Even after you install Windows, you won’t be out of the woods. Windows doesn’t ship with hardware drivers for various pieces of hardware, like the touchpads incorporated into many Chromebooks (which makes sense, since Chromebook manufacturers never bothered creating Windows drivers for these components). Audio does not seem to work, otherwise it. Windows 8 on USB hard drive running on Asus Chromebox, no audio (self.chromeos) submitted 4 years ago by OmegaDog I am writing this article on Windows 8 running on my Asus Chromebox, booting from a USB hard drive. Hacking an ASUS chromebox Raw.
I recently stumbled across the ASUS CHROMEBOX-M004U. It’s a Chromebox, which is cool in its own right, but I was interested in using it’s dual-core Celeron Haswell CPU, expandable RAM (up to 16GB), and M2 Sata storage for other purposes.
First things first, you’ve got to enable the box to run things other than ChromeOS… Thankfully that’s well documented ( http://kodi.wiki/view/ASUS_Chromebox ), so I won’t go into detail at this time. But I will say, I used the standalone, custom coreboot firmware and chose the headless option, as my current planned use cases are for servers. Apparently you want non-headless if you plan to use the box as a Plex Home Theater or Kodi box. Oh, also, I set it to boot first from USB if available.
Now the Chromebox will boot happily from it’s internal SSD or USB if attached.
Time for ESXi! I haven’t been blogging much in the past couple years, but I have been doing a lot of home work with virtualization, ESXi, vSPhere, ZFS, SmartOS, OmniOS… so at this point I’ve got a bunch of crazy tech projects going on at home.
As the title states, I'm planning to buy a used Chromebox to convert it to a sort of HTPC. I've read somewhere that Plex OS can be installed directly but I'm planning to install Windows 10 so it can double as a mini computer in the living room.
Updated 2015-07-06 Seeing there have been quite a few questions about running Windows on the Chromebox recently, all of which being asked in what really seems to be the wrong thread for this, let's create a new thread, specifically for all questions related to running Windows on the Asus/HP/Acer/Dell Chromebox, and our experiences with it.
First, you need an ESXi installer ISO image… I’m using ESXi 5.5u2 and it’s freely available from VMware…https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/evalcenter You probably have to register to get it. 6.0 is out now, but I haven’t made that jump. However, while 6.0 DOES have USB3/xhci driver, even the latest ISO for 5.5 does not… Even though the matrix of VIB versions per release https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10Vzx4NLhx1XzhmS-hQuIO1wXa98_8EKN3bhXjFx2GgQ shows later versions which have it. So we’ll have to add that/upgrade after install. (Also, this is helpful information about that matrix: http://www.v-front.de/2012/11/are-esxi-5x-patches-cumulative.html)
Second, we need to customize our installer to have non-standard packages for this machine.
Red dead redemption 2 phone wallpaper. I’ve been using ESXi Customer: https://vibsdepot.v-front.de/wiki/index.php/ESXi-Customizer
And, you’ll need to get some custom VIBs (drivers/configs)… you need the following 2, and you want the offline-bundle versions
To customize, you use a source ISO and add an offline bundle… ESXi Customer only does one VIB at a time… so after it gives you one customized ISO, rename it, then use it as the source, and add the second VIB.
Now, you are ready to install… ** We will install to a different, better supported machine, ensuring your install is good to go, then move to the Chromebox. **
Using your custom ISO burned to a USB flash drive (various tools to do that, on windows I use Rufus), install to a target USB flash drive at least 8GB (not the one you are installing from). Installing can take some time, so be patient. Also, make sure you only install to the desired, target flash drive, not your hard drive or something. ?
Once installed, remove the installer flash drive, and boot from the target ESXi flash drive. Again, it takes a while.
Now we have a few configuration steps.
First, we’ll use F2, to customize the system… navigate to troubleshooting options… press enter on “Enable SSH” ( screenshots here: http://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2012/09/activate-ssh-on-vmware-esxi-5-1/ ) For the rest of the steps, SSH into your ESXi machine, it should be displaying it’s IP on the screen.
Second, we need to fix a network setting. By default, the vmk0 (virtual NIC created on which the DHCP client runs) will do a one-time clone of the MAC HW address of your system’s NIC, so you’ll need to fix this, else when booting the USB in a different machine, the installation will boot with the original machine’s MAC… it will CONFLICT with your original machine, you’ll have network issues, including using same IP if you have DHCP static addresses, etc.
Third, you need to install and make sure that USB3/xhci gets loaded at boot…
and add following to /etc/rc.local.d/local.sh :
more detail from: http://www.v-front.de/2014/11/vmware-silently-adds-native-usb-30.html
Kutools for excel 2013 free with crack. Finally, you should be able to shutdown, remove the USB flash drive with ESXi on it, put into Chromebox, and boot. And it should come up with it’s own HW MAC, IP, etc, have access to update its own config on its USB drive, and be able to use an attached keyboard.
SSH to new ESXi IP and/or use the vSphere Client to manage as normal.
This post is made possible because of the resources that others have provided. The purpose of this walkthrough is to provide details on how I set my Chromebox for my own use – with a standalone boot of Ubuntu Linux (14.04). I have also set up my Chromebox with VNC for local access (or remote desktop access) and Plex Home Theater, which I will go over as well.
Home Setup
At home, I have a Synology DS212j, which has been updated with the DS215j. The DS212j contains all my media (movies, tv shows, music, photographs) and works well hosting those files. It also runs perfectly fine running Plex Media Server (PMS). The limitation of running PMS is that the Synology DS212j (or DS215j) do not have the processing power to transcode my .mkv media. In otherwords, you cannot directly play a video from the Synology NAS unless the hardware (laptop, desktop) you are using to view the media is capable of transcoding the media. Using a tablet, phone, Chromecast, Roku with the Plex app will not work.
I previously used my primary desktop computer, which has Plex Home Theater (PHT) installed, to connect to the PMS on my Synology NAS. The computer was then connected to the TV via HDMI. This worked fine, but it was troublesome when I didn’t want to leave my computer on all day, waste electricty, and generate extra heat during the summer.
The Best HTPC For Me
There are several HTPCs available, but I wasn’t looking to spend more than $150, and I wanted it with low power consumption, a small footprint, and the ability to boot into Linux directly. This is something that I would be comfortable running 24/7 without feeling like I’m wasting electricty.
The Asus Chromebox fits the bill perfectly. There are resources available to set up standalone Linux easily, it doesn’t consume too much power, but it is powerful enough to transcode media, and it’s pretty inexpensive. The Asus Chromebox was released in March 2014. Ars Technica gave it unfavorable reviews as an HTPC setup, but much has changed in ease of installing a standalone linux OS. I found it on eBay for ~$110, brand new. Currently, Amazon sells it for $159:
Requirements
If you aim to accomplish the same setup for your Chromebox as I have, follow the guide below. Again, this is for a standalone Linux Ubuntu boot on the Asus Chromebox. This process will remove ChromeOS and does not have the option to dual-boot. Once you have finished this process, you will have accomplished the following:
An Asus Chromebox with Ubuntu Linux 14.04, as a standalone boot.
Plex Home Theater installed on the Chromebox, accessing Plex Media Server on the Synology NAS
VNC server up and running, to remotely access the system
I am assuming you already have Plex Media Server working with all your media. I am also assuming that you are willing to risk bricking your Chromebox; definitely proceed at your own risk. With that said, serveral people have reported success with this process.
Step-by-Step Walkthrough
Chromebox Setup and Ubuntu Installation
Install Windows 10
Please note that the Kodi E-Z Setup Script is still in active development and options may change, or this process may no longer work. I wrote this in Feb 2015 and so the details of each step may have changed. I will try to keep this updated but please proceed at your own risk
Asus Chromebox Recovery
With your Chromebox unplugged, prepare your device for the linux installation by disabling the firmware write protection.
To open the Chromebox, you need to remove the four rubber footpads. I found it easiest to use a small flathead and lift up from the inner-rounded corner of the footpad
In case of any doubt from the website link above, here is the screw that needs to be permanently removed for this installation to work.
If you like, you can install additional RAM at this point. Do make sure your RAM is PC3L, and not PC3. Using the latter will result in issues upon bootup.
Follow the steps at this link to get into developer mode.
NOTE: Carefully follow these instructions. Take your time at this step. STOP at “1.3 Perform Factory Reset.” You do not need to follow that step.
You now want to download and run the EZ setup script, provided by Matt DeVillier. You can follow the steps from the Kodi forums, but I will break it down here.
NOTE: Most of these instructions are directly from the link above, but I want to separate those instructions to make it easier see what needs to be done.
Power up your Chromebox, and set up the internet connection (the first screen). DO NOT continue with the set up prompts.
Press CTRL-ALT-F2 to view the command prompt
You will be prompted for a username. Enter:
Enter the following to download and run the EZ setup script:
You will be provided some options to choose from. Enter 5, for Install/update: custom coreboot Firmware Enter 6 (as of ~2017), for Install/Update: Custom UEFI Firmware.
Type Y to continue
You may be prompted to ask if you want to install the headless firmware. Go ahead and say no.. The headless option is no longer an option as of ~2017.
Backup the ChromeOS firmware to a USB stick.
Then download and setup a USB stick to liveboot Ubuntu on a Mac or PC. **Please note that with Ubuntu will probably not install the grub EFI shim to the default UEFI boot target and this will cause your Chromebox to boot up to a black screen which is the EFI shell. See MrChromebox.tech’s FAQ which addresses how to resolve this. Otherwise you can use GalliumOS.
Stick in the liveboot USB stick into the Chromebox, and reboot it.**
You will have five seconds to press ESC key to display the boot menu. If you miss it simply reboot it again.
Select the USB stick from the boot menu, and then you can proceed with installing Ubuntu.
Setting up Ubuntu
Once you have Ubuntu installed, you can install the programs you need.
Run Updates first. See the Maintenence commands from Ubuntu Documentation for an overview of what to run
Installing Plex Home Theater
Add the plexappp repository by following this documentation. If it’s confusing, you should do the following commands in Terminal:
Update the respositories:
Install Plex Home Theater:
Now all you need to do is configure PHT to talk to your PMS. I did this by configuring my server settings manually in Preferences.
Configuring VNC - Remote Desktop
Ubuntu comes with Desktop Sharing by default. This sets up a VNC server.
Type “Desktop Sharing” in the dash (the launcher/finder)
Configure the settings so that the following in enabled as seen below:
You then need to disable encryption, since having this enabled seems to be an issue.
This change may not stay after reboot, so you can edit some settings by typing the following in Terminal:
Search for dconf Editor in dash, then navigate to org > gnome > desktop > remote-access
Some have reported unchecking “enabled” but others haven’t had much success and resorted to finding other solutions. Defintely review those options if you’re haivng problems accessing VNC after rebooting. ‘
Asus Chromebox Troubleshooting
Summary
Install House Windows
What you’ve accomplished, if my documentation is thorough enough (if not please let me know) is setting up the Asus Chromebox as an HTPC, with Ubuntu 14.04 installed, along with Plex Home Theater and local VNC access. If you would like to have access to your Chromebox via remote desktop outside your network (e.g., at work or another house) then I strongly recommend setting up SSH tunneling for VNC; passwords are not encrypted over the network.