ChrUbuntu

Running Ubuntu on your Chromebook

Get Ubuntu running on your Chromebook

Tuesday, February 05, 2013, posted by Pagenulled
Chromebook is a new type of computer designed to help people get things done faster and easier. It's a lot like other laptops which can run Linux or other operating systems — and there's an easy way to install at least one of those operating systems. Developer Jay Lee offers a custom version of Ubuntu 12.04 optimized for your Chromebook. It's called ChrUbuntu which is available for Chromebooks with Intel and ARM-based processors.

Installing ChrUbuntu is extremely easy, just follow the steps below:
  1. To get started, make sure your Chromebook has a developer BIOS installed. Then switch the device to developer mode. If you need additional help, see Google's instructions for Cr-48, Samsung Series 5, Acer AC700, Samsung Series 3 and Samsung Series 5 550 depending on your model.
  2. Reboot your Chromebook but do not login. Make sure you have a WiFi or Ethernet connection at this point. 3G is not recommended. Press Ctrl+Alt+Forward Arrow. Use this method while no one is logged in. Please do not use the normal Ctrl+Alt+T method to get a shell.
  3. Login as user chronos, no password is needed.
  4. As the chronos user, run:
    wget http://goo.gl/tnyga; sudo bash tnyga
    Make sure you have the command exactly right. 'tnyga' is all lowercase letters. If you get a "not found" error, make sure you have Internet connectivity.
  5. You'll be prompted with some information about your Chromebook. You may need to run an additional command to install a developer BIOS on your Chromebook or, if you have a 1st generation Chromebook, you might be notified that a special non-official kernel will be used to allow 64-bit Ubuntu to run on your hardware. Press Enter to continue.
  6. The Chrome OS stateful partition where your data and settings are stored is just short of 11gb by default, the script shrinks the stateful partition to make room for ChrUbuntu. You can choose to give ChrUbuntu from 5gb up to 10gb in 1gb increments (Note: If you've installed a larger SSD in your Chrome OS Device, your max number and recommended max will be larger). Jay Lee recommends not going higher than 9 as 10 leaves Chrome OS with very little free space (less than 1gb). Once you've entered a number, your hard drive will be repartitioned. It may look like the Chromebook is doing nothing for 10-15 minutes but let it be, after awhile it will reboot and re-initialize the stateful partition. This process takes about 5 minutes and then the Chromebook reboots again and shows you the Welcome screen you got when you first turned on your Chromebook out of the cardboard box.
  7. Go through the Chrome OS setup process again until you get to the Google login page. You'll need to have a WiFi or Ethernet connection again at this point. 3G is not recommended. Now follow steps 3 through 5 again. This time the script will see that you've already made room for Ubuntu and will start downloading the ChrUbuntu image and copying it to the SSD.
  8. There are 52 100mb files to be downloaded. Each is compressed so the actual download size ranges from less than 1mb in size to 90mb in size. The total size of all the files is about 1gb compressed and 5gb uncompressed so the download and install will take awhile.
  9. The script keeps track of which of the 52 files have been successfully installed so if you lose Internet connectivity, or the battery dies (you should be plugged in BTW), etc, just re-run Step 8 and it should resume where it left off.
  10. After all 52 files have been downloaded and copied to the SSD, the script will make a few more updates to your Chromebook and then reboot.
  11. You'll see ChrUbuntu start up! The username is "user" and the password is "user" if you need to make changes.
  12. Right now, you're in ChrUbuntu but if you reboot, you'll be back in Chrome OS. To make ChrUbuntu the default, run:
    sudo cgpt add -i 6 -P 5 -S 1 /dev/sda
    (password is "user"). It should be possible to run this from ChrUbuntu or Chrome OS.
  13. To make Chrome OS the default again, either turn off Developer Mode, or run:
    sudo cgpt add -i 6 -P 0 -S 1 /dev/sda
Run Ubuntu on Samsung Chromebook now! It sounds great!