Arch Linux

Ensayia

Member

Registered: 2013-10-22

Posts: 14

Samsung Chromebook 2 (XE500C12)

I recently purchased this model Chromebook, with an Intel Celeron x86 processor. I did some poking around on the wiki and it seems that doing an Arch install to the internal SSD is possible in many models of Chromebook, however I did not find any infomration on my specific model. I am aware of a few methods of doing a chroot install to run Arch live along ChromeOS, but I was wondering if anyone had success or was workin on a full install to the internal storage for this particular model.

Thank You

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https://bitbucket.org/Ensayia/

dhead

Member

Registered: 2012-09-26

Posts: 190

Re: Samsung Chromebook 2 (XE500C12)

That's a Bay-Trail-M device, no custom firmware and no working SeaBIOS payload available so no native Arch installation is possible AFAIK.

You might be able to take the ChrUbuntu approach by re-sizing some partitions (cgpt), create a partition for Arch rootfs and use the signed ChromeOS kernel and modules instead of Arch, but I don't know if it's a good idea.
Chroagh is working pretty nice, if it were me I would install it or replace the Chromebook for something else.

Ensayia

Member

Registered: 2013-10-22

Posts: 14

Re: Samsung Chromebook 2 (XE500C12)

From what I gathered in my limited research that seemed to be the case, and I appreciate the reply. I definitely will continue to use the Chromebook even without a native Arch install.

I attempted earlier to do a chroagh install, and it had issues starting the X server. I didn't capture any logs, but I may try again later.

With Chromebooks as cheap as they are and the prices dropping every year, I hope someone will eventually deliver a working BIOS payload and instructions to disable the hardware write protect, as this particular model has quite a lot of bang for your buck.

Thank you for the rapid reply, and I look forward to additional comments and discussion.

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https://bitbucket.org/Ensayia/