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I have one that's been running Gallium since ~2018.. Asus C202SA. It works like a charm. I update coreboot every once in a while, as it gets regular updates.

I have one that's been running Gallium since ~2018.. Asus C202SA. It works like a charm. I update coreboot every once in a while, as it gets regular updates. Just a note for anyone that's going to try it: you will have to open up your chromebook and search for the write-protection screw in order to flash your bios (most models are like this). It is a google search away to find where your motherboard's screw is located, as not all boards are labelled. Another thing to to note is that, as long as you don't brick your device somehow, everything is reversible. You can reinstalled the original bios/bootloader, reinstall ChromeOS and put the write protection screw back in and all is well again. Other than that, just follow all instructions for Gallium & coreboot exactly and it will work fine. Gallium is basically Ubuntu + xfce + mods for keyboard & performance tweaks.

zozbot234 5y ago
Is that worth the hassle when PC-compatible hardware with similar specs is widely available and just as cheap?
- BatteryMountain 5y ago
  Nope. In hindsight, I wouldn't do it again. Reasons: Storage is a problem for most chromebooks and the memory chip is soldered onto the board, so cannot upgrade it. I bought an expensive MicroSD card at the time that is 128GB and can do 100/60 read/write... but the memory card reader seems to be soldered to a Usb 2 header.. thus it tops out at 30mb/s. The updates to the OS and packages delivered via apt is basically very far behind, and many packages get held back. Kernel stays old too. I'm used to Fedora so it is really itching me that it is so far behind. Keyboard is not standard: No delete button, no windows key, no function keys. This is a big problem for me and I didn't check the keyboard before I bought it. A better machine to run linux on in the same manner, is the Lenovo Ideapad (S130-11IGM), it is also a celeron, a 11" screen and supports windows/linux out of the box with a normal bootloader and drivers. Other than that, a 2017 13" Macbook Air with Fedora also works great. What I really want is an 11" laptop with a Ryzen 3 without an active cooler (silent machine) + nvme slot + 2 ram slots + backlit keyboard. I don't want anything soldered except the cpu. Display can be 720p or 1080p.
- BatteryMountain 5y ago
  I primarily did it to scratch an itch. At the time I was distro hopping a lot and tried to make linux work everywhere I could. I've since settled on Fedora and stopped trying to hack things together which weren't made for each other as it is time consuming and doesn't really serve a purpose. Fedora gives me a good balance between new versions of software while also being very stable and simple. Everything just works.
  - type0 5y ago
    > Fedora gives me a good balance between new versions of software while also being very stable and simple. It actually is more stable than Ubuntu interim non-LTS releases and has a bunch of developer focused software, it deserves more praise than it gets.
    - BatteryMountain 5y ago
      Yup, agree. Cannot stand the Ubuntu Desktop variant at all. It always manages to break itself after updates and when you install it, it come preloaded with a ton of stuff I don't want. If I want to spend 2 hours uninstalling things I'd go install Windows 10. On Fedora I just uninstall a handful of things after a clean install: gnome-software, cups, libre office, maps/calendar, webcam app. Other than that I agree that Fedora is the hidden gem of all the distro's in my mind. I don't have to babysit it, it gets regular updates (1 to 4 weeks behind any release, where arch is a week or less), I can make it pretty and configure it how I want it and basically everything I use to work and be productive works on it. Once you use it for about 6 months and get used to it, everything else feels crappy and over complicated (incl macos, windows, xfce, kde). The only OS that I've managed to get cleaner and simpler than Fedora is a debloated android that uses only google software (bare minimum of them, phone, messages, gmail, clock, calendar, calc) but the problem is I cannot install arbitrary packages on it nor have official root, so the nature of that ecosystem/walled garden makes me resent that "distro" in a way.
nickjj 5y ago
> Just a note for anyone that's going to try it: you will have to open up your Chromebook and search for the write-protection screw in order to flash your bios (most models are like this) This is an optional step btw. I haven't done this on mine. If you do the screw modification it allows a specific setting to be persisted so you don't lose it when the battery drains. If you don't do the screw modification then you'll need to set a specific setting every time your battery fully drains to 0% (technically beyond 0% where it's 100% tapped out and not just reporting 0%). Out of the ~5 years I've had this I only had to do the process a few times. It's not a big deal if it drains. The blog post I linked covers the process. It only requires logging into the terminal and running `sudo crossystem dev_boot_legacy=1` on the boot screen. End to end it takes about a minute each time where most of that time is Googling my own blog post to find the exact command, the command itself finishes immediately.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  IIRC, if you don't remove the write protection screw you'll need to press a key combination at each boot or the hardware will factory reset.
  - Talanes 5y ago
    There's also a loud sound that plays on boot up. I removed write protection on mine just so I could boot it up after my partner fell asleep without having to leave the room.
  - nickjj 5y ago
    There's a few things going on with that screw AFAIK. Before you go down the GalliumOS route you can choose between dual booting with a menu or booting straight into it. I went with the dual boot approach because I still wanted the ability to boot into ChromeOS in case something crazy happened with GalliumOS. In most cases this translates to turning on the Chromebook and hitting CTRL+L which boots you into GalliumOS, as opposed to hitting CTRL+D to boot into ChromeOS. It's a 2 second process to pick the OS to boot from and that's all you have to do. But going back to the screw, it controls at least these 2 things: 1. sudo crossystem dev_boot_legacy=1 is a command that lets you boot something other than ChromeOS. This setting needs to be persisted somewhere. The screw lets it get written to your BIOS so it never gets lost. If you don't modify the screw it gets lost when your battery is 100% tapped out, but if that's the case all you have to do is drop into a terminal when you turn your Chromebook on and run the command again and you're good to go, nothing gets wiped. This only happens if the battery is fully fully drained. 2. If you decided not to dual boot you need to modify the screw to directly boot into GalliumOS.

zozbot234 5y ago

Is that worth the hassle when PC-compatible hardware with similar specs is widely available and just as cheap?

BatteryMountain 5y ago
Nope. In hindsight, I wouldn't do it again. Reasons: Storage is a problem for most chromebooks and the memory chip is soldered onto the board, so cannot upgrade it. I bought an expensive MicroSD card at the time that is 128GB and can do 100/60 read/write... but the memory card reader seems to be soldered to a Usb 2 header.. thus it tops out at 30mb/s. The updates to the OS and packages delivered via apt is basically very far behind, and many packages get held back. Kernel stays old too. I'm used to Fedora so it is really itching me that it is so far behind. Keyboard is not standard: No delete button, no windows key, no function keys. This is a big problem for me and I didn't check the keyboard before I bought it. A better machine to run linux on in the same manner, is the Lenovo Ideapad (S130-11IGM), it is also a celeron, a 11" screen and supports windows/linux out of the box with a normal bootloader and drivers. Other than that, a 2017 13" Macbook Air with Fedora also works great. What I really want is an 11" laptop with a Ryzen 3 without an active cooler (silent machine) + nvme slot + 2 ram slots + backlit keyboard. I don't want anything soldered except the cpu. Display can be 720p or 1080p.
BatteryMountain 5y ago
I primarily did it to scratch an itch. At the time I was distro hopping a lot and tried to make linux work everywhere I could. I've since settled on Fedora and stopped trying to hack things together which weren't made for each other as it is time consuming and doesn't really serve a purpose. Fedora gives me a good balance between new versions of software while also being very stable and simple. Everything just works.
- type0 5y ago
  > Fedora gives me a good balance between new versions of software while also being very stable and simple. It actually is more stable than Ubuntu interim non-LTS releases and has a bunch of developer focused software, it deserves more praise than it gets.
  - BatteryMountain 5y ago
    Yup, agree. Cannot stand the Ubuntu Desktop variant at all. It always manages to break itself after updates and when you install it, it come preloaded with a ton of stuff I don't want. If I want to spend 2 hours uninstalling things I'd go install Windows 10. On Fedora I just uninstall a handful of things after a clean install: gnome-software, cups, libre office, maps/calendar, webcam app. Other than that I agree that Fedora is the hidden gem of all the distro's in my mind. I don't have to babysit it, it gets regular updates (1 to 4 weeks behind any release, where arch is a week or less), I can make it pretty and configure it how I want it and basically everything I use to work and be productive works on it. Once you use it for about 6 months and get used to it, everything else feels crappy and over complicated (incl macos, windows, xfce, kde). The only OS that I've managed to get cleaner and simpler than Fedora is a debloated android that uses only google software (bare minimum of them, phone, messages, gmail, clock, calendar, calc) but the problem is I cannot install arbitrary packages on it nor have official root, so the nature of that ecosystem/walled garden makes me resent that "distro" in a way.

nickjj 5y ago

> Just a note for anyone that's going to try it: you will have to open up your Chromebook and search for the write-protection screw in order to flash your bios (most models are like this) This is an optional step btw. I haven't done this on mine. If you do the screw modification it allows a specific setting to be persisted so you don't lose it when the battery drains. If you don't do the screw modification then you'll need to set a specific setting every time your battery fully drains to 0% (technically beyond 0% where it's 100% tapped out and not just reporting 0%). Out of the ~5 years I've had this I only had to do the process a few times. It's not a big deal if it drains. The blog post I linked covers the process. It only requires logging into the terminal and running `sudo crossystem dev_boot_legacy=1` on the boot screen. End to end it takes about a minute each time where most of that time is Googling my own blog post to find the exact command, the command itself finishes immediately.

zozbot234 5y ago
IIRC, if you don't remove the write protection screw you'll need to press a key combination at each boot or the hardware will factory reset.
- Talanes 5y ago
  There's also a loud sound that plays on boot up. I removed write protection on mine just so I could boot it up after my partner fell asleep without having to leave the room.
- nickjj 5y ago
  There's a few things going on with that screw AFAIK. Before you go down the GalliumOS route you can choose between dual booting with a menu or booting straight into it. I went with the dual boot approach because I still wanted the ability to boot into ChromeOS in case something crazy happened with GalliumOS. In most cases this translates to turning on the Chromebook and hitting CTRL+L which boots you into GalliumOS, as opposed to hitting CTRL+D to boot into ChromeOS. It's a 2 second process to pick the OS to boot from and that's all you have to do. But going back to the screw, it controls at least these 2 things: 1. sudo crossystem dev_boot_legacy=1 is a command that lets you boot something other than ChromeOS. This setting needs to be persisted somewhere. The screw lets it get written to your BIOS so it never gets lost. If you don't modify the screw it gets lost when your battery is 100% tapped out, but if that's the case all you have to do is drop into a terminal when you turn your Chromebook on and run the command again and you're good to go, nothing gets wiped. This only happens if the battery is fully fully drained. 2. If you decided not to dual boot you need to modify the screw to directly boot into GalliumOS.