

Chromebooks can now run Linux in a Chrome OS window - ismavis
https://gigaom.com/2014/12/30/chromebooks-can-now-run-linux-in-a-chrome-os-window/

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fidotron
I honestly find living with the terminals in Chrome tabs and using a Chrome
based text editor quite productive, leaving crouton very much in the
background.

Unless you have a desperate need for a Linux desktop app (which can happen)
then it's more a nice to have option than a day to day necessity. As such I
don't recall ever having launched into a Linux desktop on my Chromebooks for
any reason other than to check that I can.

Still, good, and if Chrome OS can get to self hosting: better.

~~~
yebyen
I am excited by this because I do use crouton, to launch my normal E17 (E19)
desktop, and while it works great, it does not work as fast as E17 using the
native framebuffer.

And on my old Samsung Series 3 (XE303C12) the Mali GPU can only service one
client at a time, so crouton will never be as fast as E17 would while not
sharing cycles with Chrome.

The GPU drivers are distributed as blobs, as far as I can tell, and while they
"only support" EGL/GLES and not OpenGL, they also only do so on the kernel
version distributed by Google, which means that even if you perform the
onerous machinations that I needed to boot with the kernel DRM and put the
drivers from Mali in place where your software will find them, and manage to
make all of this work with your distribution's version of X11 (or Wayland, I
guess maybe?) you are still stuck running a 3.8.11 kernel, which is really
ancient from about 10 minor versions ago.

It's a nice puzzle, but I am ready for someone to give me the answer. I have
high hopes that with the "Crouton in a Chrome Window" there will be some kind
of a pass-through mode that allows Enlightenment to grab what it needs from
the existing screen and do its various compositing works in an accelerated
mode. (The eternal optimist in me...)

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lgeek
Chromebooks can also run ChromeOS in a window on GNU/Linux* , which is rather
more useful for ocassional Netflixing mixed with more productive use.

* probably a violation of the EULA

~~~
beagle3
Don't you have to be in Developer mode (which Netflix refuses to run in, or at
least used to) to run Linux?

~~~
yebyen
That may have been the case in the past but last time I tried it, Netflix
works fine in developer mode on my ARM chrome book from Samsung.

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alrs
Absolutely backward.

I'd buy a Chromebook in a moment if I was convinced that dealing with getting
around the bootloader and putting real Linux on the thing wouldn't be a pain
in the ass.

I'll stick with >$200 eBay Thinkpads.

~~~
lgeek
If you can set a chromebook to developer mode, it's quite simple to then sign
your own images containing either another bootloader or a custom kernel. The
only annoyance from my point of view is that vboot images don't seem to
support an initrd.

~~~
alrs
I think this qualifies as a pain-in-the-ass, and this is the Google flagship
device:

[http://vger.kernel.org/~davem/chromebook_pixel_linux.txt](http://vger.kernel.org/~davem/chromebook_pixel_linux.txt)

EDIT: The icing on the cake:

"Every time you boot up you'll need to do that Ctrl-L song and dance, since
unfortunately you can't make SeaBIOS the default 30-sec timeout selection.
Just deal with it."

Yuck.

