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> 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
by 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 agoIIRC, 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 agoThere'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 agoThere'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.