Google Chromebook Pixel 2015 (Samus)

User Support HCL Reports
1 
---
layout:
  'hcl'
type:
  'Laptop'
hvm:
  'yes'
iommu:
  'yes'
slat:
  'yes'
tpm:
  '1.2'
remap:
  'yes'
brand: |
  GOOGLE
model: |
  Samus
bios: |
  MrChromebox-2408.1
cpu: |
  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5500U CPU @ 2.40GHz
cpu-short: |
  i7-5500U
chipset: |
  Intel Corporation Broadwell-U Host Bridge -OPI [8086:1604] (rev 09)
chipset-short: |
  FIXME
gpu: |
  Intel Corporation HD Graphics 5500 [8086:1616] (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
  
gpu-short: |
  HD5500
network: |
  Intel Corporation Wireless 7260 [8086:08b1] (rev cb)
memory: |
  16251
scsi: |
  KINGSTON RBU-SUS Rev: 02.3
usb: |
  2
certified:
  'no'
versions:
  - works:
      'partial'
    qubes: |
      R4.2.4
    xen: |
      4.17.5
    kernel: |
      6.12.11-1
    remark: |
      FIXME
    credit: |
      @q4u
    link: |
      FIXLINK

Remarks

Working

  • Wifi
  • Suspend
  • USB (all A and C ports)
  • Webcam
  • TPM

Not working

  • Sound
  • Microphone
  • Headphone jack
  • Touch screen (not tested)

Attachments

google_samus_hcl.yaml (815 Bytes)

2 Likes
2

I hope you don’t mind me editing the title. Just making sure you don’t get bombarded with people mistakenly thinking that you got Qubes OS running on a phone with an ARM CPU…

Still very impressive that you got this running. :slight_smile:

Are you booting off an SD card, or the internal eMMC?

3 Likes
3

Nope I don’t mind at all, rather thx for that!

Of course as you can see from the HCL, I’m running MrChromBox’ coreboot distro, so it’s rather not so impressive but just selecting a boot medium and doing an install just like you would on any regular laptop.

And yeah I installed to the internal drive. Not trying to be overly picky with words but it’s a SSD rather than eMMC. You can feel from the disk speed.

It comes with either 32 or 64G of capacity (soldered on) and even being lucky with having the bigger one it’s just not ideal for what I usually do.

To cope with the storage limitation one could:

  • spin up a secondary storage pool on microSD
  • spin up a secondary storage pool on an USB-C attached external nvme
  • only install and use a single template for all qubes
  • wait for / try the Alpine template

If none of this is satisfactory one could still use this device as “Thin Client” for only accessing and managing remote infra securely.

1 Like
4
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5

Oh wow. That’s hardly a Chromebook at all! :smiley:

1 Like
6

@Sven it’s saying Google Chromebook Pixel 2025 there, should be 2015.

@alzer89 well it’s quite common for the higher grade devices to use SSDs instead.
The real problem with chromebooks is that - as a rule of thumb - devices after 2013 have their memory soldered on and devices after 2015 have their SSD/eMMC soldered on.

2 Likes
7

…and the keyboard that maps the super key to the caps lock…
…and custom audio drivers…

Google, you usually make pretty good hardware, but they were all terrible ideas…

I managed to do what you did to a PCMerge AL116, but you wouldn’t believe how many times it took me to recompile the kernel with the SD card drivers in the initramfs so it would boot from the SD card.

There’s something quite enraging about having GRUB load from an SD card, only to tell you that it can’t find another partition that’s on the same SD card as it is…:rofl:

Quite a character-building experience…

1 Like
8

The Super-Key thingy was a major issue earlier for me, but since I’m using QubesOS and other OSes with i3 this turned out to be not that much of a problem.
Usually I have Super as $mod, but Alt on Chromebooks. Since the Alt button is larger and my fingers hit roughly the same area as the Super key this doesn’t even affect my muscle memory. I can just forget about it. Also I don’t use caps lock that often that I’d miss it.

Totally agree on the audio driver part.

Oh nooo! I mean great learning experience of course, but you don’t have to go down that route!

If you encounter a X86 Chromebook, go to
Chrultrabook’s supported devices page to see whether it’s supported. If it is you can enable recovery and developer mode, then follow MrChromeBox’ instructions to flash it via software (no external programmer needed).
Going the “Full UEFI ROM” Route will render the ChromeOS system unusable but will make it a UEFI-powered regular laptop. It features a rather minimal BIOS menu where you can adjust stuff like boot order or TPM.

It should do the boot device enumeration correctly on its own. Doing the platform init for you and sparing your time for other OS-level adventures ;D

But I’ve got another device that has a similar issue than what you described, did you do a writeup on your journey by any chance?

1 Like
9

I fixed it. Should reflect on the website in a few minutes. Thank you!

2 Likes