Alice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Mar 3

lazy web: I got a free chromebook, a 2016 model (specifically an HP Chromebook 11 G5 EE (TPN-Q151)).

I have never touched a chromebook before now, and I'd like to use this thing to play videos out the HDMI port.

Any suggestions for how I should do that? Like, upgrade the OS version as much as it goes and keep it mostly stock? install a linux on it? Some combination?

Ideally I'd like to just be running VLC on it

EDIT: Corrected above to HP Chromebook 11 G5 EE

Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️
it's also got some accounts on it already which I'm going to need to wipe. No idea how to do that though
Mar 3 at 1:10amWeb
Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Mar 3
okay turns out the answer is just "hit ctrl-alt-shift-r and click yes"
Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Mar 3
you can tell this OS is optimized for things like schools, you can factory reset the whole machine in one hotkey and one click
Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Mar 3

I'm going through the MrChromeBox guide and now it wants me to type the following command, by hand, into the keyboard, like some kind of caveman:

cd; curl -LOf https://mrchromebox.tech/firmware-util.sh && sudo bash firmware-util.sh

Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Mar 3
I need to make a keyboard with an NVRAM clipboard. Plug it into my main PC, copy, plug it into the chromebook, paste
Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Mar 3
85 characters? manually? madness
Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Mar 3

I did it manually, and it didn't work
(it turns out enabling developer mode wiped my wifi settings, so I was offline)
I fixed that in the GUI, and tried again
it didn't work because I made a typo
I fixed that and tried again!

and it failed to do anything because it turns out this is one of the chromebook models where you have to physically disassemble it to enable writing to the UEFI

Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Mar 3

WHICH MEANS I HAVE TO POWER OFF

AND TYPE THIS MONSTER AGAIN

Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Mar 3

okay so the way you disable the firmware write protection:

1. open the case
2. remove one screw from the motherboard
2. close the case

Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Mar 3

they ran a trace from the !WP pin of the UEFI flash chip to a mounting hole of the board. If the screw is present, it shorts the pin to the case, grounding it, and now the firmware can't be overwritten

Remove that one screw, and you can write again.

I'm not sure how much this is brilliance vs madness, but WOW

Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Mar 3

fun write protection story:

So back in the day when I was a Poor Kid In The 90s, I had a subscription to some computer magazine, during the period where they were full of tear-out adverts for all the online services. Compuserve, Prodigy, Earthlink, AOL, and so on.
I got a roll of address labels and each month I'd stick one on each card, and those companies would mail me FREE FLOPPY DISKS

Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Mar 3

and I'd just wipe and reuse them.

But AOL, the most reliable floppy mailer, either got wise to this or further cost-optimized their massive-scale floppy mailing operation: They started using 3.5" floppies that didn't have a read-write slider in them. This means they always appear as read-only

Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Mar 3
the obvious solution I figured out is just to tape over the read/write hole on the disk.
Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Mar 3

But one day I'm at the library using their computers, because I didn't have internet at home yet.

And I go to save some files from Netscape Navigator, and DONK, THIS DRIVE IS READ ONLY and I'm like "oh no... I brought one of my AOL disks, and I haven't stuck tape on it yet!"

Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Mar 3

So I go over to the nearest librarian desk and ask if they have some tape.

Immediately the librarian narrows her eyes, suspiciously. Why does this 10 year old child (who is mysteriously in my quiet Kids Section during school hours, on a school day) want TAPE? Are they going to do some kind of defacement of the library or books? are they going to hide RUDE SIGNS in the dark corners of the Westerns section?
She asks why I need it, and I explain I need to make the disk writable.

Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Mar 3
She goes "No, I won't give you any tape. And don't put any taped disks into any of my computers, either!"
Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Mar 3
I remember it very clearly, 31 years later, because I was so offended that she doubted my computer intentions and computer skills!
I would never damage a library computer! And I knew what I was doing!
Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Mar 3
But I learned quickly on that no one trusts Little Weird Kids to have any sort of competence at anything. Like I cut up a whole pineapple once with a very sharp knife, when I was 4?
And I couldn't understand why people were so scared I would cut myself, and saying I couldn't do that. Didn't I just demonstrate that I wouldn't hurt myself?
Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Mar 3
I had a strange upbringing, developmentally: Some of my first memories were of being annoyed that people were treating me like a child.
Even though I /WAS/ a child at the time.
Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Mar 3

okay I give up at opening this on my own. I took out all the visible screws, spudgered some clips, and it still isn't opening. I'mma check a video or a guide or something...

*searchy searchy*

NINETEEN STEPS?!

Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Mar 3

That was the wrong model. This guy got me there: I was missing some clips and being too afraid to break it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLrIYGJnZ5Q

Teardown / Disassembly - HP Chromebook 11 G5 Laptop

YouTube
Show threadRudi (ryjelsum)Mar 3
@foone cheap HP laptops are made with a special kind of hate so i'm not surprised, but that's pretty bad even for a chromebook lmao
Show threadHugo MillsMar 3
@foone After sixteen steps, the Cenobites show up. Just to ask if you're OK.
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Mar 3
@foone seems kinda normal
Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Mar 3
@whitequark we are exactly the same kind of being, so of course it seems normal :)
Show threadinstantiatethisMar 3
@foone this may be the most relatable thing I have ever read on the internet 😹
Show thread🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑Mar 3

@foone
One of the most annoying instances of the for me was when I asked what the difference between Democrats and Republicans was. This was iaround 1969 or 1970, and a thoughtful answer to that question would have been far different then than now. But I didn't get a thoughtful answer. I was told, "It's too complicated for you to understand."

I think I would give a much better answer to a child who asked me that. I can't sum it up in a sentence, but a short discussion would suffice.

Show threadIris Young (he/they/she) (PhD)Mar 3
@foone this is highly relatable
Show threadJeremy ListMar 3
@foone I just had a flashback to when I was 4 and was trying to inform a stranger that "I'm not little." (I wasn't actually offended at being referred to as "that little boy", I just thought it was a really weird descriptor for someone my size.)
Show threadgloriouscowMar 3

@foone I think I was like 9 and I was helping out with some crafts project at church and one of the tasks involved one of those bigass paper cutters with the huge cleaver thingie.

One of the chaperones sort of hemmed and hawwed about me using it before another chimed in and said "oh come on, Cow is clearly old enough".

And so that's how I have this gnarly scar on my thumb

Show threadSnyperWolfMar 3
@foone I love this deep Foone lore
Show threadgloriouscowMar 3

@foone technically all you demonstrated is that you didn't hurt yourself, not that you likely wouldn't were you to be allowed to continue cutting up pineapples henceforth.

I turn 47 this month and I only give myself 87% odds of cutting up a pineapple without bleeding all over everything.

Show threadIrenes (many)Mar 3
@foone see, we had more than one teacher pull us out of class to do unpaid tech work child labor for them
Show threadartemistMar 3
@ireneista @foone same with me. i think my parents stopped wondering if i knew what i was doing by the time i was reverse engineering circuit boards and reading datasheets at age 8
Show threadIrenes (many)Mar 3
@artemist @foone there was this very brief window in time when you could learn to make a half-adder in early childhood. in all the years before and since it's been a post-graduate topic :(((((
Show threadHelle, Queen of Dissociation Mar 3

@ireneista @foone oh that is a mood, people really shoe horned us into tech

erm, actual interest that we wished we had persued and may still include psychology, law and chemistry, but especially the psychology

Show thread(hic/haec/hoc)Mar 3
@foone I'm fairly sure I read this exact scene in some random isekai light novel. You're looking very suspicious now 🤨 and I'm sorry there's no magic in this world 😔
Show threadchrisgj198Mar 3
@foone I'm told I used to hide the burns I got from soldering, as I didn't want anyone to take away my soldering iron.
Show threadgkrnoursMar 3
@foone apparently I climbed a tree at school when I was small. So small I have no memory of it, only second hand account. Teacher was a bit scared and came to tell me to not do that because reason. Apparently I replied with twice as much reason why it's dangerous. Like ok, that kid know the risk.
Show threadpyroMar 3

@foone shoutouts to the IT guy at my school who got me in trouble for bringing a USB with some portable executables so I could run stuff without installing it to the harddrive like one guy was doing directly next to me with a pirated copy of Minecraft.

I would have done that too but the SCP Containment Breach website was banned on the school internet for apparently being pornography.

Show threadAlex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UKMar 4
@foone I'm not even sure if she doubted your skills as such - being a bit younger than me, this would have happened around the exact time when Internet had first started getting popular the local cops and even feds were warning folk like librarians, teachers etc about "juvenile hackers", she probably thought you were altering a disk to put some kind of virus on the computers (or to leave the AOL disk lying around with a virus on it for someone else to get bit by..)
Show threadGrimmoMar 5
@foone Hi, I'm in the IT staff of a library and married to a librarian. I wanted to say that while I feel your discomfort back then, I think there was nothing personal about you as a kid, I can guarantee we see any sort of crazy stuff in the library, vandalism very often, so the reaction of that librarian was, understandably, an attempt to avoid just another issue during her shift. I understand that this felt bad for you, and it hurt your feelings. And I wish we could live in a world where trust towards young kids willing to experiment was granted. I think we are losing great stuff by having this preventive attitude too.
Show threadJohn HarrisMar 3
@foone Authority makes people into the word NO given physical form.
Show threadSkylar Caulfield Mar 4
@foone what a different era, I thought I was a mega hacker cause I found out you can run Minecraft off a flash drive
Show threadLlokallaMar 3
@foone huh, never thought about it but isn’t this the opposite of 5 1/4” disks?
Show threadARGVMI~1.PIFMar 3

@foone

What if the tape comes apart while it's inside the drive? Might get stuck in the mechanism.

Show threadgloriouscowMar 3

@argv_minus_one @foone

yeah i'm a bit on the librarian's side. When you work in any service industry, you quickly discover that a concerning percentage of the public at large are simply idiots, and there is really no way to know ahead of time if you are dealing with an idiot or not without a lengthy interaction that you learn to avoid at all costs.

someone coming up to me asking for tape to stick on a floppy, might end up being a genius hacker with perfect qualifications to do what they want to do, but the actual safe bet is to tell them no, absolutely not.

Show threadARGVMI~1.PIFMar 3

@gloriouscow

Truth.

I mean, taping over the write-protect hole isn't exactly genius. I knew about that too when I was a kid.

But is a librarian in the floppy-disk era going to know what that will do? Whether the kid has done it correctly? Whether the tape is sturdy enough not to come off/apart and jam the drive mechanism? Librarians aren't disk drive engineers.

And although that hack won't do anything to the drive that a repair person can't fix, repair people's time isn't cheap…

@foone

Show threadgloriouscowMar 3

@argv_minus_one @foone

no i was just glazing @foone a bit there. if she came over to my house and said she needed to put forks in outlets RIGHT NOW i'd be like damn alright then how many?

anybody else i'd pause for a moment

Show threadAlice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Mar 3

@gloriouscow @argv_minus_one you never know when a scheme might involve fork outlets.

bad idea: build a keyboard that works by sticking forks in outlets

Show threadROTOPE~1 ⭐️Mar 3
@foone @gloriouscow @argv_minus_one self resetting breakers that graze keyswitches as they faff about?
Show threadgloriouscowMar 3

@rotopenguin @foone @argv_minus_one

what if you put toast on the forks, and had cameras to monitor when the toast was brown enough to be considered done, and then fired a relay to hit the key.

it would be a sort of done-key punch.

Show threadARGVMI~1.PIFMar 3

@gloriouscow @rotopenguin @foone

This is why electrical engineers should not be left alone without adult supervision. 🤭

Show threadARGVMI~1.PIFMar 3

@gloriouscow

Then again, what if the sticky side of the tape gets stuck to and wrapped around one of the heads? You'd have to hire Adrian Black himself after that. 😬

@foone

Show threadWillMar 3

@foone That era was far better than the one I remember, where you did nothing and they mailed you FREE CD-ROMs.

(We used them to make scarecrows.)

Show threadAndrew ZonenbergMar 3
@whbboyd @foone i used to use aol cds as frisbees
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Mar 3
@foone cheaper and more reliable than a switch
Show thread♡Trixie♡ Mar 3
@foone if you have a keychron keyboard (or any other keyboard with a lot of control over what you can add as a macro) you could add the entire command as a macro, i only know it’s possible because my partner kept accidentally pressing the button she set as a command and sending it in a chat