Re: FreeBSD on Samsung Chromebook ARM "SNOW" model XE303C12

From: John F Carr <jfc_at_mit.edu>
Date: Sun, 07 Aug 2022 17:46:32 UTC
I have one of those Chromebooks but I have not tried to boot FreeBSD.  The wiki page is obsolete.  It references a configuration file CHROMEBOOK-SNOW which was removed in 2019 by the commit below.  I don't know if the Chromebook kernel was in the "not working" category or "switched to GENERIC" category.

commit 9a042e7d03ae13425132966cd3f3416775157aed
Author: Emmanuel Vadot <manu@FreeBSD.org>
Date:   Wed Apr 10 19:27:14 2019 +0000

    arm: kernel: Remove old kernel configs
    
    Follow up to r346095
    All those kernels are either not working or the release have switched
    to GENERIC


> On Aug 7, 2022, at 04:58 , Mario Marietto <marietto2008@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hello.
> 
> A lot of years ago,I bought the cool notebook "Samsung Chromebook "SNOW" model XE303C12" where it seems that only ChromeOS and Linux can be installed. The specs are the following ones :
> 
> 	• CPU: Samsung Exynos 5 Dual (5250) (Cortex A15; 1.7GHz dual core cpu)
> 	• GPU: ARM Mali-T604 (Quad Core)
> 		• 1366x768 screen & HDMI external connector
> 	• RAM: 2 GiB DDR3
> 		• The memory is not upgradable as it is soldered directly to the board
> 	• Disk: 16 GiB SSD (connected to eMMC)
> 		• SD & USB expansion slots
> 	• WiFi: 802.11 a/b/g/n
> 		• USB slot can handle Ethernet dongle
> 
> I'm trying to look on Internet to understand if I can install FreeBSD without having all the troubles explained here :
> 
> https://wiki.freebsd.org/arm/Chromebook
> 
> Which options do I have to have a fully working FreeBSD system on that machine ? If it can't be installed natively,maybe these two options are feasible ? :
> 
> 1) to virtualize FreeBSD using qemu and kvm
> 2) to install FreeBSD using the crouton chroot method ?
> 
> What else ? What do you think ? Maybe you know some specific tutorial that's more updated and that can allow me to install freeBSD on that machine making almost everything work as expected.
> 
> --
> Mario.