Folding Forum

Studying a Samsung Chromebox at work. Any possibility that some variant of FAH will run in the Chrome OS on the Chromebox??

Chrome OS is Linux based, so in theory the foundations for compiling a separate client are already in place. However, I have no idea to what extent it differs (on the API and library level) from a "normal" Linux distro, so that might be open to question.

Unfortunately, there is no source distribution for the FaH client, so all you can really do is to wait and see if PG will provide one.

Is this an x86 based processor? No amount of compiling with resolve this if not.

A lot depends on market penetration. Would the Chromebox be a valuable source of new FAH processing power? The Chromebook hasn't taken the world by storm, but then battery powered devices are not designed for tasks involving heavy processing like FAH.

Personally, I doubt it. There are already many Linux distros and FAH is not likely to customize an installer for another (possibly rare) OS. The fundamental hardware is x86-based so maybe the existing Linux software will run on it, but you'd have to be responsible for figuring out how to install it (after determining if it can be made to work).

Another approach, of course is to see if Ubuntu or Red Hat (etc.) could be installed on the hardware and you could just discard the OS.

7im wrote:Is this an x86 based processor? No amount of compiling with resolve this if not.

I think so. Isn't their netbook based on the Atom chip?

Yes, the Chrome boxes run standard Intel CPUs.

According to the Chromebook Wikipedia article, the most recent cheaper Samsung chrombook comes with Samsung's own Exynos 5 dual processor - an ARM-based processor. The older Series 5 has a dual core Intel Celeron.

Samsung Series 5
XE550C22 May 2012 2 1.3 GHz Intel Celeron 867 4 GB DDR3 16 GB SSD 12.1 in (30.7 cm) 3.3 lb (1.5 kg) US$449.99 Wi-Fi
US$549.99 3G China

Samsung Series 3
XE303C12 Oct 2012 3 1.7 GHz Samsung Exynos 5 Dual 2 GB DDR3 16 GB SSD 11.6 in (29.5 cm) 2.43 lb (1.1 kg) US$249.99 Wi-Fi
US$329.99 3G China

I've built some chromeboxes using hexxeh's builds. You can run whatever linux software you want on there. All I've ever seen run is x86, and the computers that I have built were atom based like some of the other chromebooks. I've used these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6856119056 mounted to the back of a monitor (brackets were included), I put 2gb of ram in them and a small flash drive.

Software here http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/lime.php you should be able to test it in a VM.

I've used some other foxconn barebones kits too that were larger. I use them for firewall/router/gateways too.

I was actually able to make kiosk (securely locked down) builds with xfce, kde, or gnome, and get better performance and usefulness than with chrome-os.

The chances that FAH will be ported to a RISC processor any time soon are essentially zero. That leaves open the possibility of FAH adding new compute power to a (small?) number of atom processors -- provided you have the skills to install FAH manually.