Chromebooks overview

[Tim Zander]

Hi, try to collect information about the chromebooks to write things up 
in the wiki.

Which of the following things are true (for the lastest coreboot version):

0. all 5 Chromebooks are supported by coreboot 
(http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/chromebooks.html) Ok 5 
names show in the   config menu, so are there maybe unsupported older 
version of the chromebooks (ones with other working names then

1. Butterfly (BOARD_GOOGLE_BUTTERFLY) (NEW)
   2. Link (BOARD_GOOGLE_LINK) (NEW)
   3. Parrot (BOARD_GOOGLE_PARROT) (NEW)
   4. Snow (BOARD_GOOGLE_SNOW) (NEW)
   5. Stout (BOARD_GOOGLE_STOUT) (NEW)!

1. all chromebooks need to be flashed by an external programmer to get 
your own coreboot version (and payload) running (but it is doable 
without breaking things)

Is there information about where the spi chips can be found?

+++++Offtopic++++++
which ones don't require any proprietary drivers?
+++++offtopic++++++

Thanks

Tim

[Tim Zander]

ok found more information:

http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-for-chrome-os-devi...

December 2010 	 Google 	 Cr-48 	 Mario
support unknown/no

June 2011 	 Samsung 	 Series 5 Chromebook 	 Alex
support unknown/no

July 2011 	 Acer 	 AC700 Chromebook 	 ZGB
support unknown/no

May 2012 	 Samsung 	 Series 3 Chromebox 	 Stumpy
support yes: choose mainboard vendor samsung

May 2012 	 Samsung 	 Series 5 550 Chromebook 	 Lumpy
support yes: choose mainboard vendor samsung

October 2012	 Samsung	 ARM Chromebook	 Snow (aka Daisy)
  November 2012	 Acer	 C7 Chromebook	 Parrot
  January 2013	 Lenovo	 Thinkpad X131e Chromebook	 Stout
  February 2013	 HP	 Pavilion 14 Chromebook	 Butterfly
  February 2013	 Google	 Chromebook Pixel	 Link	
support of all 5 yes: choose mainboard vendor google 		
    		
if you have information about the support of the other (guess no 
support) please contribute..

ok and they have nice pictures of the mainboards (link above)

now we need to identify the spi chips on the board and will write up the 
wiki but I will try doing that tomorrow...

[ron minnich]

This is helpful, thanks.

ron

[Tim Zander]

> May 2012      Samsung      Series 3 Chromebox      Stumpy
> support yes: choose mainboard vendor samsung
>
> May 2012      Samsung      Series 5 550 Chromebook      Lumpy
> support yes: choose mainboard vendor samsung

These two might be possible to flash in system:

see
http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-for-chrome-os-devi...

Hardware Preparation

Open the case
         You'll now have to disassemble your device (which most likely 
voids your warranty).
     Disable write protect
         You'll have to locate the Write Protect jumper and enable it.
         This will make the BIOS read-write so you can update it.
         Once things have been updated, you can undo this so your BIOS 
is read-only again.
     Reassemble the device
         Now that you've done toggled the jumper, you need to reassemble 
the device and power it up.
     Check the write protect
         Run crossystem and look at the wpsw_cur field; it should be 0.
     Plug your system in to be safe!
         For the Chromebook laptop, make sure the battery is charged, 
and the power supply is connected.
         For the Chromebox, try and plug it into a battery backup (UPS), 
and don't try this during a storm :).

see
http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-for-chrome-os-devi...

for location of jumper
> October 2012     Samsung     ARM Chromebook     Snow (aka Daisy)
>   November 2012     Acer     C7 Chromebook     Parrot
>   January 2013     Lenovo     Thinkpad X131e Chromebook     Stout
>   February 2013     HP     Pavilion 14 Chromebook     Butterfly
>   February 2013     Google     Chromebook Pixel     Link
> support of all 5 yes: choose mainboard vendor google

Now what is with the other five?
Here it looks like information of chromium.org stops:
http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-for-chrome-os-devi...

Do the other chromebook have  write protect jumper as well?

[Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli]

On Tue, 11 Jun 2013 02:50:42 +0200
Tim Zander  wrote:
> http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-for-chrome-os-devi...

Is that howto made for scaring the people away of modifying their
system?
It seem to use dd[1] instead of cbfstool and also does binary
patching:
It seem really easier to do that instead:
checkout the source used at the factory
make menuconfig
locate the VMX configuration:
go in "Chipset  --->" and then enable VMX:
[*] Enable VMX for virtualization
make crossgcc
make

By the way, do we have the .config of the chromebooks?
Because according to that howto it's not in cbfs...

References:
-----------
[1] "We have to get creative now.  It's easier if we just let the
cbfstool repack the code since it includes compressed data and
checksums in the headers and other fun stuff rather than trying to do
it manually using dd."

Denis.

[tim zander]

> It seem really easier to do that instead:
> checkout the source used at the factory
> make menuconfig
> locate the VMX configuration:
> go in "Chipset  --->" and then enable VMX:
> [*] Enable VMX for virtualization
> make crossgcc
> make
>
> By the way, do we have the .config of the chromebooks?
> Because according to that howto it's not in cbfs...

this wasn't intended to be a howto for building your own coreboot 
version for chromebooks... but a howto for making the chromebooks ready 
for flashing...
hence we have to locate the write protect jumper, if there are any...
and locate the spi chips to help people recover there chromebooks when 
they had a bad flash...

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Tim Zander  [130611 02:50]:
> Hardware Preparation
> Open the case
>     You'll now have to disassemble your device (which most
>
> likely voids your warranty).
>     Disable write protect
>         You'll have to locate the Write Protect jumper and enable it.
>         This will make the BIOS read-write so you can update it.
>         Once things have been updated, you can undo this so your
> BIOS is read-only again.
>     Reassemble the device
>         Now that you've done toggled the jumper, you need to
> reassemble the device and power it up.
>     Check the write protect
>         Run crossystem and look at the wpsw_cur field; it should be 0.
>     Plug your system in to be safe!
>         For the Chromebook laptop, make sure the battery is charged,
> and the power supply is connected.
>         For the Chromebox, try and plug it into a battery backup
> (UPS), and don't try this during a storm :).
>
> see
> http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-for-chrome-os-devi...
>
> for location of jumper

Stumpy / Lumpy had a jumper. On the Pixel it's a screw next to the USB
port.

[tim zander]

Here is a summary of the information I found:

For Pixel and Stout we need to find the write protect jumper...

The rest is ready to flash from system!?
> May 2012      Samsung      Series 3 Chromebox      Stumpy
> support yes: choose mainboard vendor samsung
>
> May 2012      Samsung      Series 5 550 Chromebook      Lumpy
> support yes: choose mainboard vendor samsung

for finding the write-protect jumper of the 2 above look here:
https://a77db9aa-a-7b23c8ea-s-sites.googlegroups.com/a/chromium.org/dev/chro...

a disassembly guide from chromium.org:
http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-for-chrome-os-devi...
> October 2012     Samsung     ARM Chromebook     Snow (aka Daisy)

needs a screw in to disable write protect
https://a77db9aa-a-7b23c8ea-s-sites.googlegroups.com/a/chromium.org/dev/chro...

disassembly guide here:
http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-for-chrome-os-devi...
> November 2012     Acer     C7 Chromebook     Parrot

to find the write protect jumper look here:
https://a77db9aa-a-7b23c8ea-s-sites.googlegroups.com/a/chromium.org/dev/chro...

the disassembly guide from chromium.org to get to the write protect jumper:
http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-for-chrome-os-devi...
> January 2013     Lenovo     Thinkpad X131e Chromebook     Stout

there is no information on chromium.org
for disassembly guide see 
http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads/detail.page?DocID=PD024821
> February 2013     HP     Pavilion 14 Chromebook     Butterfly

to find the write protect jumper look here:

https://a77db9aa-a-7b23c8ea-s-sites.googlegroups.com/a/chromium.org/dev/chro...

disassembly guide on chromium.org
http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-for-chrome-os-devi...
> February 2013     Google     Chromebook Pixel     Link

no information about write protect jumper on chromium.org

disassembly guide:

http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-for-chrome-os-devi...

[Peter Stuge]

tim zander wrote:
> Here is a summary of the information I found:

Could we convince you to organize it on a coreboot.org/Chromebook
wiki page?

//Peter

[tim zander]

> Could we convince you to organize it on a coreboot.org/Chromebook
> wiki page?

Sure, if you give me an  account...

[Stefan Reinauer]

* tim zander  [130611 16:02]:
> > Could we convince you to organize it on a coreboot.org/Chromebook
> > wiki page?
>
> Sure, if you give me an  account...

Done.

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Tim Zander  [130611 00:49]:

These 3 used Insyde H2C. They were all Atom based.
> December 2010 	 Google 	 Cr-48 	 Mario
> support unknown/no
>
> June 2011 	 Samsung 	 Series 5 Chromebook 	 Alex
> support unknown/no
>
> July 2011 	 Acer 	 AC700 Chromebook 	 ZGB
> support unknown/no

These were the first ChromeOS systems tp be shipped with coreboot:
> May 2012 	 Samsung 	 Series 3 Chromebox 	 Stumpy
> support yes: choose mainboard vendor samsung
>
> May 2012 	 Samsung 	 Series 5 550 Chromebook 	 Lumpy
> support yes: choose mainboard vendor samsung

A coreboot port is available, but the system has shipped with u-boot:
> October 2012	 Samsung	 ARM Chromebook	 Snow (aka Daisy)

These all shipped with coreboot:
> November 2012	 Acer	 C7 Chromebook	 Parrot
>  January 2013	 Lenovo	 Thinkpad X131e Chromebook	 Stout
>  February 2013	 HP	 Pavilion 14 Chromebook	 Butterfly
>  February 2013	 Google	 Chromebook Pixel	 Link	
> support of all 5 yes: choose mainboard vendor google 		
>    		
> if you have information about the support of the other (guess no
> support) please contribute..
>
> ok and they have nice pictures of the mainboards (link above)
>
> now we need to identify the spi chips on the board and will write up
> the wiki but I will try doing that tomorrow...

[David Hendricks]

Hi Tim,
Thanks so much for doing this!

I see you've already found a wealth of resources. I have a test rack with
every kind of Chromebook and can send additional pictures if needed.

A couple comments in-line.

On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 2:45 PM, Tim Zander  wrote:
> Hi, try to collect information about the chromebooks to write things up in
> the wiki.
>
> Which of the following things are true (for the lastest coreboot version):
> all 5 Chromebooks are supported by coreboot (
>
> http://www.google.com/intl/**en/chrome/devices/chromebooks.**htmlhttp://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/chromebooks.html)
> Ok 5 names show in the   config menu, so are there maybe unsupported older
> version of the chromebooks (ones with other working names then
>
> Butterfly (BOARD_GOOGLE_BUTTERFLY) (NEW)
>
> Link (BOARD_GOOGLE_LINK) (NEW)
>
> Parrot (BOARD_GOOGLE_PARROT) (NEW)
>
> Snow (BOARD_GOOGLE_SNOW) (NEW)
>
> Stout (BOARD_GOOGLE_STOUT) (NEW)!
>
> all chromebooks need to be flashed by an external programmer to get
>
> your own coreboot version (and payload) running (but it is doable without
> breaking things)

While it is recommended that the user have an external programmer in case
something goes wrong, it is possible to run flashrom from within the OS.
The chromium.org branch of flashrom
(herehttp://git.chromium.org/gitweb/?p=chromiumos/third_party/flashrom.git;a=summary)
will detect and skip over the management engine region on Intel platforms
and comes installed on all Chromebooks.

Is there information about where the spi chips can be found?
>

Hmmm, I don't know off-hand :-/ If not, we can augment existing pics on the
site you found or get some new ones.