Surface Pro 3 - ChromeOS

[hesstek]

ChromeOS on Surface Pro 3 (Haswell) — Success!

Hey everyone — I wanted to share my experience getting ChromeOS running on a Surface Pro 3 via Brunch. The SP3 is well below the officially supported hardware floor but it is fully working as a daily driver!

Working Configuration

Component	Value
Brunch Version	r120
ChromeOS Recovery	nami r120
Kernel	chromebook-5.10

Key Discoveries

• r128 and newer will not work on Haswell — the crocus Mesa GPU driver fails to initialize, resulting in a permanent black screen. r120 is required.
• ekko and nami are the same board — cros.tech lists the nami recovery image for ekko searches, this is correct
• Install to SSD directly — running from USB 2.0 causes timing issues during boot. Install to the internal SSD for reliable results
• Wi-Fi works great — unlike Chrome OS Flex which fails to find the Wi-Fi module on the SP3, Brunch r120 handles it correctly out of the box

Full Guide

I documented the entire process including troubleshooting, exact kernel flags, and every failure mode I encountered along the way. If you're attempting this on SP3 or similar Haswell hardware, hopefully it saves you some headaches:

--> Surface Pro 3 ChromeOS Install Guide

Happy to answer questions from anyone attempting this!