[Matt Devo]

I'm having some serious trouble with this and I think I done messed up pretty badly and am pleading for help!~

I was following the instructions line by line...when I finally got to the install Kodi screen for a single boot Asus Chromebox. When I hit enter on Run Installer, however, it just kicked me back to the select boot screen or somewhere before that. This is where things started unraveling. Since it kept doing that, I figured I'd try the update firmware option on the script...except I hit the wrong one. I went with the dual boot one. Once that was done installing I couldn't get back to the command prompt to try anything else. There would be 2 or 3 black lines on top of the recovery screen saying something about SeaBIOS (I think) and being read only.

Then I read that you can get into the command prompt through the browser...so I tried some of that and got to do the standalone firmware update, I think I might have messed with the settings somehow because now I can't even get to the recovery screen. It just goes straight to booting from the HDD unless I have a USB drive in which case it asks me which to boot. I can't even get to the recovery screen if I push the recovery button with a paperclip.

I've installed the ChromeOS recovery image on a thumb drive and if I try to boot from it, it basically crashes to a long line of file executions and the word "panic" every so often. If I let it boot to the HDD, ChromeOS starts to load it but then it gets in an infinite loop of restarts before ChromeOS fully boots.

The furthest I've gotten with ChromeOS booting on it's own recently was after inputting my google username/password. It just sat there for 15 minutes 'thinking' about what to do next.

The SeaBIOS string I have is rel-1.8.0-11-g647b459-20150226

Have I destroyed my box? Any help would be much much appreciated as my new home theater is going to pretty much revolve around this setup.

If there's any other information I need to provide let me know, I think I got all of it from the front page...

Jesus, you're lucky the thing boots at all honestly. When it comes to firmware, it's really best not to go off-book when things don't work as expected - that's how you end up with a bricked device.

let's start fresh - power on the device with the recovery button depressed, then insert the recovery media and let it do it's thing. Then, follow the instructions from the step where you download/run the script for whichever setup you want (standalone or dual boot).

Good day Matt,

Just some feedback In the event that no one else has mentioned this; when running on the new Pixel 2015 (Broadwell), the script will automatically flash a Legacy BIOS despite this device already having one. Although I didn't leave that new Legacy BIOS in place for long, I don't think it worked correctly on the Pixel 2015...

google@pixel:~$ sudo dmidecode | grep -m1 "Product Name:" | awk '{print $3}'
Samus

By the by, the Pixel 2015 LS makes a fairly decent Kodi box

Regards,
Jake

Jake, I hadn't put in a specific case for the 2015 Pixel so it was defaulting to the Haswell Chromebook legacy bios. It will be added in the next script update.

Matt, thank you. I tried your suggestion again, this time it worked. THANK YOU....Am i limited to skins or any skin would work?

put on the most graphically/resource intensive skin you can find - the ChromeBox will handle it without issue.

[Twixs]

I'm having some serious trouble with this and I think I done messed up pretty badly and am pleading for help!~

I was following the instructions line by line...when I finally got to the install Kodi screen for a single boot Asus Chromebox. When I hit enter on Run Installer, however, it just kicked me back to the select boot screen or somewhere before that. This is where things started unraveling. Since it kept doing that, I figured I'd try the update firmware option on the script...except I hit the wrong one. I went with the dual boot one. Once that was done installing I couldn't get back to the command prompt to try anything else. There would be 2 or 3 black lines on top of the recovery screen saying something about SeaBIOS (I think) and being read only.

Then I read that you can get into the command prompt through the browser...so I tried some of that and got to do the standalone firmware update, I think I might have messed with the settings somehow because now I can't even get to the recovery screen. It just goes straight to booting from the HDD unless I have a USB drive in which case it asks me which to boot. I can't even get to the recovery screen if I push the recovery button with a paperclip.

I've installed the ChromeOS recovery image on a thumb drive and if I try to boot from it, it basically crashes to a long line of file executions and the word "panic" every so often. If I let it boot to the HDD, ChromeOS starts to load it but then it gets in an infinite loop of restarts before ChromeOS fully boots.

The furthest I've gotten with ChromeOS booting on it's own recently was after inputting my google username/password. It just sat there for 15 minutes 'thinking' about what to do next.

The SeaBIOS string I have is rel-1.8.0-11-g647b459-20150226

Have I destroyed my box? Any help would be much much appreciated as my new home theater is going to pretty much revolve around this setup.

If there's any other information I need to provide let me know, I think I got all of it from the front page...

Jesus, you're lucky the thing boots at all honestly. When it comes to firmware, it's really best not to go off-book when things don't work as expected - that's how you end up with a bricked device.

let's start fresh - power on the device with the recovery button depressed, then insert the recovery media and let it do it's thing. Then, follow the instructions from the step where you download/run the script for whichever setup you want (standalone or dual boot).

The recovery button doesn't even do anything anymore. By the time anything is even displayed on the screen it either says press escape for boot menu (with USB media attached) or "Booting the Kernel" or something. It's not even getting to ChromeOS anymore. Just the Chrome screen then reboots itself infinitely.

I think I've learned an expensive lesson.

[Matt Devo]

The recovery button doesn't even do anything anymore. By the time anything is even displayed on the screen it either says press escape for boot menu (with USB media attached) or "Booting the Kernel" or something. It's not even getting to ChromeOS anymore. Just the Chrome screen then reboots itself infinitely.

I think I've learned an expensive lesson.

Then you managed to successfully flash the standalone firmware, and all you need now is to install an OS (eg, OpenELEC) from USB

[nickr]

I have been following this thread out of interest. Chromeboxes are $300 here and some people are even trying to flog them on a local auction site for $400.

However I just found two "barely used" Asus's for $220 each, so now I am here out of more than "interest". Wooohoo.

[Gloucester]

First of all, thanks for the fantastic guide - set up my ASUS Chromebox with OpenElec/Kodi last night in under half an hour! Just have one question on WOL functionality that may be useful to others as well.

I have an external USB HDD where I plan to store my media. That disk is shared on the network, and is getting accessed by a Sickbeard instance which writes to it when new content becomes available. Is it possible to leave the Chromebox in Sleep mode, and have the other computer wake it up when files need to get copied? I naively assumed this is straightforward to do using Wake on LAN, but no luck so far. Any ideas?

PS Wake-on LAN works fine from the mobile app.

[Matt Devo]

I have been following this thread out of interest. Chromeboxes are $300 here and some people are even trying to flog them on a local auction site for $400.

However I just found two "barely used" Asus's for $220 each, so now I am here out of more than "interest". Wooohoo.

hi

First of all, thanks for the fantastic guide - set up my ASUS Chromebox with OpenElec/Kodi last night in under half an hour! Just have one question on WOL functionality that may be useful to others as well.

I have an external USB HDD where I plan to store my media. That disk is shared on the network, and is getting accessed by a Sickbeard instance which writes to it when new content becomes available. Is it possible to leave the Chromebox in Suspend mode, and have the network share wake it up when files need to get copied? I naively assumed this is straightforward to do using Wake on LAN, but no luck so far. Any ideas?

PS Wake-on LAN works fine from the mobile app.

simply accessing a network share doesn't send a WoL packet - it needs to be explicitly sent from whatever program needs access to the network share. A better way IMO is to have the external USB HDD connected to a machine that's always on (or your router, if supported) and have the ChromeBox/Kodi access the network share.

[Gloucester]

simply accessing a network share doesn't send a WoL packet - it needs to be explicitly sent from whatever program needs access to the network share. A better way IMO is to have the external USB HDD connected to a machine that's always on (or your router, if supported) and have the ChromeBox/Kodi access the network share.

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, my router is Airport Extreme, which is limited in terms of file systems that it supports for disk sharing: FAT16/32 and HFS+, none of which are ideal for sharing large video files. Digging around the Internet, I saw that wol on Chromebox should be possible to setup so it wakes on any package arriving:

http://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1006299

Would this work?

[Gloucester]

I have now had a chance to play around with ethtool a bit, and it seems that I have stumbled upon the solution. Setting the ethtool parameter to u (any unicast package) as opposed to g (magic package only), will wake up OpenElec whenever any machine tries to access it directly:

ethool -s eth0 wol u

Combined with the Kodi sleep timer to ensure the machine goes back to sleep, this does exactly what I need.

[rodalpho]

In case anyone's wondering, I had no problems upgrading my single-boot asus chromebox from ubuntu 14.10 to the 15.04 RC. Worked fine.

Note this was straight-up vanilla Ubuntu, not Kodibuntu.

[chromebox_newb]

Hi All,

Just got my Asus Chromebox, and wanted to try the Openelec/Chrome OS dual boot set up. I've read many instruction but I can't seem to get into Develop Mode. I know I need to use a paperclip, hold the recovery switch, press the power button. I get the "chrome os is missing or damaged.... " screen. Pressing "control d" does nothing! I've tried with a wired and wireless keyboard. I know it detects the keyboard because I can switch between different languages. Any help will be appreciated here..

Thanks!

[Matt Devo]

Hi All,

Just got my Asus Chromebox, and wanted to try the Openelec/Chrome OS dual boot set up. I've read many instruction but I can't seem to get into Develop Mode. I know I need to use a paperclip, hold the recovery switch, press the power button. I get the "chrome os is missing or damaged.... " screen. Pressing "control d" does nothing! I've tried with a wired and wireless keyboard. I know it detects the keyboard because I can switch between different languages. Any help will be appreciated here..

Thanks!

the problem is your keyboard. The fact that you can switch languages doesn't mean anything - the OS is fully loaded at that point (drivers initialized, etc) whereas the recovery screen is a function of the firmware (BIOS), and only does limited peripheral init.

[chromebox_newb]

Hi All,

Just got my Asus Chromebox, and wanted to try the Openelec/Chrome OS dual boot set up. I've read many instruction but I can't seem to get into Develop Mode. I know I need to use a paperclip, hold the recovery switch, press the power button. I get the "chrome os is missing or damaged.... " screen. Pressing "control d" does nothing! I've tried with a wired and wireless keyboard. I know it detects the keyboard because I can switch between different languages. Any help will be appreciated here..

Thanks!

the problem is your keyboard. The fact that you can switch languages doesn't mean anything - the OS is fully loaded at that point (drivers initialized, etc) whereas the recovery screen is a function of the firmware (BIOS), and only does limited peripheral init.

I can switch languages in the recovery screen. If you press the keyboard arrow left and right in the recovery screen the "chrome os is missing or damaged..." message changes languages. This is why I can't understand why the control d isn't working.

[Matt Devo]

I can switch languages in the recovery screen. If you press the keyboard arrow left and right in the recovery screen the "chrome os is missing or damaged..." message changes languages. This is why I can't understand why the control d isn't working.

I got nothing then, never seen that before

[kosta88]

Hello,
Just started the procedure and decided to go with the custom coreboot firmware.
Did the steps of removing the screw and entering developer mode. Then booted into ChromeOS and went to cmd..
Plugged in a usb stick into one of the ports...
So, pressed 5, enter...y... and it simply returned to the choice menu.
And now it's sitting here dumb and doing nothing.
I tried 5 enter again, shown me nothing.

I am afraid to reboot, not sure what will happen.

This is ASUS Chromebox, Celeron CPU.

Please help!

[Matt Devo]

Hello,
Just started the procedure and decided to go with the custom coreboot firmware.
Did the steps of removing the screw and entering developer mode. Then booted into ChromeOS and went to cmd..
Plugged in a usb stick into one of the ports...
So, pressed 5, enter...y... and it simply returned to the choice menu.
And now it's sitting here dumb and doing nothing.
I tried 5 enter again, shown me nothing.

I am afraid to reboot, not sure what will happen.

This is ASUS Chromebox, Celeron CPU.

Please help!

did you use the numeric pad on your keyboard? If so, num lock isn't on by default, so you didn't hit 5, you just entered garbage. quit and restart the script and use the main number keys