to fool around with small programming projects and watch netflix in bed.
Extremely easy. http://galliumos.org will do. Even vanilla Ubuntu works. Everything works out of the box. The battery lasts a ridiculously long time.
Remember to buy the older generations so you don't have to deal with 1.8V chips (read the FAQs in the link above). I haven't figured out the 1.8V stuff yet.
The Acer C720 is extremely cheap and very well supported. I'm personally using a Dell Chromebook 13 7310.
Re: Liberating a X200
#5Earlier quoted context omitted.
How easy is it to put just a boring linux distro on a cheap chromebook? I'm thinking of going lightweight, cheap, and linux for a replacement to my 10 year old laptop, but I still want to be able to fool around with small programming projects and watch netflix in bed.
Extremely easy. http://galliumos.org will do. Even vanilla Ubuntu works. Everything works out of the box. The battery lasts a ridiculously long time. Remember to buy the older generations so you don't have to deal with 1.8V chips (read the FAQs in the link above). I haven't figured out the 1.8V stuff yet. The Acer C720 is extremely cheap and very well supported. I'm personally using a Dell Chromebook 13 7310.
I have two Asus Chromeboxes that now run Linux. I put GalliumOS on one for my kid and stock Debian on the other. I had to flash the firmware for both of them[1]. If you do this make double sure you're flashing the correct firmware for your device!
Re: Liberating a X200
#6Recently did something similar with a Pocket CHIP and an X230. This is a wonderful SPI programming setup: https://imgur.com/5KEo4Y5
Re: Liberating a X200
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
How easy is it to put just a boring linux distro on a cheap chromebook? I'm thinking of going lightweight, cheap, and linux for a replacement to my 10 year old laptop, but I still want to be able to fool around with small programming projects and watch netflix in bed.
Extremely easy. http://galliumos.org will do. Even vanilla Ubuntu works. Everything works out of the box. The battery lasts a ridiculously long time. Remember to buy the older generations so you don't have to deal with 1.8V chips (read the FAQs in the link above). I haven't figured out the 1.8V stuff yet. The Acer C720 is extremely cheap and very well supported. I'm personally using a Dell Chromebook 13 7310.
Browsed around to find an easy answer and left a bit confused, is this compatible with the original chromebook pixel?(both the ME flash and the OS mod)
I remember those having all kinds of driver issues and weird custom hardware that hamstrung efforts like this...
Re: Liberating a X200
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Extremely easy. http://galliumos.org will do. Even vanilla Ubuntu works. Everything works out of the box. The battery lasts a ridiculously long time. Remember to buy the older generations so you don't have to deal with 1.8V chips (read the FAQs in the link above). I haven't figured out the 1.8V stuff yet. The Acer C720 is extremely cheap and very well supported. I'm personally using a Dell Chromebook 13 7310.
Browsed around to find an easy answer and left a bit confused, is this compatible with the original chromebook pixel?(both the ME flash and the OS mod) I remember those having all kinds of driver issues and weird custom hardware that hamstrung efforts like this...
GalliumOS wiki is a good resource about this. They have your answer here:
https://wiki.galliumos.org/Hardware_Compatibility
You can do the coreboot firmware without the ME mod entirely within the Chromebook itself without needing a Raspberry Pi as an external programmer. Only when you want to eradicate the ME do you need the Pi.
Hardware wise: It's Ivy Bridge. You can flash an Ivy Bridge with Raspberry Pi+Flashrom because its chip is 3.3V.
Re: Liberating a X200
#9Recently did something similar with a Pocket CHIP and an X230. This is a wonderful SPI programming setup: https://imgur.com/5KEo4Y5
That thing looks great, never heard of it before :) You can do that with an Android phone, too, btw.
Re: Liberating a X200
#10Recently did something similar with a Pocket CHIP and an X230. This is a wonderful SPI programming setup: https://imgur.com/5KEo4Y5
Do you have a link to documentation? I have the pokcetCHI@ and the laptop, and would be interested in giving this a go.