Install Ubuntu On Your Chromebook • Hacker News Board

Re: Install Ubuntu On Your Chromebook

#41

Post by timdiggerm » Sun, Aug 25, 2013, 7:37 PM UTC

avian wrote: post #11

All of these "install ... on Chromebook" articles fail to mention that on recent Chromebooks without a physical developer mode switch (Samsung's ARM-based one, Pixel) you have to press a specific hidden keyboard combination and endure the big scary "developer mode" warning on each boot . In my view that makes it practically useless for day-to-day use as a general purpose laptop. You can flash the first stage bootload…

>Btw, on Pixel you don’t have this physical switch. You can just use a keyboard combination: Press and hold the Esc and Refresh keys while you hit the Power button

Source: The article you're commenting on

Re: Install Ubuntu On Your Chromebook

#42

Post by jlgreco » Sun, Aug 25, 2013, 7:59 PM UTC

timdiggerm wrote: post #41

avian wrote: post #11

All of these "install ... on Chromebook" articles fail to mention that on recent Chromebooks without a physical developer mode switch (Samsung's ARM-based one, Pixel) you have to press a specific hidden keyboard combination and endure the big scary "developer mode" warning on each boot . In my view that makes it practically useless for day-to-day use as a general purpose laptop. You can flash the first stage bootload…

>Btw, on Pixel you don’t have this physical switch. You can just use a keyboard combination: Press and hold the Esc and Refresh keys while you hit the Power button Source: The article you're commenting on

That's not quite what he is talking about. With the Pixel every single time you boot (not just when you initially put it into Developer Mode before installation) you are greeted with a nice big warning label about OS verification and you need to press Ctrl-L to kick it into SeaBIOS so that Grub can be kicked off.

It turns on and off as normal after installation, you just need to hit Ctrl-L mid-boot each time. I reboot infrequently enough that this hasn't annoyed me yet.

Re: Install Ubuntu On Your Chromebook

#43

Post by kyberias » Sun, Aug 25, 2013, 9:18 PM UTC

sbuccini wrote: post #22

I just did this last night on my Samsung Chromebook. One problem I immediately ran into was the difficulty of getting programs to run in Ubuntu because of my ARM processor. Any suggestions?

Build them.

Re: Install Ubuntu On Your Chromebook

#44

Post by Nursie » Sun, Aug 25, 2013, 10:05 PM UTC

Have had Ubuntu on my ARM chromebook since late last year. Only issue so far is that the version of Slim dm that is available for it from the 12.04 repos is b0rked and doesn't speak to consolekit properly, resulting in all sorts of hard to diagnose fun with reboot and other permissions.

Re: Install Ubuntu On Your Chromebook

#45

Post by Nursie » Sun, Aug 25, 2013, 10:58 PM UTC

sbuccini wrote: post #22

I just did this last night on my Samsung Chromebook. One problem I immediately ran into was the difficulty of getting programs to run in Ubuntu because of my ARM processor. Any suggestions?

What programs?

If you're trying x86/wine then forget it. But the usual suspects are available from the ubuntu repos just fine.

Re: Install Ubuntu On Your Chromebook

#46

Post by Nursie » Sun, Aug 25, 2013, 11:01 PM UTC

caiob wrote: post #38

This makes me wonder, despite pricing, what are the reasons to buy a chromebook instead of any other laptop on the market?

Me, I have a long running ARM fetish ever since debian-ising my NSLU2 back in the day. Also for some sick reason I like to repurpose stuff.

All that said - it turns out ChromeOS with developer access enabled (so I can get a proper shell and a normal ssh client) covers about 80% of my needs in a client machine.

Re: Install Ubuntu On Your Chromebook

#47

Post by sethammons » Mon, Aug 26, 2013, 3:45 AM UTC

Finally was motivated to try this out. Totally happy. Honestly, all I really wanted was python and a nice shell, but having a full OS is great.

Re: Install Ubuntu On Your Chromebook

#48

Post by sbuccini » Tue, Aug 27, 2013, 9:37 AM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #45

sbuccini wrote: post #22

I just did this last night on my Samsung Chromebook. One problem I immediately ran into was the difficulty of getting programs to run in Ubuntu because of my ARM processor. Any suggestions?

What programs? If you're trying x86/wine then forget it. But the usual suspects are available from the ubuntu repos just fine.

Ah, okay. I'm wondering if I should ditch this one and pick up an Intel-based Chromebook instead.

I actually just need a cheap solution to program in this year, and I'd love to step away from Windows and start using Linux (since OS X is outside of my price point). Any suggestions?

Re: Install Ubuntu On Your Chromebook

#49

Post by Nursie » Wed, Aug 28, 2013, 9:42 PM UTC

sbuccini wrote: post #48

Nursie wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What programs? If you're trying x86/wine then forget it. But the usual suspects are available from the ubuntu repos just fine.

Ah, okay. I'm wondering if I should ditch this one and pick up an Intel-based Chromebook instead. I actually just need a cheap solution to program in this year, and I'd love to step away from Windows and start using Linux (since OS X is outside of my price point). Any suggestions?

Far as I'm concerned you can do pretty much anything FOSS, so it's a perfectly good platform for linux development.