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Comment by mrguyorama | Hacker News Reader

How easy is it to put just a boring linux distro on a cheap chromebook? I'm thinking of going lightweight, cheap, and linux for a replacement to my 10 year old laptop, but I still want to be able to fool around with small programming projects and watch netflix in bed.

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Extremely easy. http://galliumos.org will do. Even vanilla Ubuntu works. Everything works out of the box. The battery lasts a ridiculously long time.

Remember to buy the older generations so you don't have to deal with 1.8V chips (read the FAQs in the link above). I haven't figured out the 1.8V stuff yet.

The Acer C720 is extremely cheap and very well supported. I'm personally using a Dell Chromebook 13 7310.

I have two Asus Chromeboxes that now run Linux. I put GalliumOS on one for my kid and stock Debian on the other. I had to flash the firmware for both of them[1]. If you do this make double sure you're flashing the correct firmware for your device!

[1] https://mrchromebox.tech/

Browsed around to find an easy answer and left a bit confused, is this compatible with the original chromebook pixel?(both the ME flash and the OS mod)

I remember those having all kinds of driver issues and weird custom hardware that hamstrung efforts like this...

GalliumOS wiki is a good resource about this. They have your answer here:

https://wiki.galliumos.org/Hardware_Compatibility

You can do the coreboot firmware without the ME mod entirely within the Chromebook itself without needing a Raspberry Pi as an external programmer. Only when you want to eradicate the ME do you need the Pi.

Hardware wise: It's Ivy Bridge. You can flash an Ivy Bridge with Raspberry Pi+Flashrom because its chip is 3.3V.

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