For years, I have been meaning to try out and Linux distro on a Chromebook. Now I have finally made that happen. I have installed XFCE, and subsequently the Xubuntu desktop, onto a Lenovo C330 Chromebook.

The best part, it was surprising straight forward. Ideally I would have just gone ahead and installed a ready-to-go option like GalliumOS. Reading their website ticks every box that I want, it’s basically Xubuntu packaged for Chromebooks. My one problem, this Chromebook runs on ARM architecture, which is not as widely supported. GalliumOS currently do not have an arm build, and neither do software like Brave browser.

 

GalliumOS looks great, just needs ARM support

 

That all said, getting things up and running was as simple as following this very useful tutorial from Ubuntu: Install Ubuntu on a Chromebook

Obviously I picked the option to install the xfce desktop and the tutorial skips over a step during the installation process. After downloading crouton you have to do the following;

sudo install -Dt /user/local/bin -m 755 ~/Downloads/crouton

sudo crouton -t [choice of desktop i.e. xfce4]

These additional steps are detailed here on the crouton gitbub page.

After installation, I had a very basic xfce installation. Using terminal I installed the xubuntu-desktop meta package. After that the system suggested upgrading from 16.04 to 18.04. Then from 18.04 to the current 20.04.01 Xubuntu release.

 

Hello Xubuntu 20.04 on a Chromebook!

 

The desktop is easily as snappy and responsive as Chrome OS. Though I am having issues with permissions, and there seems to be a constant MAKEDEV error every time I run something in the terminal. Trying to copy things between folders get refused. Have not got pulseaudio sorted yet either, sound icon is just showing muted, it tells me it is not connected to the pulseaudio server. These are things I will hopefully figure out as I have only been up and running for a few hours now, but nothing is a showstopper, I have a working Xubuntu desktop.

 

Check out that battery life.

I need to run as ‘sudo gnome-software’

 

 That all makes this feel like a Chrome version of Xubuntu. If GalliumOS get an arm version up and running I will jump at it. In fact, using this right now I genuinely believe there is a strong case for there to be a website dedicated to rating how well Linux distros can run on Chromebooks. Much like WINE have their bronze, silver, and gold ratings for Windows software. Chromebooks are everywhere now, and a fully functioning desktop running on this relatively inexpensive Chromebooks would be a great marriage. Albeit unofficial and until that option would get locked out. GalliumOS do have a hardware compatibility table on their website, you can see that here.

 

Simple, fast and working well. Will be better soon.

 

I have been messing with the Linux applications on Chrome OS for as long as the option has been generally available, but never stuck with any. Just never felt like a natural or good fit. But a full-blown Linux distro running on a Chromebook with all the applications and software of a stand laptop or desktop. Now this makes sense. And for what is basically a comparable amount of time in the terminal, you just have to wait a little longer to down and install the desktop. Worth the wait and a no-brainer as far as I am concerned. Kicking myself for not doing this sooner.

Really enjoying this, has given the Chromebook a whole new purpose. A few things to figure out but will enjoy getting to the bottom of them.