the middle schooler: then I installed linux on my [school] chromebook
me: um are you allowed to do that?
middle schooler: I asked our tech teacher and he doesn't know what linux is so I decided yes
I did this back in the day! The tool of choice as the time was crouton, because it came with a keybinding that let us stealthily switch back to the ChromeOS desktop whenever the teacher walked by :)
A “one click” install of Debian (in a VM) that runs alongside your ChomeOS device. It’s a great starter tool for those getting used to Linux and even for the Linux Pro it gives you a terminal, which 99% of the time is all I need.
You can use GUI applications as well so GIMP and other tools are available.
I did this back in the day! The tool of choice as the time was crouton, because it came with a keybinding that let us stealthily switch back to the ChromeOS desktop whenever the teacher walked by :)
I hate that I just read the words " back in the day" in the context of chromebooks. this feels too new for me xD
Chromebooks came out like 3 years ago riiight?
Yes! The crouton dual boot was an absolute gem; singlehandedly helped me survive high school boredom
@gramgan
What’s the tool of choice now?
Crostini. https://chromeos.dev/en/linux
A “one click” install of Debian (in a VM) that runs alongside your ChomeOS device. It’s a great starter tool for those getting used to Linux and even for the Linux Pro it gives you a terminal, which 99% of the time is all I need.
You can use GUI applications as well so GIMP and other tools are available.
Super easy, barely an inconvenience.
Wow this looks awesome! Is Debian the only option?
As far as I know. You could probably get fancy moving to dev mode and then install whatever, but I’m plenty happy with Debian.
Good question, I don’t know! I haven’t touched a Chromebook since at least 2020…
If I were to do it now, I’d probably still use crouton, but get it to download something other than Ubuntu 16.04, or I’d just dual boot.