okay, first things first: ***I AM NOT A PROFESSIONAL. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M DOIN*** ...so emulate at your own risk. also, i'm writing this from memory, so i apologize for any inconsistencies.
so for whatever reason i've always liked the idea of little computers. however, i hate google, so no way i'd buy one of these things new. enter shopgoodwill dot com. i saw a 2015ish chromebook for 6.99, +x shipping. so i got it.
acer chromebook cb3-111 (201x). pretty standard 11.6" dealio.
writing some stuff down while it's relatively fresh:
unfortunately, some of the tools i used seem to be specific to older chromebooks, so i'm not sure how easy this would be for someone to replicate. thought i'd write about it on the off chance that someone who find my site could use it, tho!! resources: so, I used the tip of a knife to pry out the chrome symbol (like a viking digging jewels out of a crucifix to make hacksilver). unfortunately, the little plastic disk popped out and jumped away, so I can't mount it on a plaque and hang it on the wall like a trophy. i'm sure i'll find it in two years. i'm gonna put a googley eye where the chrome symbol used to be (surely it isn't a coincidence that it's a GOOGLEy eye!?!?!?!?) i was stupid and thought the new arm-based on was it. so for a bit i was trying to install postmarketos. like a big idiot. but then i was like HOLD on and opted for kali linux, because i thought it would be funny to put that on a heckin' CHROMEBOOK. also, i've never used linux as my daily driver buuut debian-based distros are what i have the most experience with from my random forays into the linuxverse. (find imstructions for dev mode/os verify tried that a couple times, but ctrl+u just beeped and made the screen flicker. then i was like ...wait...didn't i see something about a read/write protect screw? so i popped the bottom cover off and found the biggest , baddest screw on the mobo (not actually that big or bad) but you should be able to tell which one it is because it will have silver contact patches that touch the head of the screw, unlike other screws that are simply there to hold it all together. (get pics) chronos->shell enable boot from usb! after using the (technically no longer available...used chromebox commands) script to replace the bios??? i put kali linux onto a flash drive to use as my install media (i like to use rufus for burning ISOs, unfortunately it's windows-only) i rebooted with the flash drive plugged in, et voila! SeaBios came up and detected it immediately, giving me the option to boot from it. Kali installation (kallinstallation?) was relatively quick and painless. i did have to go through the install steps twice, because some sectors of the hard drive failed to validate the first time around--i assume there were some vestiges of chromeos that were resisting being erased.
things that don't work: