[Matt Devo]

The problem is not booting. I used LiLi USB creator first - it successfully boots Fedora Live CD into Live desktop but somehow the option for installing fedora to disk (either from boot menu or from Live desktop) is missing. I checked it with several distros. I guess Fedora USB creator writes some additional data into USB disk to allow installation.

I don't see how - the install to hard disk is just an app on the system like any other. But like I said before, I used UUI to boot/install without a problem

[Igor2014]

The problem is not booting. I used LiLi USB creator first - it successfully boots Fedora Live CD into Live desktop but somehow the option for installing fedora to disk (either from boot menu or from Live desktop) is missing. I checked it with several distros. I guess Fedora USB creator writes some additional data into USB disk to allow installation.

I don't see how - the install to hard disk is just an app on the system like any other. But like I said before, I used UUI to boot/install without a problem

No idea how, but this app (desktop icon) is missing when I create bootable USB with LiLi. This drew me crazy for few hours...

[Mark the Red]

Being a total Linux virgin, I watched this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm9skyZygNM

Seems pretty straightforward, and my understanding the KDE interface is already baked into the cake for the latest Fedora standalone.

[Igor2014]

Being a total Linux virgin, I watched this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm9skyZygNM

Seems pretty straightforward, and my understanding the KDE interface is already baked into the cake for the latest Fedora standalone.

Yes, Fedora 20 KDE spin is coming with KDE windows manager. For XBMC I'm using Openbox windows manager because of its "lightweight" nature (uses around 300 MB of memory with XBMC loaded vs. > 1GB for KDE). But the good thing is that you can keep it both. Switching between windows managers is very easy - just logout, select appropriate session (KDE or openbox) and login again. Even reboot is not required.

[Mark the Red]

^
I don't really care for KDE either and I would prefer a lower memory footprint. Any magical tricks not included in your how-to as to ensure the XBMC autologin boot process goes right into Openbox?

[Igor2014]

^
I don't really care for KDE either and I would prefer a lower memory footprint. Any magical tricks not included in your how-to as to ensure the XBMC autologin boot process goes right into Openbox?

These are last 3 steps. Once you logged in with openbox it will be automatically saved and after next shutdown/reboot the system will always login into openbox.

[tlee]

Hi Matt!

I mistakenly did not back up the stock firmware; what might I 'lose' if I go back to vanilla Chrome? It seems like some things are tied to firmware (eg. MAC address).

If I were to go back to the recovery firmware boot, what would the Chrome OS lack (mac addr?) ?

thanks!

[Matt Devo]

Hi Matt!

I mistakenly did not back up the stock firmware; what might I 'lose' if I go back to vanilla Chrome? It seems like some things are tied to firmware (eg. MAC address).

If I were to go back to the recovery firmware boot, what would the Chrome OS lack (mac addr?) ?

thanks!

well, your MAC address would be the same as it is now (the "default" value), but that wouldn't have any real effect, save if you had more than one ChromeBox with that MAC connected to the same router. The only thing you'd need to change is your device's hardware id (from the generic value in the recovery firmware), so that you'd be able to receive ChromeOS updates. I'll add that to the wiki shortly

[tlee]

Hi Matt!

I mistakenly did not back up the stock firmware; what might I 'lose' if I go back to vanilla Chrome? It seems like some things are tied to firmware (eg. MAC address).

If I were to go back to the recovery firmware boot, what would the Chrome OS lack (mac addr?) ?

thanks!

well, your MAC address would be the same as it is now (the "default" value), but that wouldn't have any real effect, save if you had more than one ChromeBox with that MAC connected to the same router. The only thing you'd need to change is your device's hardware id (from the generic value in the recovery firmware), so that you'd be able to receive ChromeOS updates. I'll add that to the wiki shortly

From the rooting around that I've done, it seems the VPD is the the most important piece of my-chromebox-specific information... is that true? Would I be missing anything else?

Fortunately I did flash with v2.12, so your script saved my VPD.

Would something like this work:

#boot into chromium
flashrom -r /tmp/bios.bin
#save bios.bin!
#script: get cbfstool
get_cbfstool
# Get VPD ->
/tmp/boot/util/cbfstool /tmp/bios.bin extract -n vpd.bin -f /tmp/vpd.bin
# save vpd.bin!
# use recovery image to flash stock firmware in from Matt's dropbox (firmware-panther-factory-recovery.bin)
flashrom –w /tmp/stock-firmware.bin
#read stock image back out
flashrom –r /tmp/stockflashedfirmware.bin
dd if=/tmp/vpd.bin bs=1 seek=$((0x00600000)) count=$((0x00004000)) of=/tmp/stockflashedfirmware.bin
# Write back to firmware
flashrom –w /tmp/stockflashedfirmware.bin
#restore chrome os with VPD!

[Matt Devo]

From the rooting around that I've done, it seems the VPD is the the most important piece of my-chromebox-specific information... is that true? Would I be missing anything else?

Fortunately I did flash with v2.12, so your script saved my VPD.

Would something like this work:

#boot into chromium
#read current firmware
flashrom -r /tmp/bios.bin
#script: get cbfstool
get_cbfstool
# extract VPD from current firmware
/tmp/boot/util/cbfstool /tmp/bios.bin extract -n vpd.bin -f /tmp/vpd.bin
# get recovery image to flash stock firmware in from Matt's dropbox (firmware-panther-factory-recovery.bin)
curl -L -o /tmp/firmware-recovery.bin https://db.tt/sLQL9i1p
#inject VPD into recovery firmware
dd if=/tmp/vpd.bin bs=1 seek=$((0x00600000)) count=$((0x00004000)) of=/tmp/firmware-recovery.bin conv=notrunc
#set hardware ID -- use your original hardware ID if you remember it
sudo gbb_utility --set --hwid='PANTHER F5U-C92' /tmp/[b]firmware-recovery.bin /tmp/newbios.bin
# Write stock firmware
sudo flashrom -w /tmp/newbios.bin
#reboot
sudo reboot
#restore ChromeOS using USB recovery media

conceptually that's correct-ish; I made some additions/corrections/simplifications.

Do note that unless you plan on hacking up my script, you'll need to perform the steps in the script function get_cbfstool() manually to mount the partition, create dir, download file, etc. And that the reason cbfstool has to be run from the mounted boot partition is because all normally mounted and writable partitions have the 'noexec' flag.

Also, there's no need to flash the recovery firmware and then read it back before modifying it with your VPD and hwid. Easiest just to do everything at once, then flash, reboot, and restore ChromeOS.

[tlee]

so the hwid is not stored in the vpd?

[Matt Devo]

so the hwid is not stored in the vpd?

it is not, it's stored in the GBB region (starts at address 0x00611000)

[luvdemnoles22]

First off I just want to say thank you Matt. I've been running standalone on my chromebox for a month now and it's been working flawlessly. Thanks for all your hard work. My question is does the Coreboot update automatically every time you make changes to it or do I need to do it manually from the boot screen? I'm thinking it's the latter but just wanted to double check before I do something wrong.

[Matt Devo]

First off I just want to say thank you Matt. I've been running standalone on my chromebox for a month now and it's been working flawlessly. Thanks for all your hard work. My question is does the Coreboot update automatically every time you make changes to it or do I need to do it manually from the boot screen? I'm thinking it's the latter but just wanted to double check before I do something wrong.

glad to hear it's been working well for you

If you need/want to update the Coreboot firmware, you'll need to re-download/re-run the script from a bootable ChromiumOS USB stick. I'm working on making the script run properly from any Linux distro, but that's not quite ready yet.

[luvdemnoles22]

Alright got it, thanks for the quick reply