
Liberating a X200 - greenhathacker
https://operand.ca/2018/02/22/liberating-a-x200.html
======
jimmies
Welcome to the bright side. I've been enjoying my Chromebook with coreboot and
nerf'ed Intel ME for years. It's not as hard as many of us would think.

By the way, Chromebooks are cheap and is a fantastic platform to experiment
with coreboot/de-intel-ME. Acer C720s are $100 right now.

There are 2 spererate tasks: Flashing coreboot and De-blob'ing Intel ME. If
you just want to try coreboot with the Chromebook, then you can do it with
software and don't need an external programmer. All you have to do is just
remove the BIOS write-protect screws - MrChromebox's website is a great
resource. If you need to de-blob the chromebooks, then you'd need an external
programmer, such as a Raspberry Pi.

As a shameless plug, I have released a tool so one doesn't have to be an
electrical engineer and/or a Linux expert to flash many Chromebooks/Thinkpads
with a Raspberry Pi [1]. You don't really have to have a breadboard to flash
the Chromebooks like you do with the Thinkpad in the article. Also, the cool
thing about it is that it prepares the image on your x86 computer so you
literally don't have to configure the pi and get/compile stuff afterwards. I
didn't know that the X200 needs a patch. I will integrate the x200 support
into ezpi4ME so people don't have to manually patch and wait for it to compile
on the Pi.

1: github.com/htruong/EzPi4ME

Edit: I noticed OP has a blog post complaining about Acer 720s having
problems. It hasn't happened to me, at least with MrChromebox's firmware. I
did have problem with John Lewis' firmware builds, though.

~~~
greenhathacker
> I noticed OP has a blog post complaining about Acer 720s having problems.

OP here - I've since been able to install 64 bit Debian on my C720, still not
sure what the original issue was.

I also tried to compile my own C720 coreboot and flash that, but ran into
problems. The X200 was way easier :) I may follow up with another C720 post if
I get that working.

~~~
jimmies
>The X200 was way easier.

I think to most people, the idea that one can have coreboot by just messing
with the software seems appealing. From what I understand, one always need an
external flasher for the Thinkpad while you don't with Chromebooks. So that's
a huge factor in accessibility in favor of Chromebooks.

>I also tried to compile my own C720 coreboot and flash that, but ran into
problems.

I actually didn't compile my own version of Coreboot. I guess at some point
I'd have to trust someone. But it feels very funny to me that I trust a random
guy on the internet nicknamed MrChromebox to do the right thing instead of
Intel. But then, even when I compile my own firmware, I have to trust
thousands of other people who work on Coreboot to not have performed any
underhanded tricks, my compiler to be free of defects, etc. "Reflections on
trusting trust" hits home hard. I think all in all it does sound like that
"having software/hardware we can control when we want to" (aka Stallmanism) is
a more realistic goal than "better security."

For the ezpi4me project though, I tried to make the scripts as simple and easy
to understand as possible, so you do see all it does. This is one project that
I completed recently that I'm quite fond of, especially given I haven't been
very productive and inspired to do things for a while :)

------
shadoxx
Recently did something similar with a Pocket CHIP and an X230. This is a
wonderful SPI programming setup:
[https://imgur.com/5KEo4Y5](https://imgur.com/5KEo4Y5)

~~~
ntw1103
Do you have a link to documentation? I have the pokcetCHI@ and the laptop, and
would be interested in giving this a go.

~~~
shadoxx
I did this kind of in my spare time, but I'd be happy to write up something
quick later tonight or this weekend.

Most important bit is a SOIC8 Pomona 5250 clip and some wires to connect it up
properly. I ended up soldering some right-angle headers onto my CHIP so I can
do other things besides SPI programming with it.

~~~
ntw1103
That would be awesome, and appreciated, I would love to give it a try.

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paines
AFAIK, almost the same process is used for Bios whitelisting. Meaning,
Lenovo(and I guess others) has hardwired in the bios that only secific
vendors+versions off e.g. WIFI cards can be used. You would dump the bios,
same as described in the article, do some magic, and write it the altered bios
back. If anybody can enlighten me on the magic part, I would be very thankful.

------
castratikron
Notice any problems with the RTC? Mine doesn't work on a T420 after flashing.
The clock jumps ahead 50 years every time I power off.

~~~
greenhathacker
No RTC problems seen here.

~~~
castratikron
I fixed it by setting the system time (so that "date" returned the correct
time), then I ran "sudo hwclock --systohc".

------
piplgobde
Been meaning to get this task done myself, but past attempts haven't worked
out.

This post is making me give it another shot soon.

~~~
greenhathacker
OP here - email me (jwm@my domain) with questions if you want, I can help
diagnose problems :)

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watersb
Excellent to see this. My X230 should arrive next week and I will give this a
try. I haven't flashed a BIOS like this before so every high-quality write-up
like this helps me understand some things to watch out for.

------
jakeogh
Are there any coreboot supported platforms that charge over USB?

