[denrock]

Hey Matt


So yesterday I updated the firmware to the then current 2.8. I thought it seemed faster when I booted up after that… which I realized it was faster as it didn’t appear to be going to the boot menu screen for the 5 seconds to give you a chance to hit escape to choose a drive.

So, today I noticed you updated the firmware again so I was going to flash the latest version, but I cannot get to the boot menu (I was actually concerned about this happening after the flash yesterday). It instantly goes into openelec. I don’t seem to be able to choose any other drive… it just goes right into openelec then xbmc…. even if i’m holding down the escape key when I turn on the unit.

So did you change that 5 second time out or did something go wrong when I updated to 2.8 yesterday? It seems like it went fine since xbmc works okay, but I guess not? Am I the only one who had this issue? Thanks.

2.9 resolved the issue of not seeing any boot text at all when using HDMI. If that's your issue, you'll need to hit ESC then 2 and time it correctly to boot from your USB stick.

If you are seeing the boot text, just don't have the opportunity to press ESC for the boot menu, it's because your USB stick is not being detected as bootable, so the boot menu timeout (5s) gets skipped and it boots directly to the internal HDD. Try another USB stick, or try re-partitioning as described in the wiki

Hey Matt,

Ah, okay, so basically I screwed myself by updating to the 2.8 firmware yesterday? Because for the last couple of weeks everything was working fine and I would always have that boot screen option pop up for 5 seconds. I'll give the ESC and 2 a try and hopefully that'll work. Thanks for the fast reply. Eric

Okay, got it to work after a couple of tries with the blind presses of ESC and 2 key and updated to 2.9 firmware. Just thought I'd mention this in case anyone else has the older firmware problem and still needs to do this.. when I would get the timing right the screen started flashing on and off with static snow when it flashed on. I thought something just crashed so rebooted. After a couple of attempts when this happened, I just unplugged the hdmi cable and plugged it back in and the chromium os bootscreen was there. So if anyone has a problem like I just described, try unplugging and plugging back in the hdmi before you turn it off and try again thinking you didn't get the timing right and something crashed.


Matt... how's everything with the i3? I haven't updated my i3 box yet and was wondering if it works as well as the celeron and if there's any bugs or little things specific to the i3 I should look out for. Thanks.

[Matt Devo]

Matt... how's everything with the i3? I haven't updated my i3 box yet and was wondering if it works as well as the celeron and if there's any bugs or little things specific to the i3 I should look out for. Thanks.

everything is working 100% with the i3 version. They use the exact same firmware from the factory, and the only thing I needed to account for with my custom firmware was that they have different VGA PCI ID's since it's a different GPU (HD4000 vs HD4400).

So far in testing, there's zero performance difference in running OpenELEC between the i3 and celeron versions. I haven't tried deinterlacing 1080i content though, which may be an issue for people watching live TV. If someone links me to a sample file I'm happy to test however.

[noggin]

The 2955U is OK doing YADIF 2x CPU de-interlacing on the Acer C720 Chromebook on 1080/50i (I don't have 60i content) - I don't think there are better de-interlacing options in mainline (though Fritsch may have some builds with improved hardware de-interlacing?)

The i3 will be potentially better for software decoding content that VAAPI can't decode (like 4:2:2 rather than 4:2:0) - though not sure that 38Mbs 1080i 4:2:2 H264 will be possible on the i3 (as it is on my i5 NUC) - though be interested if it can.

[denrock]

Matt... how's everything with the i3? I haven't updated my i3 box yet and was wondering if it works as well as the celeron and if there's any bugs or little things specific to the i3 I should look out for. Thanks.

everything is working 100% with the i3 version. They use the exact same firmware from the factory, and the only thing I needed to account for with my custom firmware was that they have different VGA PCI ID's since it's a different GPU (HD4000 vs HD4400).

So far in testing, there's zero performance difference in running OpenELEC between the i3 and celeron versions. I haven't tried deinterlacing 1080i content though, which may be an issue for people watching live TV. If someone links me to a sample file I'm happy to test however.

Hey Matt,

Yeah I've been really pleased with the celeron version. Between the firmware you put together and openelec this thing boots up like it's a xbmc appliance designed for instant turn on and plays everything I throw at it with no problems. So because of that I'm actually thinking of using the i3 version as a desktop linux box. I imagine you've tried different linux distros on it in your testing. Have you any quirks or issues with the i3 if you have tested something like ubuntu on it? If not, I'll probably make it a dedicated ubuntu box. Right now I'm using crouton on it and it runs ubuntu with no issues at all that way, but I'm thinking I might just make it ubuntu only.

Thanks again for all the work you've done.

[Matt Devo]

Hey Matt,

Yeah I've been really pleased with the celeron version. Between the firmware you put together and openelec this thing boots up like it's a xbmc appliance designed for instant turn on and plays everything I throw at it with no problems. So because of that I'm actually thinking of using the i3 version as a desktop linux box. I imagine you've tried different linux distros on it in your testing. Have you any quirks or issues with the i3 if you have tested something like ubuntu on it? If not, I'll probably make it a dedicated ubuntu box. Right now I'm using crouton on it and it runs ubuntu with no issues at all that way, but I'm thinking I might just make it ubuntu only.

Thanks again for all the work you've done.

I've really only tested OpenELEC on the i3, but the drivers used by the two are pretty much identical across most (all?) distros. I wouldn't expect you'd have any issues with the i3 version vs the celeron. You can always go back to stock anyway so there's really little risk

[Dougie Fresh]

^ this guy deserves more reps than he has

[Matt Devo]

Hey Matt

So yesterday I updated the firmware to the then current 2.8. I thought it seemed faster when I booted up after that… which I realized it was faster as it didn’t appear to be going to the boot menu screen for the 5 seconds to give you a chance to hit escape to choose a drive.

So, today I noticed you updated the firmware again so I was going to flash the latest version, but I cannot get to the boot menu (I was actually concerned about this happening after the flash yesterday). It instantly goes into openelec. I don’t seem to be able to choose any other drive… it just goes right into openelec then xbmc…. even if i’m holding down the escape key when I turn on the unit.

So did you change that 5 second time out or did something go wrong when I updated to 2.8 yesterday? It seems like it went fine since xbmc works okay, but I guess not? Am I the only one who had this issue? Thanks.

2.9 resolved the issue of not seeing any boot text at all when using HDMI. If that's your issue, you'll need to hit ESC then 2 and time it correctly to boot from your USB stick.

If you are seeing the boot text, just don't have the opportunity to press ESC for the boot menu, it's because your USB stick is not being detected as bootable, so the boot menu timeout (5s) gets skipped and it boots directly to the internal HDD. Try another USB stick, or try re-partitioning as described in the wiki

looks like the USB stick detection issue was a bug in SeaBIOS (it was using a timeout value that's too small for USB3 controllers). Fixed builds are being tested and will go live later today after the fix is confirmed by a few more people.

[trick420]

^ this guy deserves more reps than he has

How is that achieved?

[noggin]

^ this guy deserves more reps than he has

How is that achieved?

That's what the +/- signs next to PM and FIND are for. Click on them on a post that Matt Devo has made.

[jsp1]

^ this guy deserves more reps than he has

I'm doing my part. Any more and he might get to thinking I'm a stalker or something.

[Matt Devo]

I'm doing my part. Any more and he might get to thinking I'm a stalker or something.

lulz

[trick420]

^ this guy deserves more reps than he has

How is that achieved?

That's what the +/- signs next to PM and FIND are for. Click on them on a post that Matt Devo has made.

Well, that explains it... I don't have a +/- in my view...

[levendis]

Well, that explains it... I don't have a +/- in my view...

I'm guessing that we need to have some reputation here before we're allowed to vote on others...

[trick420]

Well, that explains it... I don't have a +/- in my view...

I'm guessing that we need to have some reputation here before we're allowed to vote on others...

If you click on Matt's reputation points it shows you who has given rep... Lots of folks there with zero reputation...

[starfire-1]

Matt and company,

I just received my Celeron based chromebox and wanted to just wade into the pool before diving in. I updated the Legacy SeaBIOS with the most recent version and can indeed boot live versions of Ubuntu and Fedora from a USB stick and from a virtual CD (Zalman HD case).

However, when I install a distribution to an external hard drive (standard partitions, MBR format, boot loader installed to MBR) and select the device from SeaBIOS, it complains that it cannot read the boot device and fails.

What is the subtle difference that allows me to boot a live distro USB but not an installed version? Is it the grub bootloader?

I'd like to dual boot my box, but leave the ChromeOS largely in tact and run a Linux distro from the external hard drive. Any ideas? Thanks!