[Matt Devo]

I didn't recognize the boot image, its not the same as my old HP Chrombox CB1-030no  with Libreelec 7.0.3 (Kodi 16) so i looked around and found seven different hard-disk partitions on my new Chromebox, on my old one i just got two.

your device is set up for dual boot with ChromeOS, there are 12 partitions on the disc.

The problem starts when i try to change boot device on my new Chromebox, it says press ESC, but nothing happens, just start up Libreelec as always. Tried many times and change the USB bort of the keyboard and the usbstick but no luck.

problem is the keyboard, but we will fix another way

So the help i need is to install a standalone Libreelec 8.2.5.

press CTRL+D to boot ChromeOS before black SeaBIOS screen. Run my Kodi EZ Setup Script, install standalone firmware (remove firmware write-protect screw first). Reboot, then boot LibreELEC install media and install as normal

[sabelstrom]

Thanx @Matt Devo  You are the best

[Batesy2007]

Folks, where is the right place to discuss playback issues with my Chromebox Libreelec dual boot? Been struggling with 1080p playback for a few weeks now. (Was fine before) 720p is fine. Running Celeron 1.4Ghz and 4GB ram.

[Matt Devo]

Folks, where is the right place to discuss playback issues with my Chromebox Libreelec dual boot? Been struggling with 1080p playback for a few weeks now. (Was fine before) 720p is fine. Running Celeron 1.4Ghz and 4GB ram.

Linux support forum here or LibreELEC forums

[bes3]

hi,

On my ASUS CN60, can I boot from a non UEFI bootable legacy thumb drive in standalone mode? 

whenever i boot with CTRL-L or CTRL-U I still get the UEFI screen not the Legacy BIOS screen

i am able to boot a UEFI Ubuntu stick, and reran the kodi ez setup script so i just updated from 7/14/17 firmware to the 2018 firmware.

i was hoping to see an option in there to enable old style booting, or to switch to dual boot mode.

is it right that this is only available in the dual boot mode, and if so, how do i switch to that?   

thank you

EDIT:
i see theres a 2nd script called the firmware utility script,  should i do this?

boot Linux USB (GalliumOS works well)
run Firmware Utility Script from my website
choose U to unlock
choose 3 to install/update firmware
choose L for legacy when prompted
after flashing, reboot and reinstall LibreELEC from USB 

EDIT:
OK, I followed the procedure above and it worked. I was able to boot my legacy USB stick. Unlike booting into my UEFI stick, My K400 stopped working once booted onto my legacy USB stick, like the Kodi wiki mentioned it might...I had thought I was lucky...

Thank your for your great scripts.

So I guess my only question is, was what I did necessary? Should I have been able to boot either a legacy BIOS stick or a UEFI stick when running the UEFI standalone firmware?

[Matt Devo]

So I guess my only question is, was what I did necessary? Should I have been able to boot either a legacy BIOS stick or a UEFI stick when running the UEFI standalone firmware? 

 
The UEFI firmware boots only in UEFI mode, and the Legacy firmware only in Legacy BIOS mode. The UEFI firmware is the preferred/recommended/default firmware unless you absolutely need to run a legacy-only OS

[bes3]

OK. Thanks. 

I'm not sure what happened but immediately after the firmware upgrade it auto rebooted into my desired legacy USB stick, which was good, but now I cannot get back into it, it instead goes right to Libreelec on the SSD.

It says "Press ESC for Boot Menu", immediately followed by "Booting from Hard Disk..." and even though I have been repeatedly pressing ESC on the keyboard that I know just worked (the non K400). Is there some other way to force a USB boot?  

The reason I just reverted from UEFI to Legacy was because I had been trying to use my Easy2Boot USB stick which I think requires Legacy boot...
http://www.easy2boot.com/

Thank you

[Matt Devo]

OK. Thanks. 

I'm not sure what happened but immediately after the firmware upgrade it auto rebooted into my desired legacy USB stick, which was good, but now I cannot get back into it, it instead goes right to Libreelec on the SSD.

It says "Press ESC for Boot Menu", immediately followed by "Booting from Hard Disk..." and even though I have been repeatedly pressing ESC on the keyboard that I know just worked (the non K400). Is there some other way to force a USB boot?  

The reason I just reverted from UEFI to Legacy was because I had been trying to use my Easy2Boot USB stick which I think requires Legacy boot...
http://www.easy2boot.com/

Thank you

 it says on easy2boot website that UEFI is supported, just use different download file.

SeaBIOS can be picky/problematic with USB keyboards, try fully disconnecting power, try different port, etc.  Once you get it working, go back to UEFI firmware as it's more compatible.  You can have USB boot be the default with legacy boot, but need to select that option when flashing, so too late for that now

[bes3]

OK thanks.  I'll try your suggestions first.   

Not 100% positive, but I think that what you read on the E2B website means is that you can put specially created UEFI image files on the thumb drives and E2B has the ability to boot them just like E2B can boot regular legacy based ISOs.  What makes e2b a nice tool is you can just drop and drag ISOs onto the stick and they are magically bootable without configuring anything.

I think the issue is that UEFI requires a FAT32 partition to initiate booting, and the E2B stick is NTFS.  At least thats what I just read here:
https://www.rmprepusb.com/tutorials/129

Also, i definitely did pick USB to be the default boot option when I reinstalled with the firmware utility earlier today.  So it's very weird.  I may open it up and see how hard it is to remove the SSD to force the USB boot.

[Matt Devo]

OK thanks.  I'll try your suggestions first.   

Not 100% positive, but I think that what you read on the E2B website means is that you can put specially created UEFI image files on the thumb drives and E2B has the ability to boot them just like E2B can boot regular legacy based ISOs.  What makes e2b a nice tool is you can just drop and drag ISOs onto the stick and they are magically bootable without configuring anything.

I think the issue is that UEFI requires a FAT32 partition to initiate booting, and the E2B stick is NTFS.  At least thats what I just read here:
https://www.rmprepusb.com/tutorials/129

Also, i definitely did pick USB to be the default boot option when I reinstalled with the firmware utility earlier today.  So it's very weird.  I may open it up and see how hard it is to remove the SSD to force the USB boot.

 most ISOs are both UEFI and legacy boot compatible these days, there aren't 'UEFI ISOs' and 'Legacy ISOs.'  So the issue is how the e2b image is written to USB, if it's UEFI compatible.  Removing the SSD is a single screw once you have the back cover off.

[bes3]

Hi,
Well I see what you are saying about SeaBIO being problematic.

After tons of troubleshooting, I finally got it to bring up the boot menu via ESC. 
I don't know why it now decided to come up, other than flakiness. 
I had disconnected everything and cold powered off.  Switched USB ports. But yet still it would boot straight to SSD.
Then suddenly,  one time out of many, it brought up the boot menu.
Still, my USB sticks were missing from the boot menu. 
Both the dual boot Legacy/UEFI Ubuntu 18 stick, and my Legacy only E2B stick were not shown
However, when I installed the latest firmware, I had enabled the PXE booting and USB boot first.
And now, I actually have the PXE menu.  
So its nice to know I can install a PXE server and get that going.

Anyway, most of the time this boot menu fails to show. 
That said, one time since we spoke I actually got it to boot my Ubuntu 18 stick, but I can't seem to get it to do it again, nor my legacy E2B stick.

So a few years ago, I was running an older Legacy only firmware that worked perfectly. 
For whatever reason, on that version of the BIOS, the "boot to USB first" features was working perfectly and this very same E2B stick booted.
At some point, I updated to the EFI version, and I had assumed that switching back to the Legacy version would fix it, but I guess some things changed in the SeaBIOS.

Are older Legacy firmwares still available? Probably around summer of 2016?

I will also ask E2B if a EFI version of E2B is available/possible.  I agree that would be ideal.

Thanks for your help.

[Matt Devo]

Hi,
Well I see what you are saying about SeaBIO being problematic.

After tons of troubleshooting, I finally got it to bring up the boot menu via ESC. 
I don't know why it now decided to come up, other than flakiness. 
I had disconnected everything and cold powered off.  Switched USB ports. But yet still it would boot straight to SSD.
Then suddenly,  one time out of many, it brought up the boot menu.
Still, my USB sticks were missing from the boot menu. 
Both the dual boot Legacy/UEFI Ubuntu 18 stick, and my Legacy only E2B stick were not shown
However, when I installed the latest firmware, I had enabled the PXE booting and USB boot first.
And now, I actually have the PXE menu.  
So its nice to know I can install a PXE server and get that going.

Anyway, most of the time this boot menu fails to show. 
That said, one time since we spoke I actually got it to boot my Ubuntu 18 stick, but I can't seem to get it to do it again, nor my legacy E2B stick.

So a few years ago, I was running an older Legacy only firmware that worked perfectly. 
For whatever reason, on that version of the BIOS, the "boot to USB first" features was working perfectly and this very same E2B stick booted.
At some point, I updated to the EFI version, and I had assumed that switching back to the Legacy version would fix it, but I guess some things changed in the SeaBIOS.

Are older Legacy firmwares still available? Probably around summer of 2016?

I will also ask E2B if a EFI version of E2B is available/possible.  I agree that would be ideal.

Thanks for your help.

 honestly, it sounds like your USB stick is the issue, and the easiest course of action would be to just get/use another one.  I don't know anything about easy2usb, but their website was an incomprehensible mess.  I just flashed my Chromebox here with the 2018-02-04 legacy firmware, and it has no issues detecting, booting from, or defaulting to various USB flash drives I have here.  Personally, I'd just write whatever ISO you need directly to USB (as an image / in DD mode) and skip any of this middleware crap.

[sabelstrom]

Hi.

Went from Kodi 16.1 to 17.6 and got a sound issue. Probably a setting, but i have tried many without a solution. On 5.1 movies i have to set the sound 200ms ahead to be in sync, 2.0 sound works fine.

I have speakers set to 5.1.

I do not use passthrough but i have it hooked up ta a home theater with 5.1 speaker (Samsung HT-C6600, Built-in Decoders: DTS decoder, DTS-HD High Resolution, DTS-HD Master Audio, DTS-HD decoder, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Pro Logic II, Dolby TrueHD)

I have setup Kodi after https://kodi.wiki/view/Chromebox 3.4 Recommended Settings, but som options are not available: 
Vertical blank sync: Let driver choose
Deinterlace video: Auto
Video scaling method: Lanczos3 - Optimised

And i am not sure what Audio output device i should use, ALSA: HDA Intel, GSM LG TV on HDMI #0 or some other like ALSA: HDA Intel, HDMI #1

Any clues? Do you need more info?

[Matt Devo]

Hi.

Went from Kodi 16.1 to 17.6 and got a sound issue. Probably a setting, but i have tried many without a solution. On 5.1 movies i have to set the sound 200ms ahead to be in sync, 2.0 sound works fine.

I have speakers set to 5.1.

I do not use passthrough but i have it hooked up ta a home theater with 5.1 speaker (Samsung HT-C6600, Built-in Decoders: DTS decoder, DTS-HD High Resolution, DTS-HD Master Audio, DTS-HD decoder, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Pro Logic II, Dolby TrueHD)

I have setup Kodi after https://kodi.wiki/view/Chromebox 3.4Recommended Settings, but som options are not available: 
Vertical blank sync: Let driver choose
Deinterlace video: Auto
Video scaling method: Lanczos3 - Optimised

And i am not sure what Audio output device i should use, ALSA: HDA Intel, GSM LG TV on HDMI #0 or some other like ALSA: HDA Intel, HDMI #1

Any clues? Do you need more info?

 firstly, I'd reset the audio offset to zero, then enable passthru (on ALSA: HDA Intel, GSM LG TV on HDMI #0, or whatever is connected to your HT).  If you have your Chromebox connected to the TV vs connected directly to the HT, then I would fix that first.  The speaker config should match your actual config, so 5.1 is correct.

and yeah, I need to update the recommended settings.  Maybe when v18 hits beta.  Right now, the default settings for 17.6 are perfect other than enabling passthru and setting your speaker config

[NeoDuck]

Hi! I've installed LibreELEC onto the internal 16GB SSD of my Asus Chromebox. I also have multiple USB drives attached. The problem that I have is that my Kodi often gets bogged down and I have to reboot about once a week. However, every time I reboot, the system forces me to press [ESC] and then specify which storage device to boot from (since I have multiple USB drives attached to the Chromebox). How do we set it to boot automatically to the internal SSD drive? Thank you!