Mastodawn

Today’s fuckery:

A few years back we bought my son a Chromebook for his schoolwork. At the time it seemed like a good choice because the price was right and the limited specs meant that it would pretty useless for much else. (Focus on your schoolwork, kid!)

The Chromebook ended up getting slightly bent in my son’s backpack, which screwed up the touchpad. Alas, old Chromey ended up forgotten in the ‘pile of old crap I refuse to get rid of’, until one day I decided to do some searching into repairing the touchpad, which I was able to accomplish by ‘shimming’ out to warped case a little bit.

Then Google decided to end support for Chromebooks.

Well, today I dusted the old girl off and began with the question: can one install Linux on this thing?

Turns out, the answer is ‘probably’.

Hell yeah, let’s dig in!

#RightToRepair #HardwareHacking #JailBreaking #Chromebook

So after some reading I found a site offering a pretty straightforward tutorial on how to jailbreak and install other OSs on Chromebook. Apparently people are installing Linux, Windows and even MacOS on these things!

https://docs.mrchromebox.tech

#RightToRepair #HardwareHacking #JailBreaking #Chromebook

MrChromebox.tech

MrChromebox.tech website

So, it turns out that you need to overwrite the default firmware on the Chromebook in order to install one that will allow you to boot from external media and install an alternative OS.

My first attempt revealed that the manufacturer of this particular Chromebook had made the BIOS ‘read only’, but I learned that it was possible to bypass this by disconnecting the internal battery.

No big deal. I’ve had this thing apart before. Off to iFixIt I go:

https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Asus_Chromebook_C523N

#RightToRepair #HardwareHacking #JailBreaking #Chromebook

Asus Chromebook C523 Repair Help: Learn How to Fix It Yourself.

ASUS Chromebook C523NA is a Chromebook laptop manufactured by ASUS that was released on October 23, 2018 and is compatible with the Google Play Store2. It is the first ASUS Chromebook to feature a NanoEdge design, for a larger screen but more compact design.

iFixit

And it worked! I was able to overwrite (after backing up!) the factory firmware! Now I have a BIOS that allows me to go in and configure boot devices/priorities!

#RightToRepair #HardwareHacking #JailBreaking #Chromebook

The first round failed. I tried installing Kubuntu but it failed with the same ‘unable to install updates’ error that I’ve run across on previous installs.

Right now I’m installing W11 for lark. It seems to be working! 😂

#RightToRepair #HardwareHacking #JailBreaking #Chromebook

Holy shit it works!

There’s a few pieces of hardware it doesn’t recognize (including the touchpad)

#RightToRepair #HardwareHacking #JailBreaking #Chromebook

I’m just waiting for the updates to complete to see if it will install the correct drivers.

I’ll probably blow this away when it’s done and try Kubuntu 24.04.

This poor thing only has 4GB of RAM. 😂

#RightToRepair #HardwareHacking #JailBreaking #Chromebook

pinhman 10h ago

@crispius A console only linux?

@pinhman
It should run a GUI Linux no problem.

OK, enough playing around, it’s time to get serious.

#RightToRepair #HardwareHacking #JailBreaking #Chromebook

RantingCanuck 9h ago

Go team Tux! I haven't put linux on a chromebook in over 5 years but I'd be happy to help out and rack my rusty memories if you need it

Action Jay 🐾

@crispius hell yeah!

Mike. 🩼🇨🇦9h ago

@crispius i feel like you're gonna don a welding helmet and light a torch...

Mike. 🩼🇨🇦8h ago

@crispius oh man I loved it when Jamie cracked a joke 😆😆

John Francis 🇨🇦🦫🍁💪⬆️9h ago

@crispius I've done exactly that to a Chromebook and installed proxmox on it. It can handle some small workloads, serve as part of the 3-member minimum quorum and break ties, and it has a built-in UPS too. I did have to buy a usb-c to ethernet adapter for it though, definitely don't want WiFi.

Mr Chromebox stuff was great!

maya_b 🇨🇦11h ago

my first and only chromebook was a bizarrely repurposed poor selling windows ultrabook model from asus. however, it had 2 really cool features - upgradeable RAM, and standard 320GB SATA drive which made it supper bizarre for a chrome book.

don't remember what it came with but after putting 16GB of RAM and SATA SSD into it - it was actually a pretty decent little machine - and running linux by then too 😃

pinhman 11h ago

@crispius Have a look at Endless OS, it’s student oriented with a focus a game programming and media production.
Debian based, but uses flatpack to bring in newer applications

When some of the schools chromebooks support expires …

https://support.endlessos.org/en/installation/basic-vs-full

Endless OS Basic & Full editions

What is the difference between the Basic version and the Full version?

Support & Training | Endless Access

pinhman 11h ago

@crispius Can also do endless on the Pi and other ARM single board computers. https://support.endlessos.org/en/installation

Installation

Support & Training | Endless Access