[Matt Devo]

This is a great guide, but I went out and bought 2 brand new 32gb usb sandisk thumb drives, successfully wrote ubuntu to usb with etcher and there is no option hitting escape to boot to the usb.  it boots directly to kodi every time.  i've tried 2 usb thumb drives so no idea what i'm doing wrong.  thanks

sounds like it's not detecting the USB for some reason. Try another port, worst case you can always pull the SSD and see if that forces the USB to be detected / to boot

yeah i've tried all 4 ports.  no idea what could be wrong.  should I try another program other than Etcher to write Ubuntu to the usb?  its definitely not detecting the usb unless i'm doing something wrong. there is no message to hit escape when it boots up before getting to kodi so I assume its not even being detected and even if i hit escape multipe times as soon as I hit power I never see a message about hitting escape.

its been years since I've used this and I can't remember what the normal boot process said

this is purely a hardware detection issue, is has nothing to do with what is on the USB or how it was written. It's possible your USB keyboard is causing an issue, which you can verify by booting without the keyboard and ssd attached.

You can also flash the firmware directly, treating the device as if it were bricked. See https://wiki.mrchromebox.tech/Unbricking.

Again, this is purely a firmware compatibility issue.