About

I support OpenStack and Linux servers for a leading open source company. I first started experimenting with Linux in 1999 (a floppy initiated version of RedHat 6.5 purchased from PC World in Solihull) and I’ve been in the IT industry since 1997. I have experience of lots of hardware, operating systems & other software, and I’ve held RHCE, MCP’s & Citrix CCA at various stages in my career.

Join the conversation

11 Comments

  1. I know this probably is not the best place to ask.. I have a stack of c300m’s (asus) that will not restore.. during recovery, i am getting an error :
    dd error writing ‘/dev/mmcblk0’ : Input/Output error

    then it proceeds to do a error scan forever..

    Is there any way to get a unit in this condition to boot a sd card (i believe its considered /dev/mmcblk1) rather than from what I assume is a failed emmc?

    Just seems odd to have soo many units failing with the same errors.

    (note: I know the recovery usb is working correctly, since I have used that same usb to recover about 6 other units)

    I tried getting assistance from asus.. I may as well consider these units spare parts with the support they don’t give.

    1. You could boot from a ChromiumOS USB (maybe that works with an SD card too, not sure) – https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/quick-start-guide

      You can then either continue to use ChromiumOS, or write a new RW_LEGACY slot, and boot some form of Linux from an SD card – https://johnlewis.ie/custom-chromebook-firmware/rom-download/

      It doesn’t seem that odd to me – failure rates with cheap flash are pretty high, and they generally seem to go pretty close together. I remember MyDigital SSD NGFF SSD’s would generally go within 6 months (although they “said” it was fixed by a firmware update).

      You may have more luck going to Google to get support. I think OEM support is pretty bad at the best of times.

  2. Have you recently updated your supported models matrix? I ask as I see that my Acer R11 (cyan) is no longer listed as being suitable for a full ROM coreboot build. However, I have an Acer R11 which I have flashed using your firmware, and it is running GalliumOS without a hitch. I don’t miss the ChromeOS at all, and I run LibreOffice Impress and everything there works perfectly too. I am very pleased. Thank you.

    1. Nope. The R11 has never been able to take a full ROM. Perhaps you loaded somebody else’s attempt at a full ROM.

      It has, and will do RW_LEGACY though, which will allow you to use GalliumOS.

      You’re welcome.

  3. Hi John,
    Ive seen videos and I am trying to install linux (any distro will do) to my chromebook as it is more than 5 years and no updates are available. I did install linux live to combined maybe I have to erase it, don’t know how?

    I get this message at the bottom I do get a menu Unetbootin with some alternatives but always get this message.

    Not enough memory to load specific image.
    boot:

  4. Thanks, It worked! but it gets stuck during installation I will try with a lighter linux version

  5. Hi John,

    I have recently installed Ubuntu 18.04 on my Chromebook Asus thanks to this video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxsckwmRhfw&t=7s (he uses your ROM to make it run).
    Everything went great, the install has been a success !

    But I got a problem.. I don’t have any sound (Youtube, Rythmbox…) and in the setting menu the test of the speakers doesn’t produce sound.
    I went to the french Ubuntu’s forum and I red it could be fixed by getting into the BIOS and search if the Internal modem is activ. (https://doc.ubuntu-fr.org/son_problemes (ยง1.2).
    The only problem is : I can’t reach the BIOS. After pressing Ctrl+L, the boot menu runs Ubuntu and that’s it.

    So my question is : do you have a solution to this problem or can you help me to reach the BIOS ?

    1. There is no BIOS screen in coreboot. The problem is likely a missing/misconfigured sound card driver in Linux – it’s not unusual with newer generations of Chromebooks for the sound to not work under Linux. Did you try the latest HWE kernel under Ubuntu?

  6. I got an acer c710 for free and chromebook sucks so its definitely worth the possible bricking to install windows. Also, I apologize if im just not looking in the right area and i assume, since, this is no longer “maintained” the download directory is a polite way of saying “the files information you seek is not here anymore.” Could someone please instruct me on where i can obtain the parrot rom?

Leave a comment