Install Linux on your Chromebook with Crouton

Discussion in 'Google Chromebook' started by fcuco, Apr 7, 2016.

  1. fcuco

    fcuco

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    It is quite simple to put linux on a Chromebook, you don't have to uninstall Chrome OS and you can actually get both operating systems running at the same time and switch between the 2 without rebooting by pressing a key combination using a chroot environment (Something similar in nature to virtualization but not quite exactly the same).

    One big caveat though: you will have to put your Chromebook into developer mode and this will restore all your stored data so make sure to have a good backup. Developer mode will also display a scary looking warning message on every boot but you can't ignore that.

    Once you have the Linux environment running you can do pretty much anything that you could do on any normal Linux machine: install applications, share folders, use remote desktop software and so on. I actually installed Firefox on a Chromebook which was groovy enough to pay the price of the ticket for the installation show. You basically end up with a nice standard linux laptop that also runs ChromeOS.

    How to enter developers mode may vary depending on the model of your Chromebook so make sure to check that out first, then head into the Crouton GitHub page for instructions. The process was rather simple, I think I'll give it a 4/10 in the technical difficulty aspect.
     
    fcuco, Apr 7, 2016
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  2. fcuco

    rz3300

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    Well I am interested in this, but at the same time I do not want to mess anything up. I am not familiar with Linux, so will that cause me a lot of problems if I plan on doing this? I like my Chromebook, but there are some features that I am missing that doing this might fix, or at least give me some options. I am just one of those people who wants to take the safe route though, so I might need to tread lightly here. Maybe I should go out there and start doing some research. Thank you for sharing this, though, and I hope that I can find my answers.
     
    rz3300, May 22, 2016
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  3. fcuco

    fcuco

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    This is indeed the safe route since the installation is foolproof and the removal is even more simple. Both the linux OS and Chrome OS will live at your machine at the same time (and you can actually switch between the 2 at real time without rebooting) and you can decide to only start linux if you wish to, so you can continue to use Chrome OS until you need some linux feature.

    For removing the thing you simply decide to take the machine out of developer's mode, and that's as simple as pressing some key combination during startup, your machine will return to a previous factory settings state. Just make to sure to backup everything before doing this since each time you enter and leave developers mode the HD is restored, but this is should not be an issue since Chromebooks are not used to store vast amounts of data inside their hard drives.

    The only thing that could be simpler than this is to try a linux life cd, but at least this survives reboots.
     
    fcuco, Jun 6, 2016
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