# FreeBSD on Samsung Chromebook



## alexjj (Nov 26, 2013)

The Series 3 (XE303C12) Samsung Chromebook uses the Samsung Exynos5250, which according to the wiki FreeBSD supports (in some manner).  My question is obvious but I've so far found very little on it (tried plain googling, searching the FreeBSD forum and using Google to search the freebsd-arm mailing list). Can anyone share more or provide links detailing how one can install FreeBSD on the Chromebook or what the current status is?

Thanks.


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## neel (Dec 9, 2013)

The Chromebook has a locked down BIOS which won't let you install any operating system other than ChromeOS by default. If you unlock the bootloader, you can install Linux distributions which support the Chromebook, but you are better off buying an refurbished laptop for the same price, or paying $50 extra for a Windows or Linux laptop.

One problem with recent Windows (recent meaning Windows 8/8.1) computers is this braindead "security" feature which I think isn't as much for security as it is for causing trouble for open source operating systems on generic x86 PCs called UEFI Secure Boot. This means that you will have to go into the BIOS which Microsoft doesn't want PC manufacturers to tell you which key to press, disable Secure Boot, and then enabling the Legacy/CSM mode. Some PC manufacturers like Asus and Dell let you boot both UEFI and BIOS, but most only let you do one or the other.

If you don't mind using OpenBSD instead, the Lemote Yeeloong can be another option. You get an open source BIOS, but at the cost of having slower hardware and subpar operating system support.


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## sk8harddiefast (Dec 9, 2013)

Hahahaha. Stallman's laptop. Probably the only laptop in the world with open hardware.


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## neel (Dec 10, 2013)

I seriously think I should start making open hardware with the Lemote's openness but with the performance of x86 PCs. Too bad I'm more tempted to start an ISP or a VPS provider than an open source hardware manufacturer .


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## drhowarddrfine (Dec 10, 2013)

I had that same thought a few years back about open hardware. And I'm a former hardware designer. But I'm too deep into my get rich quick schemes to bother with serious business.



			
				neel said:
			
		

> ...this braindead "security" feature which I think isn't as much for security as it is for causing trouble for open source operating systems on generic x86 PCs called UEFI Secure Boot.


Earlier this year, I wrote my Congressman and sent an anti-trust complaint to the US Justice Department. It was interesting that the first response I got was from one of the attorneys involved in the 1990s case against Microsoft stating they were aware of the issue and looking into it, IIRC. What was really interesting was the response from my Congressman who was also well aware of it. 

So I don't know if the wheels of justice are just turning slowly but I'm really hoping to hear an axe fall somewhere soon.


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## andrew@ (Dec 25, 2013)

I've been working on adding support for it, however it is not in a usable state, and requires a bit of work to set up the SD card for booting.

To get to single use mode a number of drivers need to be written, at least: a framebuffer, an i2c, and a keyboard driver. I have a framebuffer driver, but it is for the old sc console and would need to be updated for the new vt console. I've stared on an i2c driver, but haven't worked on it in a few months as I've been working on other projects.


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## VirGin (Jan 4, 2014)

Hi *p*eople,

I also would like to put FreeBSD on a Chromebook. I care so little about using Chrome that I have not even turned the thing on yet. I have a ChromeBook model XE303C12. Strangely enough, next to 'Notebook' there are a bunch about Cyrillic looking characters. 

It is disappointing to read about the locked down BIOS. What needs to happen to do this?

-V-


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## ronaldlees (Jan 6, 2014)

VirGin said:
			
		

> Hi *p*eople,
> 
> I also would like to put FreeBSD on a Chromebook. I care so little about using Chrome that I have not even turned the thing on yet. I have a ChromeBook model XE303C12. Strangely enough, next to 'Notebook' there are a bunch about Cyrillic looking characters.
> 
> ...



For now, Chromebook has "developer mode."  Still, it's ominous that Google has elected to put its "foot in the door" of the lock-down mindset.

Locked-down boot schemes are the domain of evil empires.  On x86 platforms, due to the wide open nature that has been associated with it since its inception, a bit of time will be required before users can be completely boxed  into a corner.  It'll slowly creep onto the newer machines, until all we can use are really old pieces and parts assembled from Ebay purchases.  Some other platforms have been there for awhile.  On the mobile device front, because there was/is no legacy "openness" factor - the major powers are wrapping the chains of no-option  conformity onto the processor sheds, right up front.

This is why I think the ARM port's rails should be given more grease.  A few encouraging signs can be seen in the "open hardware" designs of Texas Instruments and Broadcom.  If only there were "open" operating systems to run on them...

I see the embryonic beginnings of ports for several major operating systems, but outside of (maybe) RiscOS, none are really close to a plug and play level.  I don't include Linux because my idea of open is bsd-style.


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## drhowarddrfine (Jan 7, 2014)

ronaldlees said:
			
		

> Still, it's ominous that Google has elected to put its "foot in the door" of the lock-down mindset.
> 
> Locked-down boot schemes are the domain of evil empires.


Google are not selling hardware. They're selling a system. Like Apple, in order to make that system all work together well, they lock it down, especially when they give you warranties and guarantees as Apple does.


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## ronaldlees (Jan 7, 2014)

While _G_oogle does not sell hardware, you can betcha bet your last quids they had almost everything to say about the Chromebook.  

The "mindset" that hardware must be closed so that the "system works well" might very well have been in the heads of the IBM PC engineers, in which case we'd be accessing this forum with dumb terminals.  The things were just supposed to be toys, and so they didn't worry about the lock-down.  Lucky for us.  Just sayin*g*...


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## wblock@ (Jan 7, 2014)

Before the PC, IBM had several smallish closed systems that were not widely popular.  For the PC, they saw that the open Apple II was the big seller.  After the PC, IBM tried closed systems again with the PS/2, a closed Microchannel architecture that required licensing.  The only thing left from that era are the fading PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports.  Closed proprietary systems have generally not been very successful.

But the Chromebook is more of a player that can run apps and media that Google wants to sell you.  I suspect they'll have to get a lot cheaper to remain viable.


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## kpa (Jan 7, 2014)

I just don't understand people who complain that something like the Chromebook is closed hardware. It's their product and they set it up the way they want, if that doesn't please you leave it in the shop and buy something else. Google does not have to make their products compatible with any existing standards hardware wise because standards are just recommendations. If their product can talk to web services over the net as if it was a regular PC laptop with the Chrome browser it essentially implements  the intended functionality and nothing more should be expected. More specifically, no law or regulation requires that the Chromebook must run FreeBSD and I'm cool with it if it doesn't, I can look elsewhere.


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## ronaldlees (Jan 7, 2014)

I'd be hypocritical to disallow Google the rights @kpa has enunciated.  Surely.  But - the wind seems to be blowing towards a locked-down future, both in hardware and in software.  For those people (such as myself) - who have thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the openness of the x86 era, it is discouraging to see all the little (and not so little) empires, each one attempting to lock-out all the others.     

It's true, I can go to another store, and buy an alternative.  But, those alternatives currently are few and far between,  and tend to be serviced by small niche companies, and tend to be more expensive.  There will be much less synergy within the niches than what was the case in the huge open PC environment.

Today, in the ARM arena, if you want an open system, you'll probably build your own with a Beagle, Panda, or Raspberry Pi board.  There are a few "niche" companies that have cropped up to make products such as the pandaRO and Armini, and they're great products.  But... they'll be competing with the goliaths, and that doesn't always go well.  I guess we let the market decide, and the millions of buyers will cast their votes, but they'll never cast them for the likes of FreeBSD.  In fifteen years, will there be a platform on which to run it?


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## dukzcry (Mar 9, 2014)

neel said:
			
		

> If you don't mind using OpenBSD instead, the Lemote Yeeloong can be another option. You get an open source BIOS, but at the cost of having slower hardware and subpar operating system support.


An initial support for ARM Chromebooks is in the Bitrig (an OpenBSD fork) tree. There are plans to backport this work to OpenBSD: [1] [2].

Unfortunately, I've never heard of FreeBSD running on this platform. But in spite of OpenBSD, a Plan 9 (yay!) port was announced. Though, I hadn't seen any public code since that.


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## gelraen (May 17, 2014)

br@ started porting FreeBSD to Samsung ARM Chromebook: https://wiki.freebsd.org/FreeBSD/arm/Chromebook


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## ronaldlees (May 22, 2014)

gelraen said:
			
		

> br@ started porting FreeBSD to Samsung ARM Chromebook: https://wiki.freebsd.org/FreeBSD/arm/Chromebook



Fantabulous!  Thanks for the link.


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## tencarlton (Jul 10, 2016)

drhowarddrfine said:


> Google are not selling hardware. They're selling a system. Like Apple, in order to make that system all work together well, they lock it down, especially when they give you warranties and guarantees as Apple does.



Selling a system that by rights is Open Source & Free? You mean they're a bunch of free-loaders, locked down... Lets examine locked down and see whats under the hood.

ARMv7l (Flattened Device Tree) Samsung Exynos - Chrome OS - or Chromium is essentially nothing more than Ubuntu with Chroot jails similar to BSD. You can soon examine the devices guts if you flash the bootloader with uboot (ripping open your chromebook will void your warranty) but meh who gives a fsck! It was eye opening getting into the guts of Chrome OS, to discover that Chromebooks don't support booting there own Remix Android OS. ie: If you'd like to boot an alternative operating system, such as RISC OS Open or Remix OS Android or even any variant of free and open-source, you haven't got much of a prayer thanks to this BIOS freeloaded legacy ******** making the rounds from M$ & China with hidden "ME" closed source microcode controlling all your cryptography (gee thanks INTEL!).

I can say with pretty much 100% certainty that it's definitely Ubuntu under the hood and if you install Bastille Linux you get the added bonus of having a pretty secured OS which does interesting things to whats hidden under the hood - then there is replacing OpenSSL with LibreSSL and many more fun pass-times to be had (tweaking the kernel). Just don't expect to be able to boot ETH-Oberon, Redox OS, FreeDOS or Plan 9 from Bell-Labs easily and when it comes to TPM or trusted computing modules, I find any BIOS that wants to disable the Linux KVM across multiple devices highly "suspect!" and lets be honest, it doesn't respect your device freedoms if it wont simply boot what you want without expecting you to jump through hoops first. Sure it'll boot alternative systems, but it expects you to go out of your way to be able to do it! An end users will just view that as "*****" Google!

UEFI - is the biggest load of ******** making the rounds at present - an emphatic "NO" to something that enables Boot-on-LAN inside your Insyde-H20 BIOS from China is not a "GOOD" or "trust-worthy" thing to have inside your CPU or Microcontroller - "*****" Microsoft!

As an end user I find it extremely frustrating that I have to search around for hardware without added ********. Sadly Chromebooks fall into that category, because they support this legacy mode ******** which they've all but come out and said is "********" so why is it still being supported across the entire industry?

The answer is blowing in the Wind, they spent billions on all those backdoor-ed micro-controllers and now that nobody wants them - they're loosing millions for being *****. When these guys say "think of the children", I do, I confess, I think about how they're going to grow up seriously...

"hating all of you!" - Snowden, the new household name for the 21st Century.. Along with 10 Million infected Android handsets from China & AllWinner Cortex Kernel device debugging backdoors.

An this kiddies is why you can't have nice things, because the Google talkback service provides a device bridge into your Mobile phone so "Developers" at google can rape your device contacts and don't even get started on the encryption protecting you from BAD-Guys, because the bad-guys have been ******* with it since 1984 - claiming its for your own "Good!" & never forget they're trustworthy.. Thats why TCPCRYPT hasn't got an RFC yet whilst the IPSEC guys are still promoting the use of the BROKEN data-encryption standard.

Chrome - don't gaze at it for too long, your eyeballs will start to bleed!

"If your doing something you shouldn't be doing, then you have no reasonable expectation of privacy!" ~ E.Schmidt former CEO of Google. (And one time intern at Bell-Labs!) - "Fake Intelligence, is fake intelligence!" no matter how the dude wants to spin the fact he grew up as trailer park trash or the fact that the GCC dropped right out of those self same "fake intelligence!" labs. Remember kids, "a Greedy self serving ***** is still in the end nothing but a greedy self serving *****!"


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## drhowarddrfine (Jul 10, 2016)

tencarlton said:


> Selling a system that by rights is Open Source & Free?



You signed up on this board just for this? And over two and a half years after I posted that? I question why you are here at all but your vulgar, partly political, rant is off base.

You say that Google is selling Ubuntu and they certainly are not. Nor are they selling Chromium. They are selling a product, a system, that makes all these things work together seamlessly. In order to make them work together seamlessly, they have to lock them down to prevent messing them up and damaging the integrity of the product. That, iirc, is the gist of what I was saying.

But name calling of a company, here, is unbecoming of the FreeBSD forums.


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## drhowarddrfine (Jul 12, 2016)

tencarlton This isn't reddit. If you want to rant aimlessly, at least try it in the off-topic board, but I'd still prefer you do it on reddit.


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## ronaldlees (Jul 12, 2016)

What was this thread all about?

tencarlton:  The sad part is, I actually agreed with maybe a couple of your points, but had to dig them out from too much unpleasantness to matter.

Nope, you'd last not even two seconds on reddit - then you'd be shadowbanned for life.


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