[noggin]

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...

You may have had to reach a certain number of posts or been a member for a certain period of time?

[Matt Devo]

Gents, let's get this thread back on topic

script updated / new builds posted. Fixes USB detection issues on the SeaBIOS boot menu. If anyone still has problems, send me a PM

---

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!

First thing I would do is update your legacy BIOS to the version I just posted (20140613) using the new script, as it fixes some USB-related issues with SeaBIOS.

If that doesn't work, LMK what distro, USB2 or 3 for the external drive, etc and I'll try to replicate here

[Smobbo]

Just got my chromebox and ran the script, it went flawless !
What a huge difference with a raspberry pi!

Great work Matt!


I'm adjusting all the settings and I can't seem to fix 2 things.
1. How do I add a skin to the correct openelec folder? I'm used to accessing the raspberry via windows explorer and just copy over the skin folder to ~\.xbmc\addons etc. but I can't find the .xbmc folder via windows explorer. I can only find a few folder (among which the userdata).
2. When I try airplay with my iPad it just sees openelec as something that can play audio. Is this a known bug or should this work? I know airplay is a real PITA...

[starfire-1]

First thing I would do is update your legacy BIOS to the version I just posted (20140613) using the new script, as it fixes some USB-related issues with SeaBIOS.

If that doesn't work, LMK what distro, USB2 or 3 for the external drive, etc and I'll try to replicate here

Thanks for taking a look. I tried a couple of more things before replying. I update to the latest legacy BIOS, but no joy, and I updated the HD firmware, but no joy.

I'll describe my latest attempt. I have a Zalman HD enclosure that can present ISOs as a virtual drive. Plugging this into a USB port near the network connector and my target HD (a USB 3.0 500GB WD My Passport hard drive) to a "front" USB port, I booted the Fedora 20 x86_64 full DVD (using the mem=1800M switch) and proceeded with a standard install. The WD hard drive was presented as /dev/sdb and I created a 4GB swap partition and 20GB root partition. Installed the boot loader to /dev/sdb. All went well.

However, upon reboot and removing the Zalman drive, the Legacy boot attempt fails with "cannot read disk", tries a floppy (don't know where thats comping from) and then waits a minute.

I can disconnect the WD hard drive and boot it from my Asus/FX4100 and Gigibyte i7 2600K systems without a problem.

I have also tried a similar attempt with Ubuntu 14.04 (from a live CD ISO) without success.

Is there some SeaBIOS diagnostic info I can look at? Thanks!

Edit:
One more data point ... I installed Fedora 20 in virtually the same way on a drive housed in a NexStar3 2.5" HD enclosure through a USB2.0 connection and it worked! So it appears as if the WD MyPassport USB 3.0 (FW 1.025 - newest) seems to have an incompatibility with the SeaBIOS. Perhaps it is the SES driver that WD likes to include in their firmware. I'll see if I can disable that.

[jsp1]

Just got my chromebox and ran the script, it went flawless !
What a huge difference with a raspberry pi!

Great work Matt!


I'm adjusting all the settings and I can't seem to fix 2 things.
1. How do I add a skin to the correct openelec folder? I'm used to accessing the raspberry via windows explorer and just copy over the skin folder to ~\.xbmc\addons etc. but I can't find the .xbmc folder via windows explorer. I can only find a few folder (among which the userdata).
2. When I try airplay with my iPad it just sees openelec as something that can play audio. Is this a known bug or should this work? I know airplay is a real PITA...

Why not pull the skin from a repository? I'm pretty sure if you want to do it manually you will need to SSH into the box using something like Putty.

In case you aren't familiar...
http://wiki.openelec.tv/index.php?title=...use_SSH.3F

This way you could move your skin folder into a temp location that is accessible remotely via windows explorer and then move it to the proper location with the "cp" command.

[Matt Devo]

Just got my chromebox and ran the script, it went flawless !
What a huge difference with a raspberry pi!

Great work Matt!


I'm adjusting all the settings and I can't seem to fix 2 things.
1. How do I add a skin to the correct openelec folder? I'm used to accessing the raspberry via windows explorer and just copy over the skin folder to ~\.xbmc\addons etc. but I can't find the .xbmc folder via windows explorer. I can only find a few folder (among which the userdata).
2. When I try airplay with my iPad it just sees openelec as something that can play audio. Is this a known bug or should this work? I know airplay is a real PITA...

1) It's much easier to just reinstall the skins from an add-on repository or zip file that you copy into the downloads folder. OE specifically tries to prevent you from screwing things up yourself

2) I'd check the OpenELEC forums regarding Airplay issues. I don't have an iDevice to test here.

Thanks for taking a look. I tried a couple of more things before replying. I update to the latest legacy BIOS, but no joy, and I updated the HD firmware, but no joy.

I'll describe my latest attempt. I have a Zalman HD enclosure that can present ISOs as a virtual drive. Plugging this into a USB port near the network connector and my target HD (a USB 3.0 500GB WD My Passport hard drive) to a "front" USB port, I booted the Fedora 20 x86_64 full DVD (using the mem=1800M switch) and proceeded with a standard install. The WD hard drive was presented as /dev/sdb and I created a 4GB swap partition and 20GB root partition. Installed the boot loader to /dev/sdb. All went well.

However, upon reboot and removing the Zalman drive, the Legacy boot attempt fails with "cannot read disk", tries a floppy (don't know where thats comping from) and then waits a minute.

I can disconnect the WD hard drive and boot it from my Asus/FX4100 and Gigibyte i7 2600K systems without a problem.

I have also tried a similar attempt with Ubuntu 14.04 (from a live CD ISO) without success.

Is there some SeaBIOS diagnostic info I can look at? Thanks!

Edit:
One more data point ... I installed Fedora 20 in virtually the same way on a drive housed in a NexStar3 2.5" HD enclosure through a USB2.0 connection and it worked! So it appears as if the WD MyPassport USB 3.0 (FW 1.025 - newest) seems to have an incompatibility with the SeaBIOS. Perhaps it is the SES driver that WD likes to include in their firmware. I'll see if I can disable that.

USB 3.0 devices are not supported as boot devices with the stock firmware; the stock firmware is just broken that way. If you use the Coreboot firmware then it should work just fine. You could always install ChromiumOS to the internal HDD and then dual boot between it and Fedora.

[menno]

I run OE latest stable on ASus Chromebox. After watching a HD channel for like 35 min, buffer errors start to appear they get gradually worse. Than I stop my live tv watching and start it again, and Ill be good for another half an hour. Nobody faces this is here on a Chromebox?

I still use the orginal firmware though. Maybe you could update the first page with a howto on what to do do if you were an early adapter and installed Openelec without the nice tweaks. I still need to do a CTRL -L , ESC and #1 sequence on reboot

Doe suspend work with your version? I think this might fix the battery drain of my PS3-BD bluetooth remote. That seems to stay connected to the box and so drains my batteries in about two weeks.

[Matt Devo]

I run OE latest stable on ASus Chromebox. After watching a HD channel for like 35 min, buffer errors start to appear they get gradually worse. Than I stop my live tv watching and start it again, and Ill be good for another half an hour. Nobody faces this is here on a Chromebox?

I still use the orginal firmware though. Maybe you could update the first page with a howto on what to do do if you were an early adapter and installed Openelec without the nice tweaks. I still need to do a CTRL -L , ESC and #1 sequence on reboot

Doe suspend work with your version? I think this might fix the battery drain of my PS3-BD bluetooth remote. That seems to stay connected to the box and so drains my batteries in about two weeks.

What tweaks are you referring to? My script only uses the standard OpenELEC downloads these days, nothing custom. The only tweaks are to the bootloader to get OE booting properly in a dual-boot setup.

If you are intent on running the ChromeBox in a standalone OpenELEC setup, then you can always back up your current config (using the OpenELEC backup tool), copy the backup to your PC, and run the current version of the script to install the standalone/Coreboot firmware. Then re-install OE from USB (using the script to make a USB installer) and reload your config.

The standalone Coreboot firmware does properly support suspend/resume, but resume via IR remote is not working due to issues in the Linux kernel's USB3/XHCI implementation - it's not a ChromeBox specific issue, we just don't have the option to use a USB2 port. If you use a phone remote app like YATSE which uses wake on lan (WOL) for power on, then you can resume from suspend that way

[starfire-1]

USB 3.0 devices are not supported as boot devices with the stock firmware; the stock firmware is just broken that way. If you use the Coreboot firmware then it should work just fine. You could always install ChromiumOS to the internal HDD and then dual boot between it and Fedora.

Thanks Matt. I misinterpreted the effect of the John Lewis patch in that it enabled the use of the USB 3.0 ports but does not allow for the booting of USB 3.0 disk. Do you know if anyone has tried chainloading or daisy chaining - e.g. have a bootloader that works with the stock firmware, but then allows you to select a USB 3.0 disk? Just curious.

[Matt Devo]

Thanks Matt. I misinterpreted the effect of the John Lewis patch in that it enabled the use of the USB 3.0 ports but does not allow for the booting of USB 3.0 disk. Do you know if anyone has tried chainloading or daisy chaining - e.g. have a bootloader that works with the stock firmware, but then allows you to select a USB 3.0 disk? Just curious.

I had originally thought this was an issue with the stock Coreboot firmware, since my USB3 drives never showed up in the SeaBIOS boot menu. But, I just re-tested with my current SeaBIOS build (0613), and my USB3 flash drive suddenly appeared for the first time (and booted successfully), so I'm not sure what this issue is at the moment. It could be something with that specific drive, or it could be another SeaBIOS bug.

Since you said another (USB2) drive with the same setup booted successfully, I wouldn't suspect a bootloader issue. The only bootloader I've seen that has issues is syslinux 6.x, and only with the stock firmware. IME, if you try to boot a disk with syslinux 6.x, it's likely to reboot instantly.

[starfire-1]

I had originally thought this was an issue with the stock Coreboot firmware, since my USB3 drives never showed up in the SeaBIOS boot menu. But, I just re-tested with my current SeaBIOS build (0613), and my USB3 flash drive suddenly appeared for the first time (and booted successfully), so I'm not sure what this issue is at the moment. It could be something with that specific drive, or it could be another SeaBIOS bug.

Since you said another (USB2) drive with the same setup booted successfully, I wouldn't suspect a bootloader issue. The only bootloader I've seen that has issues is syslinux 6.x, and only with the stock firmware. IME, if you try to boot a disk with syslinux 6.x, it's likely to reboot instantly.

So, I did a little more testing and have some good news. I dug around for as many USB 3.0 devices I could find and discovered the following

1) USB thumb drive ADATA UV128/64GB is detected and will boot (but is slow)
2) The base of a STCA3000100 USB3.0 interface http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6822178110 was not even detected
3) All of my recent WD external USB 3.0 passport drives were detected but could not be read when booting
4) Finally, the interface from some Seagate drives that I emptied were both recognized AND WOULD BOOT! Yeah! Windows identifies the interface as "Raptor 3.5" USB 3.0"

EDIT: After searching around a little more I believe this is the working drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6822148848 STAY2000102 . There are many similar looking drives

So I was able to install AND boot Fedora 20 from the external drive by only updating the legacy firmware to Matt's current version.

I actually knew the last attempt was going to work because I tested the boot behavior without installing. You can try the following....

1) Insert a drive that you know can be detected (this forces the legacy rom to ask you to hit ESC)
2) Insert the drive you want to test and boot.
3) Hit Cntl-L and ESC to get the menu.
4) Find the entry for your test drive and select.

My WD drives would hang for a few seconds before reporting that the drive could not be read. However, the good interface was immediately read, did not report any errors, and then the BIOS tried all of the other interfaces before going into the 60 second wait.

Basically, if your USB 3.0 device can be detected and after selecting is immediately "passed over" ,then it may work as an external boot drive.

[jas722]

First off Thanks so much Matt! This is awesome and so easy to setup.

I bought an i3 Chromebox and was up and running OpenElec Standalone in no time.

I have a few questions which I haven't been able to find the answers to in this thread, please point me in the right direction if I missed them.

I've had the box lock up on me a few times when attempting to do a reboot from Openelec, would display a cursor hang and then display a list of errors on the screen. I updated the Coreboot to the newest version this morning and haven't seen the issue again. I'm hoping this fixes it, I will post a screenshot of the errors if I see it again.

Is there a way to get Wake on Lan working? I'm not sure if I need to set something up in the firmware or even how to do that since it boots so fast I'm using the Yatse remote and it sends a WOL signal but the Chromebox does not boot.

Thanks again for the great work!

Edit: Just had the issue occur, my instance of boblight/lightpack wasn't in sync so I tried a reboot. http://imgur.com/DbjjwuM

[menno]

If you are intent on running the ChromeBox in a standalone OpenELEC setup, then you can always back up your current config (using the OpenELEC backup tool), copy the backup to your PC, and run the current version of the script to install the standalone/Coreboot firmware. Then re-install OE from USB (using the script to make a USB installer) and reload your config.

But I cannot run the script if dont have Chrome OS on it no more right?

[Matt Devo]

First off Thanks so much Matt! This is awesome and so easy to setup.

I bought an i3 Chromebox and was up and running OpenElec Standalone in no time.

I have a few questions which I haven't been able to find the answers to in this thread, please point me in the right direction if I missed them.

I've had the box lock up on me a few times when attempting to do a reboot from Openelec, would display a cursor hang and then display a list of errors on the screen. I updated the Coreboot to the newest version this morning and haven't seen the issue again. I'm hoping this fixes it, I will post a screenshot of the errors if I see it again.

Is there a way to get Wake on Lan working? I'm not sure if I need to set something up in the firmware or even how to do that since it boots so fast I'm using the Yatse remote and it sends a WOL signal but the Chromebox does not boot.

Thanks again for the great work!

Edit: Just had the issue occur, my instance of boblight/lightpack wasn't in sync so I tried a reboot. http://imgur.com/DbjjwuM

No familiar with boblight, but sure looks like it may have been responsible for the crash. I'd post over on the OpenELEC forums or IRC channel as they'd likely be more help, and I'm guessing it's not a ChromeBox-specific issue.

YATSE / WOL works to wake the box from suspend, not full power off.

If you are intent on running the ChromeBox in a standalone OpenELEC setup, then you can always back up your current config (using the OpenELEC backup tool), copy the backup to your PC, and run the current version of the script to install the standalone/Coreboot firmware. Then re-install OE from USB (using the script to make a USB installer) and reload your config.

But I cannot run the script if dont have Chrome OS on it no more right?

you can run the script from ChromiumOS as well though. Make yourself a bootable USB stick with ChromiumOS as described in the wiki section for restoring the stock firmware, but run the commands to download/run the script instead of the commands to restore the stock firmware

[Netix]

You can try the following and change the output to whats displayed from the first

Code:

xrandr -q
xrandr --output HDMI1 --set audio force-dvi

You shouldn't get overscan if it thinks it's dvi. You could aslo try

Code:

xrandr --output HDMI1 --set underscan on --set "underscan hborder" xx --set "underscan vborder" xx

Both of these doesn't work I decided to try OE and the Chromium Browser and it does have overscan but I can live with it until I get a better solution.

Is it just me or is this box in no way getting a gigabit connection on the latest OE (all final gotham .1)
Whatever i try with ethtool only 100 mbit full duplex does it! ((

I'm getting GigE no problem. Just transferred a multi-GB file over at ~93MB/sec

When I'm transferring a file from the Chromebox to my Window 7 PC. I'm only getting ~15MB/sec (The file is on a USB 3.0 on the Chromebox) Do you know what might be the issue ?

Edit :

- Transferring a file from the usb key (3.0) to my windows 7 directly it transfer at ~35mb/sec. It's a cheap usb3 I guess but I should get more then ~15 mb/sec while transferring from the chromebox to the pc ?