Learning How To Libreboot The C201

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Hello there again!

Recently I’ve been working on two projects; working on Librebooting a T400 and W500, as well as Librebooting a spare ASUS C201 Chromebook.

Also working on learning C when I get some free time recently, after reinstalling Arch on my T440p. Fedora Silverblue is really cool and incredibly stable! However, for tinkering more, the ostree system kind of compartmentalizes things using the Toolbox and various other commands. For native installs of applications, I’d need a non-ostree OS again.

I’ve actually not installed Arch from scratch in about two years now, so it will likely be an interesting experience again. Regarding Librebooting the C201, it seems that the device that I got for cheap is stuck under management and won’t allow booting into Developer Mode, so I may actually have to use my CH341A chip to flash it externally. I’ll be looking into the Libreboot documentation for this.

Below is an image of where I removed the write-protect screw on the C201, for a thumbnail.

c201screw.jpg

Once I get either Debian ARM or Parabola installed on the C201, I can start tinkering more with looking into how ARM architecture works. I need to learn C more too! There’s no point in knowing tons about libre software if I can’t modify the code :)

Some other things I’ve seen recently:

Mo Distros, Mo NVIDIA Problems

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Today I tried out MX Linux on the Gigabyte Aero15Xv8. More info on that here. Didn't work out too well and I ended up crashing and burning, only to install Pop!_OS over that again. Sadness. I won’t give up though…
This is why we need a full-AMD gaming laptop on the market, for the Linux faithful.

Also began more work on learning the ins and outs of Alpine Linux. I went to a hackerspace recently called Noisebridge in SF. I used to frequent the place quite often last year, but now is my first time heading there since returning to the land of tech. Learned a bit more that there was a version of Alpine with Xen already preinstalled and we tried it out on an i3 board in the hackerspace, only to realize that it still uses a ridiculously low amount of resources. May or may not have an update on where that project goes this upcoming Friday, when I head there with a friend. It seems my adventures with it in the cloud are finished for now- see the PROGRESS tab under the Projects dropdown at top of site- but I might try it on a Raspberry Pi 4 in the future! As for my build regarding the Asrock Deskmini A300 board and chassis, I'll probably be running Fedora Server on that guy with various flatpaks, as well as retroarch.

Up next, I libreboot a Macbook from 2006….once I get a proper medium to boot Debian from, since it won’t take any of my USB3.0/3.1 flash drives.

I’m getting back to work on my LARBS-in-the-cloud project as well as slowly saving up to order the parts for my little Nextcloud/gaming AMD box soon too. Will probably end up making a full on blog post about the LARBS thing when I finally get it working on the nanode. I don’t think that customized Arch install will ever be as light as Alpine though… Till then, guten nacht!

I made a Hackintosh! (Thinkpad T440s)

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t440s-macos.jpg

When looking around for machines I could use for projects at work, I found a little T440s with an old HGST drive in it. With Windows 8.1 currently installed, I felt something shinier could give this machine a new lease on life.

After following a great guide made by my buddy Wolfgang, I got MacOS Mojave running natively on the hardware! Thankfully his guide made the process quite easy, though the T440s doesn’t entirely need the graphics injector after install. My T440p I have Fedora Silverblue on could likely pull this off as well, though it would seem a bit unwieldy to my coworkers that are used to the thinness of Dell’s 7390s and Apple’s new Macbook Airs (2019).

The goal of this was just to see if it could be done, and it is! There are some modifications I could make to make the whole thing a smoother experience, what with brightness controls and all, but the gist of this is that it is possible to run Apple’s OS on far superior hardware!

Also, some things I’ve been reading recently:

Come back next time for some news on my LARBS-in-the-cloud project and other upcoming things!

t440s-macos-2.jpg

Rebuilt T440p and other updates :)

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I finally rebuilt one of the T440ps I won in an auction! See more over here. Also added a link to the main page of my site.

In other news, I’ve been trying out Fedora Silverblue and really enjoy having a desktop GNU/Linux operating system that has fantastic rollback/update functionality and great minimal standards behind a familiar GNOME interface. I feel I may need to start picking up more automation skills as I begin the job search anew, and I’m certain this along with learning CoreOS/K8S is going to help immensely.

Things I’ve seen on the web over the past month or so:

Upcoming projects (quick update)

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Hello again! Just a quick update here, since I likely will have a large gap between now and reporting upon my next projects.

  • I recently won some auctions and will be unlocking the BIOS on a T440p as well as upgrading the parts

    • The Thinkpad T440p will serve as an interim for my Thinkpad A485 until the Star Labs Lite MkII arrives, as both will be far more stable than that machine

  • I will be looking into Librebooting an old Macbook soon as well as getting some help with wiring for Corebooting the Thinkpad X230

  • My LARBS-in-the-Cloud project is on hold as I figure out some VNC server issues with my Linode VPS

  • Might be downsizing in the future and selling a few of my project computers as well as my gaming laptop, then switching to Linux OEMs/Resellers’ products, for better hardware support in the future. Still on the fence with this one.