[Matt Devo]

I recently purchased the Asus Chromebox (don't even have it yet) with the intention of dual-booting ChromeOS and OpenELEC, installing Kodi and using it primarily to stream internet video content. At the moment, I have just two questions. First, I'm planning on putting the CB behind where I would be sitting as I don't really have space by my tv for it. I'll just run an hdmi cable down into my basement, under the living room and back up through the floor to my tv. Thus, I am assuming that I won't be able to use any IR remote as I wouldn't have line of sight unless I wanted to turn around every time I needed to press a button. Would my best bet be to to get a wireless keyboard/mouse or to get a bluetooth remote? I've seen so many different remote recommendations that my head is starting to spin; however, most of them seem to be IR remotes, which I won't be able to use, which is kind of too bad because I have a couple different MCE remotes lying about, though I'd have to buy a receiver anyway. I do have a logitech k400 that I recently purchased, but apparently there are some issues regarding that device and dual booting (though it's probably not that big of a deal as I wouldn't be switching it on and off all the time).

for Kodi, any RF device should suffice (and BT is RF), since LoS isn't required

More importantly, though, I just discovered that steam streaming is a thing. I've heard, though, that it's not really a thing for the chromebox, though maybe, kind of, it could be with kodibuntu, which is, apparently, a lot more complicated to install than OpenELEC. I have no experience whatsoever with linux, though I could probably follow a list of instructions. So, is steam streaming something I should just put out of my head and forget that it exists, or is there some way for a newbie such as myself to get that working with some operating system that I could install on the CB? Is this something developers for any of the platforms are working on? I can imagine that there'd be a lot of people that would like to be able to play their steam library on their TVs using a $150 chromebox as opposed to something twice as expensive.

I think Steam streaming and Linux is still a WIP, but haven't done much testing myself. I do know that the Steam Linux app complains about being able to detect the amount of VRAM allocated, but that doesn't seem to be a ChromeBox specific issue

Oh, one more thing. Is it possible to get miracast to work on the CB?

not familiar, can't help you there

I thought about running a long USB cable along with the HDMI cable. I actually have a vga cable, audio cable, usb cable, and ethernet cable running from my desktop pc through my floor, along my basement to the other side of the house to an old projector. This run will certainly be shorter than that. I figure, though, there are solutions other than IR that will work, as that would be one less expense and one less wire that I have cluttered about.

I do have a USB wired keyboard that I could probably use in the few instances that the k400 won't work. I would like to have some kind of remote that will work, though, especially if my wife or kids are operating it.

The PS3 remote has definitely been on my radar. I wonder how it compares to a wii remote. While I've seen a lot of people mention the PS3, I've seen very little in regards to the wii remotes, and I have several of them, one of which I could easily sacrifice for this if it works well, but I don't know if getting it to work is difficult or not or if it has enough buttons.

I was considering flirc before I decided that it would probably work better for me to put the CB behind me next to my desktop computer where there's more space, but not knowing if it would still work even if I was pointing the remote in the opposite direction makes me hesitant to drop $20 on that. There's always a million extra costs...

FLIRC is IR, and requires LoS. Purchase accordingly.

Based on your posts, I'd advise against multiple long runs that aren't ethernet. I'd make your HDMI (and audio, if separate) runs as short as possible, and then you can use an IR receiver with a decent length USB cable if needed (though the PS3 remote is better than most IR ones, IMO)

Just a quick question. I have 2 HP chromeboxes. The first one I took backup of the firmware, the second I didn't because I thought they'd be identical. If I restore them both and use the same firmware backup file, will they end up with the same network ethernet MACs? (I supposed the wireless Macs are hardwired to the wlan adapter, no?)

yes, both would end up with the same ethernet MAC (since it's embedded in the firmware backup), and yes, the WLAN MAC is embedded in the WLAN device firmware itself (and therefore not affected by the ChromeBox firmware in any way)