[XBMCNutball]

I'm loving the boot speed of the Chromebox with Open Elec but I've got an issue where I was wanting to play with installing Windows7 and ThinPC on the box so that I can play with my Ceton extender some more. I cannot seem to hit ESC quick enough (it just boots right to Open Elec even if I'm holding ESC down the whole time. I've tried booting into OpenElec and hitting reboot, press and hold the power button, pull the power etc.. but I cannot seem to get the prompt to select boot device. Is there any way that I can change something via SSH in openelec to slowdown the Seabios boot process?

[Matt Devo]

I'm loving the boot speed of the Chromebox with Open Elec but I've got an issue where I was wanting to play with installing Windows7 and ThinPC on the box so that I can play with my Ceton extender some more. I cannot seem to hit ESC quick enough (it just boots right to Open Elec even if I'm holding ESC down the whole time. I've tried booting into OpenElec and hitting reboot, press and hold the power button, pull the power etc.. but I cannot seem to get the prompt to select boot device. Is there any way that I can change something via SSH in openelec to slowdown the Seabios boot process?

#1, Windows 7 isn't going to run on here, period.

#2, You're not going to even get the 'Press ESC' prompt if SeaBIOS doesn't recognize the connected USB device. Older versions (pre 06-13) were more problematic about this than now due to a bug I have since fixed. There's no way to change any behavior of SeaBIOS outside of flashing a different version.

[XBMCNutball]

I'm loving the boot speed of the Chromebox with Open Elec but I've got an issue where I was wanting to play with installing Windows7 and ThinPC on the box so that I can play with my Ceton extender some more. I cannot seem to hit ESC quick enough (it just boots right to Open Elec even if I'm holding ESC down the whole time. I've tried booting into OpenElec and hitting reboot, press and hold the power button, pull the power etc.. but I cannot seem to get the prompt to select boot device. Is there any way that I can change something via SSH in openelec to slowdown the Seabios boot process?

#1, Windows 7 isn't going to run on here, period.

#2, You're not going to even get the 'Press ESC' prompt if SeaBIOS doesn't recognize the connected USB device. Older versions (pre 06-13) were more problematic about this than now due to a bug I have since fixed. There's no way to change any behavior of SeaBIOS outside of flashing a different version.

Thank you so much for the quick response. Why no 7? Is that b/c of the bios? I was hoping to try using this out as a ThinPC type of device too. Love this hardware and I'm for sure going to be doing a few more of these around the house with XBMC but I was just hoping to play around in a little bit of a professional capacity. I can see a major benefit to some of the companies I work with in the virtual desktop world. This hardware is way better than the typical Thinclient so Vmware View, Xendesktop, and RDS could seriously crank on these. There are a few Linux distros I could try that have those clients but windows opens up some serious capabilities for both ideas. (I could even hand out a Ceton Tuner to it if it's a Windows box).

I just tried it with the same (unmodified) USB stick that I loaded open elec with but it still just flys right by. Am I able to flash it from within OpenElec or do I just need to get lucky on hitting ESC at just the right time. Any other keys like F12 or delete/pause/break work to slow it down? The screen usually starts displaying about 1-2 secs after I would expect to see that prompt.

[Matt Devo]

Thank you so much for the quick response. Why no 7? Is that b/c of the bios? I was hoping to try using this out as a ThinPC type of device too. Love this hardware and I'm for sure going to be doing a few more of these around the house with XBMC but I was just hoping to play around in a little bit of a professional capacity. I can see a major benefit to some of the companies I work with in the virtual desktop world. This hardware is way better than the typical Thinclient so Vmware View, Xendesktop, and RDS could seriously crank on these. There are a few Linux distros I could try that have those clients but windows opens up some serious capabilities for both ideas. (I could even hand out a Ceton Tuner to it if it's a Windows box).

It's a "Coreboot doesn't implement the hundreds of ACPI workarounds required for Windows 7" issue. Windows 8 runs fine.

I just tried it with the same (unmodified) USB stick that I loaded open elec with but it still just flys right by. Am I able to flash it from within OpenElec or do I just need to get lucky on hitting ESC at just the right time. Any other keys like F12 or delete/pause/break work to slow it down? The screen usually starts displaying about 1-2 secs after I would expect to see that prompt.

it's not a timing issue -- if the USB stick is recognized, the 'Press ESC for boot menu" text will show for 5 seconds. If your screen isn't syncing up quickly enough, just hit ESC *once* before the screen comes on, and you should have the menu when it does.

[furii]

I think furii is talking about full resolution 3D - which can be encoded as either MVC (which is an H264 1920x1080/24p feed for one eye and an additional difference stream use to generate the other eye feed from - XBMC currently doesn't handle MVC) OR slightly more oddball 1920x2160 / 3840x1080 or 2560x720 / 1280 x 1440 full-resolution SBS or TAB feeds.

Both then need to be output as frame packed HDMI (which is effectively a 1920 x 2160+a bit 3D specific HDMI resolution I believe?)

too be honest i don't know the exact technical details. i was mainly just looking to head off any potential misinformation without confirmation. with all the work matt has been putting in i would hate to see a poster say "you said XYZ works" when that may not be the case. anyway, back to 3d, my limited understanding from following the NUC thread is that framepacked 3d needed an i3 or faster processor. however that could also be because the step down from the i3 NUC has a baytrail processor which i believe is significantly slower than the haswell-based 2955u.

[Thoir]

Thanks matt and everyone else for your help with my questions . I'm not super worried if this setup doesnt work exactly as I want because I have a non 3D tv I can use this on and get an i3 if needed so no biggie I just wanted general knowledge that people say it should work vs an unknown.

[jsp1]

I think furii is talking about full resolution 3D - which can be encoded as either MVC (which is an H264 1920x1080/24p feed for one eye and an additional difference stream use to generate the other eye feed from - XBMC currently doesn't handle MVC) OR slightly more oddball 1920x2160 / 3840x1080 or 2560x720 / 1280 x 1440 full-resolution SBS or TAB feeds.

Both then need to be output as frame packed HDMI (which is effectively a 1920 x 2160+a bit 3D specific HDMI resolution I believe?)

too be honest i don't know the exact technical details. i was mainly just looking to head off any potential misinformation without confirmation. with all the work matt has been putting in i would hate to see a poster say "you said XYZ works" when that may not be the case. anyway, back to 3d, my limited understanding from following the NUC thread is that framepacked 3d needed an i3 or faster processor. however that could also be because the step down from the i3 NUC has a baytrail processor which i believe is significantly slower than the haswell-based 2955u.

Fair enough, if xbmc doesn't support frame packed 3d I can't confirm support. However, based on the very similar graphics hardware between i3 and celeron IF hardware decoding is supported there is no reason the celeron shouldn't handle it. Only software rendering relies heavily on processor power. As I said though, I'm open to someone more knowledgeable making a case otherwise. To be clear, I was not claiming the box will support MVC or frame packed output. Although it could have been taken as such...so thank you for covering my rear on that.

[Mark the Red]

I'm not a guru in Linux, so I tried simple solution. So here what I did 9maybe not the most efficient way).

1. Flash cooreboot using Matt's method (to enable standalone linux installation).
2. Install Fedora 20. It can be any distro. I used KDE spin.
3. Create xbmc user without password.
4. Make xbmc user auto-logon (I did it through KDE configuration panel)
5. Install Openbox:

Code:

yum install openbox

6.Download and install RPMFusion repos from http://rpmfusion.org/Configuration
7 Instal XBMC

Code:

yum install xbmc

8.Install Steam

Code:

yum install steam

9.Logon as xbmc user
10. Add XBMC application to autostart (I did it through KDE configuration panel).
11. Run XBMC and install Advanced Launcher (http://www.gwenael.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=3)
12. Add Steam widget to Advanced Launcher.
13. Log-off.
14. Select session - openbox.
15. Log-in again.
That's it.

Thanks Igor. Downloading the Fedora KDE Spin right now (downloaded was this one, right ?) https://spins.fedoraproject.org/kde/#downloads

If I don't reply within a week thanking you again for your awesome guidance, I will have hung myself in Linux induced frustration at bricking my new Chromebox for sucking at teh Linux.....

Wish me luck!

[MindSpawn]

I have the Celeron version and upgraded the RAM to 4GB. I setup ubuntu with xbmc in dual boot mode. Everything plays fine but I am seeing high CPU usage. I did see this listed as a known issue however the first post mentions that this does not affect if RAM is upgraded to 4GB. However, I am still seeing this issue. I dont see any processes using the CPU so much in htop but the CPU percentage sometimes pegs a single core to close to 100%. Does anyone know what is consuming the cycles or if there is any fix for it?

[Matt Devo]

I have the Celeron version and upgraded the RAM to 4GB. I setup ubuntu with xbmc in dual boot mode. Everything plays fine but I am seeing high CPU usage. I did see this listed as a known issue however the first post mentions that this does not affect if RAM is upgraded to 4GB. However, I am still seeing this issue. I dont see any processes using the CPU so much in htop but the CPU percentage sometimes pegs a single core to close to 100%. Does anyone know what is consuming the cycles or if there is any fix for it?

what kernel version? Be sure you are running 3.14+

[Smobbo]

I have the Celeron version and upgraded the RAM to 4GB. I setup ubuntu with xbmc in dual boot mode. Everything plays fine but I am seeing high CPU usage. I did see this listed as a known issue however the first post mentions that this does not affect if RAM is upgraded to 4GB. However, I am still seeing this issue. I dont see any processes using the CPU so much in htop but the CPU percentage sometimes pegs a single core to close to 100%. Does anyone know what is consuming the cycles or if there is any fix for it?

The high CPU is related to single and dual channel RAM. So if you upgraded to 1 4GB RAM stick it could still cause the high CPU usage. 2 sticks of 2 GB RAM should solve the problem . (or 2 sticks of 4 GB RAM).

[noggin]

I have the Celeron version and upgraded the RAM to 4GB. I setup ubuntu with xbmc in dual boot mode. Everything plays fine but I am seeing high CPU usage. I did see this listed as a known issue however the first post mentions that this does not affect if RAM is upgraded to 4GB. However, I am still seeing this issue. I dont see any processes using the CPU so much in htop but the CPU percentage sometimes pegs a single core to close to 100%. Does anyone know what is consuming the cycles or if there is any fix for it?

The high CPU is related to single and dual channel RAM. So if you upgraded to 1 4GB RAM stick it could still cause the high CPU usage. 2 sticks of 2 GB RAM should solve the problem . (or 2 sticks of 4 GB RAM).

The HP Chromebox only has a single SODIMM slot AIUI. Does the HP suffer from the same issue? If so that could be a reason to go for the Asus - as you won't be able to put in 2 sticks?

[Igor2014]

Thanks Igor. Downloading the Fedora KDE Spin right now (downloaded was this one, right ?) https://spins.fedoraproject.org/kde/#downloads

If I don't reply within a week thanking you again for your awesome guidance, I will have hung myself in Linux induced frustration at bricking my new Chromebox for sucking at teh Linux.....

Wish me luck!

Yes that's what I used, installed 64-bit edition.
Make sure you are using Fedora Live USB creator to put your distro on USB. It might not work with other USB creators.
https://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator/

Good luck!

[Matt Devo]

The HP Chromebox only has a single SODIMM slot AIUI. Does the HP suffer from the same issue? If so that could be a reason to go for the Asus - as you won't be able to put in 2 sticks?

I'm not sure if the stock HP firmware has the same issue(s) as the stock Asus firmware. Someone with an HP will need to let us know.

Yes that's what I used, installed 64-bit edition.
Make sure you are using Fedora Live USB creator to put your distro on USB. It might not work with other USB creators.
https://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator/

Good luck!

with the Coreboot firmware, you shouldn't have any issues regardless of which USB creator you use. I personally use UUI for most things and don't have any problems.

[Igor2014]

with the Coreboot firmware, you shouldn't have any issues regardless of which USB creator you use. I personally use UUI for most things and don't have any problems.

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.