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Asus Chromebox announcement
#76
So the Chromebox is out. Did anyone order one? I look forward to hearing about your personal experience and if you were able to get XBMC running on it with or without OpenELEC. I read in the Anandtech review that the ChromeOS does not have the ability to view files on network shares and that files must be local (usb, flash, or local ssd) in order to view or play files. If you are able to load OpenELEC, it would be nice to hear about the experience. Thanks
#77
I play all my stuff off the external hardrive that i have. I've noticed people are really into having media shared over their network, I think i might start looking into it. Im eager to hear reviews on the Chromebox also. I was hoping a store would carry it locally but it seems like its only available online and all the stores are sold out. If i hear that people have successfully put xbmc on it ill buy for sure. My current Toshiba chromebook has linux installed but its not very convenient for a media PC.
#78
"
Asus is kicking off the Chromebox rebirth with the release of its $179 Chromebox (model M004U), which is available for pre-order now and will ship later this month. The device will soon be joined by a higher-end sibling, too: Asus's $369 Intel Core i3-based Chromebox, which is set to launch in April.
"

If i3 version is going to cost $369 then I see no point in getting it if you can have NUC with CIR...
Regards,
Embrion
#79
(2014-03-14, 08:05)Geekzilla Wrote: I'm not clear on whether you have to press CTRL-L every time you boot to something other than ChromeOS or can it be set to default to booting from a usb drive?

Without hacking the Chromebook then you need to press CTRL+L to get it to legacy boot each time you power on. However there is a possibility to change this by reflashing a BIOS setting using a script someone has published. I haven't tried this yet.
#80
Given that it's storage is an M.2 card, I'd think you could probably manage to pull out the storage, slap it in an adapter like this:

http://www.amazon.com/M-2-NGFF-SSD-SATA-...B00FKCSMYY

back it up, and then install a preconfigured SATA image from a PC.

Better yet would be to buy an M.2 SSD for XBMC itself, and just keep the pristine one as backup/testing, but cheap M.2 drives don't seem to be happening in consumerland yet.
Subtitles - Serious Business
#81
(2014-03-17, 20:35)bmfrosty Wrote: Given that it's storage is an M.2 card, I'd think you could probably manage to pull out the storage, slap it in an adapter like this:

http://www.amazon.com/M-2-NGFF-SSD-SATA-...B00FKCSMYY

back it up, and then install a preconfigured SATA image from a PC.

Better yet would be to buy an M.2 SSD for XBMC itself, and just keep the pristine one as backup/testing, but cheap M.2 drives don't seem to be happening in consumerland yet.

There's really no need to remove the SSD to back it up before messign around with Linux. Google provides ChromeOS recovery images (which create bootable a USB stick or SD card) which will reinstall ChromeOS (even on an empty device).

On my ACER C720 chromebook, I replaced the SSD with the 128GB varient that you had linked to on Amazon. After I installed the larger capacity SSD, I booted (an already created) USB recovery stick which reinstalled ChromeOS. Then I resized the partitions to make room for linux, then used a usb stick to install Ubuntu-Gnome 64bit.

Once my pre-ordered Asus Chromebox arrives (scheduled for delivery tomorrow from Amazon), I'm going to initially boot into ChromeOS to claim the 'free' 100GB of Google Drive space on my google account, then I'll be enabling Dev mode, legacy bios support, and USB booting, then I'll be wiping the stock 16GB SD and installing linux - all of my media and user documents I'll mount via NFS.

Regards,
Jake
#82
(2014-03-17, 21:42)jwegman Wrote:
(2014-03-17, 20:35)bmfrosty Wrote: Given that it's storage is an M.2 card, I'd think you could probably manage to pull out the storage, slap it in an adapter like this:

http://www.amazon.com/M-2-NGFF-SSD-SATA-...B00FKCSMYY

back it up, and then install a preconfigured SATA image from a PC.

Better yet would be to buy an M.2 SSD for XBMC itself, and just keep the pristine one as backup/testing, but cheap M.2 drives don't seem to be happening in consumerland yet.

There's really no need to remove the SSD to back it up before messign around with Linux. Google provides ChromeOS recovery images (which create bootable a USB stick or SD card) which will reinstall ChromeOS (even on an empty device).

On my ACER C720 chromebook, I replaced the SSD with the 128GB varient that you had linked to on Amazon. After I installed the larger capacity SSD, I booted (an already created) USB recovery stick which reinstalled ChromeOS. Then I resized the partitions to make room for linux, then used a usb stick to install Ubuntu-Gnome 64bit.

Once my pre-ordered Asus Chromebox arrives (scheduled for delivery tomorrow from Amazon), I'm going to initially boot into ChromeOS to claim the 'free' 100GB of Google Drive space on my google account, then I'll be enabling Dev mode, legacy bios support, and USB booting, then I'll be wiping the stock 16GB SD and installing linux - all of my media and user documents I'll mount via NFS.

Regards,
Jake

Looking forward to seeing how you get on Jake
Good luck
#83
I installed a 128GB M.2 card too. Re-installed from a recovery stick, didn't need an external USB interface for the 16GB M.2 SSD to backup. There were a few reports that the 128GB drive would only work on external power, but mine is fine on battery. Dual booting between Chrome OS (in a 16GB partition) and Ubuntu via Chrbuntu on the rest, with a third boot option of OpenElec (a recent nightly) on an external USB stick.
#84
noggin, have you found a way to avoid the Ctrl+L during boot?
#85
(2014-03-18, 10:17)MrLondon Wrote: noggin, have you found a way to avoid the Ctrl+L during boot?

I haven't tried this - as I find the CTRL+L and CTRL+D switch quite useful (I triple-boot ChromeOS (CTRL+D) and Ubuntu (CTRL+L with no external USB stick) from the internal SSD and OpenElec (CTRL+L with external USB stick) from an external USB3 stick) - however these details suggest it is possible : http://johnlewis.ie/how-to-make-seabios-...acer-c720/
#86
(2014-03-18, 13:32)noggin Wrote:
(2014-03-18, 10:17)MrLondon Wrote: noggin, have you found a way to avoid the Ctrl+L during boot?

I haven't tried this - as I find the CTRL+L and CTRL+D switch quite useful (I triple-boot ChromeOS (CTRL+D) and Ubuntu (CTRL+L with no external USB stick) from the internal SSD and OpenElec (CTRL+L with external USB stick) from an external USB3 stick) - however these details suggest it is possible : http://johnlewis.ie/how-to-make-seabios-...acer-c720/

If it's worth anything, I've done the same steps that noggin had linked to, and I find that it works well. It's worth to note (on the Acer C720 Chromebook), that in order to unlock the write protect on the firmware(to change the default boot), that you need to remove the bottom cover in order to remove the 'write protect screw' - depicted in the bottom of the following reference link - no big deal for me, as I had to remove the bottom cover to replace the SSD with a 128GB):
http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/deve...chromebook

Note, that I haven't yet seen how the Asus Chromebox write protect is enabled. However given how similar the hardware is to my Aser C720, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that it used the same screw method.

...it looks like Amazon didn't keep their promise on a Tuesday 18th delivery for my pre-ordered Chromebox. Evidently they didn't have enough stock to readily fulfill all the pre-orders.

When you run the script to update the firmware with the new settings, an option can be applied to lower the Dev splash screen to a 1 second during which, a person could still press CTRL-D to boot to chromeOS, otherwise, it'll boot the legacy SeaBios -> Grub -> Linux automatically.

I was initially concerned that 1 second on the Dev splash screen would be too short, however I find that it's fine - if you are ready for it to intentionally boot ChromeOS, it's plenty of time to press the keys.

Regards,
Jake
#87
so when will we see XBMC for ChromeOS? Or when will Google decide to not split Chrome OS and Android into 2 different things and confuse us.
#88
Question, are there any msata to Sata adapters you can use to install a regular 2.5ssd? There seems to be enough room where I could put some double sided tape on the bottom for it to fit inside. I ask because I have an extra 2.5 laying around and rather use that with it instead of buying a new msata drive. If it is possible, any idea on how to power my ssd?
#89
So here I am, posting this from my new Asus Chromebox. Any work on the viability or Possibility of loading XBMC on this thing? If so, How? Ideas, recommendation?
#90
(2014-03-21, 07:29)xfile102 Wrote: So here I am, posting this from my new Asus Chromebox. Any work on the viability or Possibility of loading XBMC on this thing? If so, How? Ideas, recommendation?
Within this thread there is a link to a review with some info on installing ubuntu, and from ubuntu you can of course install xbmc.
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