HP Unveils Premium Chromebook: 3K Display, Intel Core M, 16 GB of RAM and USB-C

Re:HP Unveils Premium Chromebook: 3K Display, Intel Core M, ... by rrego on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @02:06PM (#11622896)

edit: reread your question, probably not. Most chromebooks can't have the ROM totally overwritten.

most Chromebooks can run Linux by writing by writing over a sector of the ROM. Most (and probably this laptop) unfortunately can only write to the RW_LEGACY or BOOT_STUB which introduce significant problems. I'd definitely just run crouton for these.

https://johnlewis.ie/custom-chromebook-firmware/rom-download...

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Re:HP Unveils Premium Chromebook: 3K Display, Intel Core M, ... by pgeorgi on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @07:51PM (#11625169)

All chromebooks allow to completely overwrite the firmware.

It requires opening the machine though (and then turning a screw), both as a crude security measure (it's not a drive-by attack if it takes 10 minutes of physical access) and a stability guarantee (without the modification, the system basically can't be stuck, no matter how broken an update might be).

Disclosure: I work on Chrome OS firmware.

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Re:HP Unveils Premium Chromebook: 3K Display, Intel Core M, ... by rrego on Wednesday May 04, 2016 @09:18PM (#11633276)

I suppose I've been reading third party documentation.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Chrome_OS_devices/Chrom...

Along with the link above indicates otherwise. Are these websites both wrong?

I did completely overwrite the firmware for my Acer c720 (by removing that write protect screw) but I assumed that was an exception.

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Re:HP Unveils Premium Chromebook: 3K Display, Intel Core M, ... by pgeorgi on Friday May 06, 2016 @05:30AM (#11642699)

The write protect screw (or a similar mechanism) exists and works the same way on every Chromebook.

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