Comment by cbhl | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cbhl | Hacker News Reader

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Having followed these instructions before, they're not quite suitable for making a Chromebook run an alternative operating system for the average user. A developer, sure. But every time you boot up the computer, you hear an annoying beep and have to wait ten seconds, during which you're a few keystrokes away from wiping the machine and restoring it to a pristine copy of Chrome OS.

The reasons for this design are documented: https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chromiumos-design-docs/...

(Of note, the newer Chromebooks no longer require a physical hardware switch or jumper to be toggled. The hardware folks said this was expensive, so newer devices let you enter developer mode by holding the correct keys on boot.)

For now, if you truly want to give a Chromebook running another OS to someone, you have to replace the EEPROM: https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chromiumos-design-docs/... https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chromiumos-design-docs/...

> An attacker with physical possession of the device over an extended period. The attacker has access to tools including a soldering iron.

Yeah, if that is the vulnerability scenario they see necessary to "protect" me against, it's pretty clear I'm not the owner of the machine. I think the anger if warranted.

More broadly, I find the distinction between "normal users" and "developers" in that article pretty telling. I guess the goal isn't anymore to make everyone Computer-Literatur enough to run anything else than Chrome OS.

> I guess the goal isn't anymore to make everyone Computer-Literatur

Good. Even by the standards of comic book villainy, that was an insane idea.

You misread the document. You're quoting from the vulnerabilities section, which lists scenarios that Chromebooks either do or do not protect against ("We cannot prevent this attack").

You don’t have to replace the EEPROM. You can just open the case and briefly disconnnect the battery to disable write protect, and then flash whatever you like.

Ctrl+D skips that boot screen and beep, so at least it's less annoying.

Much more of a problem for me personally is that I've spent several hours trying to follow the guides to recompile the kernel I already have, so I can try to modify it, and it comes out grossly wrong and unbootable. It's doing a very bad job of handling open source.

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