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X200 X201 Hardware Flashing

Amersel edited this page Aug 1, 2015 · 5 revisions

Flashing Methods

The X200 and X201 can be flashed using a BeagleBone Black, a Raspberry Pi, or a Bus Pirate. Libreboot offically supports the BeagleBone Black, but the price of the BeagleBone is $55 compared to a $35 Raspberry Pi and if you're reading this, you likely have one lying around.

16-pin BIOS Chip

Only the numbers with an asterisk are plugged in to a wire.

       16-pin X200 Pomona 5252

===  front (display) on your X200 ====
        9     -       -     8*
       10*    -       -     7*
       11     -       -     6
       12     -       -     5
       13     -       -     4
       14     -       -     3
       15*    -       -     2*
       16*    -       -     1 - this is pin 1 on the flash chip
===  back (palmrest) on your X200 ===
Pin # SPI Pin Name Bus Pirate (Seed Color) BeagleBone Black Raspberry Pi
2 3.3V 3.3V PSU 3.3V PSU 17 or 3.3V PSU
7 CS White Pin 17 24
8 MISO Black Pin 21 21
10 GND Brown Pin 1 25
15 MOSI Gray Pin 18 19
16 CLK Purple Pin 22 23

8-pin BIOS Chip

Fun Fact: This chip pinout is exactly the same as the X60 and T60.

8-pin X200 POMONA 5250:

~~~~ VGA (left) ~~~~
        4321
        ----
        |  |
        ----
        5678
~~Hard Drive (right)~
Pin # SPI Pin Name Bus Pirate (Seeed Color) BeagleBone Black Raspberry Pi
1 CS White Pin 17 24
2 MISO Black Pin 21 21
3 not used not used not used not used
4 GND Brown Pin 1 25
5 MOSI Gray Pin 18 19
6 CLK Purple Pin 22 23
7 not used not used not used not used
8 3.3V 3.3V PSU 3.3V PSU 17 or 3.3V PSU
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Bibliotheca Anonoma

Coreboot Laptops

Coreboot is an open source, user configurable BIOS. However, it does use a few proprietary blobs here and there.

ThinkPads

These require hardware flashing. Due to Intel Management Firmware, proprietary blobs are required for newer Intel motherboards to even power up.

Chromebooks

Most Intel Chromebooks come with Coreboot preinstalled. SeaBIOS can optionally be installed to add Windows support.

Just use John Lewis's Installation Script for All Models to autoinstall.

Build Notes

NOTE: The Libreboot components of this wiki was divested into the Official Libreboot Documentation here. Please use that from now on.

Libreboot laptops are certified by the FSF to protect your freedom.

They contain no proprietary blobs of any kind, and have the best support for FSF certified GNU/LInux.

ThinkPads

Macbooks

Other Tutorials

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