How To Install Linux On A Chromebook – I’m a big fan of Chromebooks, just like Linus Torvalds. He thinks “…Khromebooks are the kind of thing that will make the office year more possible.”
I love Chromebooks not only because they run the Chrome OS operating system, but also because they are cheap and the app ecosystem around the OS is rapidly evolving. The device does not require maintenance. It ended the “paid” operating system upgrade model used by some companies and ensures that you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to operate a computer. I was surprised to see the decrease in support calls I received from my wife when she was on Windows or Mac, because Chrome OS is extremely easy to use and hardly anything can break.
How To Install Linux On A Chromebook
However, as a user, I’m hesitant to run a “full” desktop on my Chromebook (even if I don’t need it). There are several ways to install a – based operating system on your Chromebook. For this tutorial, I chose Crouton (aka Chromium OS Universal Chroot Environment), which is a set of scripts bundled together in an easy-to-use Chromium OS-centric chroot generator. The scripts are hosted on GitHub and currently only support Ubuntu and Debian. It offers various desktop environments including Xfce, Unity and KDE. Unity can be quite heavy for your Chromebook, depending on your hardware, and I don’t find Xfce easy enough on the eyes, so I’ll try KDE and see how it works.
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Some of the advantages of Crouton are that, unlike other methods, you don’t have to restart your machine to change operating systems; you can switch between them using keyboard shortcuts like switching between two apps. I tried it on a Samsung Chromebook.
Before you start snooping, make sure you have a backup of your data. Since all your data is synchronized with Google Server, you don’t actually have to worry about data loss. The only data you need to back up is the “Download” folder, as the contents of this folder are not synchronized. Once you’ve made the backup, it’s also a safe plan to create a ChromeOS recovery USB in case something goes wrong and you need to reinstall ChromeOS.
Since Crouton will not delete your Chrome OS, there is no risk of corrupting your Chrome OS. It is always a good idea to save a recovery image of your operating system.
Install the Chromebook recovery tool from the Chrome website. Open the app and follow the instructions to create the recovery disc. It’s an easy three step process, click next. All you need is internet and a USB stick with at least 4 GB of space.
How To Install Linux On A Chromebook: 10 Steps (with Pictures)
To install your own operating system on Chromebooks, you need to enable Developer Mode. It is extremely easy to do and very well documented by Google. The latest Chromebooks use a key combination to enter developer mode, while older devices have a
Physical switch. Different devices have different locations for the switch, so please Google your device to find the location of the switch and return it. If you are using the latest Chromebook, you can enable developer mode by holding the Esc + Refresh keys and then pressing the “Power” button. The recovery screen will show a scary warning. Just ignore it and let Chrome OS wipe your data. The process may take up to 15 minutes, so do not turn off your Chromebook.
Also, keep in mind that after Chrome OS is reinstalled, you’ll continue to see this warning every time you boot your system, as long as developer mode is enabled. However, it will not wipe data every time. You can simply press Ctrl+d for fast boot in Chrome OS (do not do this this time while Chrome OS is preparing your system for developer mode).
4- We will now install Ubuntu. Several desktop environments are available, including KDE Plasma, Unity and Xfce. Unity can be quite heavy for Chromebook hardware and xfce is too simple for my liking, so I’ll install KDE Plasma.
How To Install Linux On A Chromebook
We have not encrypted the chroot, if you want to encrypt it, add the -e parameter to the above command:
As the script will download Ubuntu from the internet, it may take some time depending on your broadband connection speed, so go get some chai or Indian coffee. With my download speed of 150 Mbps, it took me about 18 minutes. Once the installation is complete, Crouton will ask you to enter the UNIX username and password – which will be used to perform administrative tasks in Kubuntu.
Installation will be minimal and will not come with applications packaged from distributions, but you can easily install programs from Konsole/terminal. It is also a good idea to update the system.
I installed everything I needed – LibreOffice, Sublime Text, Chrome browser (so I could watch Netflix), GIMP, VLC, etc.
How I Use Linux On My Chromebook
To return to Chrome OS and continue running KDE, use this key combination Alt+Ctrl+Shift+Return. To return to Kubuntu from Chrome OS, use this combination: Alt+Ctrl+Shift+Forward. You can find the Previous/Next keys on the top row of the keyboard.
When you log out of KDE, it leaves you from Chroot and you will have to run the
You may or may not need a full desktop, such as Ubuntu, on your Chromebook. It really depends on what you are doing on your computer. I’m using the right platform for this particular task, so I have no problem doing something on a platform that it’s not supposed to do. I’m a heavy Chromebook user; my wife is a full-time Chromebook user. I can do almost everything on a Chromebook that I do on my openSUSE or Arch box, except professional image and audio/video editing. As a writer, I can live on a Chromebook and not need anything – all the necessary tools are there.
Most of these programs work in offline mode, so you don’t have to worry about internet connectivity, no matter what Microsoft tells you in its Pawn Star advertising campaign. You don’t have to give all your data to Google to work with a Chromebook. Just grab the applications that support offline mode, log out, insert a good capacity USB flash drive and go – nothing will leave your network.
Here’s How To Install Any Linux Operating System On Your Chromebook
However, sometimes you’ll need tools that aren’t yet available for Chrome OS and that’s where you might need a full desktop.
There is no doubt that installing your favorite distribution on a Chromebook is not as convenient as on an ordinary computer, and due to the small built-in storage, it may not seem as attractive as a computer with a disk. 500GB hard drive. But keep in mind that Chromebooks have SSDs that are much faster and more durable than HDDs. On top of that, Chromebooks are extremely affordable – you can get one for just under $200; it is better to set them up and give yours
To my surprise, I found Kubuntu to be much faster on my Chromebook than on a Windows netbook. There are hardly any driver issues on a Chromebook, which can be a big problem on many Windows computers that use proprietary hardware. I never store any of my data on my laptop, it’s always on my own cloud server or on my hard drives, so the onboard storage has never been an issue for me – which can be a big factor for many others. If I’m looking for cheap hardware to do mostly online work, I’d prefer a Chromebook over a Windows PC.
I have to admit that I live on the internet. The browser is the first application I open after booting up my system. I spend 90% of my time in a browser – in Chrome, to be exact – so I don’t really mind Chrome OS and wouldn’t mind installing another one on top of it. If I need to install , then Crouton is my preferred method. The advantage of Crouton is that you don’t leave one system to use the other; you run them at the same time. Because it shares the “Downloads” folder between the two operating systems so you can easily share data – create a job in KDE and it’s already present in Chrome OS.
Google Chromebook Pixel Running Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver
If you want to remove and go back to the “verified” Chrome OS, press the spacebar when your Chromebook restarts to re-enable verification. On older hardware, you’ll need to turn on the physical switch and Chrome OS will restore the controlled state. If something goes wrong, use the recovery disk we created at the beginning to restore the operating system.
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We’ve touched on Chrome Unboxed a lot lately. With