[cd2022]

I think you're looking for this:

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=231955

Go to post # 2

[InfoJunky]

... pop-up that says "Working" with the spinning circle and it freezes....

I was experiencing the same issue, and was able to find this in the WIKI. Chromebox Wiki

On Screen Display:
Some OpenELEC 6 users have reported problems with On Screen Display elements not refreshing properly. Changing System -> Settings -> System -> Video Output -> Vertical Blank Sync -> 'Let Driver Choose' (which is the default option) will fix the problem.

I have not seen the issue after making this change. Hopefully this solves it.

Well it turns out that my post clearly deserved a RTFW!

I had honestly passed over this setting after reading it b/c the text indicated that it should already be the default setting and I don't recall having changed it.

After making this change preliminary testing indicates that my issue is now resolved.

Thank you all.

[pvagner]

there's already a thread dedicated to running Arch on the Chromebox, albeit in standalone (vs dual boot) mode. If you want to post there once you have everything figured out, I'll link to your post from the OP/wiki for others who might be interested.

Okay, I've added post to that thread describing my use case in details.
I am also considering putting down some notes explaining how I've managed the Chrome OS part withouth being able to see the screen and some general accessibility related tips. This is specific to this device so I think this thread is more suitable. Hopefully I won't put that aside for good. I'll keep you posted hopefully.

[FreakinSyco]

I cannot for the life of me get my Chromebox to the boot menu.

Situation: I've got a pair of chromeboxes with Standalone seabios on them. Both with openelec. I want to redo them with kodibuntu and mythbuntu. However I cannot for the life of me get into the boot menu reliably. I've done it a couple of times randomly in the past but now today I cant do it all. Is there anyway from within openelec I can update the BIOS to force a boot to USB device? Is there a BIOS that will wait out for a second or two for input? I have two different wired USB keyboards I've tried with. Is it true you can only press ESC once? If I mash ESC a thousand times it wont catch? EDIT: Can I hit reboot from within OpenELEC and hit ESC to get the boot menu? Or do I have to do a full shutdown in order to get the boot menu option?

My i3 chromebox boots so fast its crazy. I reboot so rarely I dont know why we dont have a sensible amount of time so that monitors can adjust to the input and USB devices can wake.

I've now corrupted the OpenELEC install on one of them hard resetting it so many times. Lesson learned to shutdown cleanly from now on on the other.

Thanks for any help!

[pvagner]

I think you have to have USB plugged in in order to be able to see ESC device selection on the sea bios screen. If there is only one bootable device it will just boot that.
There is either 1 sec or 30 secs boot delay on your Chromebox.
If there is 30 secs then you should have no issue as soon as you see developer mode warning you can hit ctrl+l and then immediatelly press ESC key.
If there is 1 sec delay then you need to practice a bit if your display and keyboard are not initialized right at startup. That 1 sec starts almost as soon as you hit the power button when the device is off.
If you would like to boot from connected USB or inserted memory card you should finally hit number two in the upper row of keys. However you will see clear instructions when to press this.

[FreakinSyco]

I think you have to have USB plugged in in order to be able to see ESC device selection on the sea bios screen. If there is only one bootable device it will just boot that.
There is either 1 sec or 30 secs boot delay on your Chromebox.
If there is 30 secs then you should have no issue as soon as you see developer mode warning you can hit ctrl+l and then immediatelly press ESC key.
If there is 1 sec delay then you need to practice a bit if your display and keyboard are not initialized right at startup. That 1 sec starts almost as soon as you hit the power button when the device is off.
If you would like to boot from connected USB or inserted memory card you should finally hit number two in the upper row of keys. However you will see clear instructions when to press this.

I've got the standalone bios setup, so no ctrl+l. Yes I think it boots in one second. I did get everything sorted. I switched to a new USB drive. I still could not get my celeron based unit (that I corrupted openelec on) to ever get to the boot screen, but I could finally get my i3 based one to boot to the boot menu. So I did the sensible thing... open both boxes swap out the SSDs, install Mythbuntu on the i3, swap the SSD back into the Celeron based one. Then put them back together and redid openelec on the i3. What fun.

On another note: I went back to the standard OpenELEC 6.0 away from the EGL new build that does better colors. I had issues with audio passthru being flaky. GUI sounds would not play consistently and the image seemed softer IMO. Now back on main OpenELEC everything is nice and smooth. I cant tell the difference in any colors. And it annoyed me that auto updates were disabled when using the EGL build.

Big thanks to everyone who developed everything that got linux booting on these boxes. These are by far my new favorite devices.

[Wasse]

Just wanted to say thank you to Matt, and everyone that helps out on this thread, for all your hard work and time . I think I speak for everyone who puts Linux/Openelec on their Chromeboxs, when I say you guys are the best, and thank you!!

[Karnis]

On another note: I went back to the standard OpenELEC 6.0 away from the EGL new build that does better colors. I had issues with audio passthru being flaky. GUI sounds would not play consistently and the image seemed softer IMO. Now back on main OpenELEC everything is nice and smooth. I cant tell the difference in any colors. And it annoyed me that auto updates were disabled when using the EGL build.

I find the Milhouse build # 1119 (which includes the EGL Video Player) to be quite stable on my Chromebox, with good pass-thru and good colors with no banding. Make sure you use fritsch's recommended Kodi settings here:
2.) KODI settings
System->Settings->System->Video Settings:
Vertical Sync: Let Driver decide

System ->Video->Acceleration:
Enable HQ Scalers for scaling above: 20%
Allow hardware acceleration (VDPAU): off
Allow hardware acceleration (VAAPI): On
Use Mpeg-2 VAAPI: Yes
Use Mpeg-4 VAAPI: if you like
UseVC-1 VAAPI: on
Prefer VAAPI Render Method: on <- This version has the banding fixed, so enable that setting to save CPU cycles with 100% quality.
Adjust Refreshrate to match video: On

System -> Video -> Playback
Sync Playback to Display: On if you don't use passthrough and Off if passthrough enabled (* This makes no sense when you want to use passthrough, why? Read: http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...d2107461). In current versions (Jarvis) passthrough is disabled by us if users wants to Sync Playback to Display to care for people that refuse to read.
Adjust display refresh rate to match video: On Start / Stop

While watching a SD(!) video, that is accelerated by VAAPI, e.g. mpeg-2 or h264, click the film role and choose: Deinterlace: Auto (Never set this to ON it will harm for everything that is not interlaced) Deinterlacing-Method: VAAPI-MCDI or VAAPI-MADI (Sandybridge) and VAAPI-BOB (BYT), Scaling Method: Lanczos3 Optimized and choose save for all files. Remember to do this only in combination with the above "scaling above" for 20%. This Lanczos3 Optimized filter is too heavy for BYTs, here you might - depending on the file - choose Bilinear.


Generally speaking, above that and up to the latest builds they are testing new pass-thru methods and some sync issues still need to be resolved.

Remember these are test builds, so it's probably best to update manually anyway.

You can roll back to OE 6 official from this build with no problems.

1119:
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid2164900

[Matt Devo]

My i3 chromebox boots so fast its crazy. I reboot so rarely I dont know why we dont have a sensible amount of time so that monitors can adjust to the input and USB devices can wake.

The USB specs allow for a certain amount of time for a device to respond to different commands. The ChromeBox firmware expects that USB devices will adhere to the spec and make themselves available within the required time, plus a small additional amount; if not, then it happily continues on with the boot process. I've experimented with increasing the timeout on various USB commands, but for problematic devices it doesn't seem to help. Where possible, I've put in workarounds for certain types of init errors. The current firmware release should be the most compatible yet.

[rickyman]

if i buy a celeron chromebox and install kodi, will it run well or not?

can i install windows 7 into this pc or not?

[Stereodude]

if i buy a celeron chromebox and install kodi, will it run well or not?

Yes, it runs well. However, you may have some corner use cases where it doesn't since you didn't elaborate on how you want to use it.

can i install windows 7 into this pc or not?

I think Windows 7 is a no. Windows 8, yes, but that's not really what it's meant for. If you want to run Windows buy something like this: http://www.frys.com/product/8646880

[Matt Devo]

if i buy a celeron chromebox and install kodi, will it run well or not?

can i install windows 7 into this pc or not?

read the wiki page, FFS

[Manic D]

My Asus' cable connector (the white one seen in the Chromebox wiki photo in the corner by the On/Off switch) has detached from the motherboard. Has anyone had to re-attach or replace theirs? It looks like it's just two very small soldering points?

[Matt Devo]

My Asus' cable connector (the white one seen in the Chromebox wiki photo in the corner by the On/Off switch) has detached from the motherboard. Has anyone had to re-attach or replace theirs? It looks like it's just two very small soldering points?

TPIWWP. How does that even happen? The only reason you'd even need to detach it is for access to the top side of the board (eg, to flash the firmware chip directly)

[Manic D]

My Asus' cable connector (the white one seen in the Chromebox wiki photo in the corner by the On/Off switch) has detached from the motherboard. Has anyone had to re-attach or replace theirs? It looks like it's just two very small soldering points?

TPIWWP. How does that even happen? The only reason you'd even need to detach it is for access to the top side of the board (eg, to flash the firmware chip directly)

It happened while my fingers accidentally pushed into the cable while I was upgrading the SSD.