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Chromebooks generally run Linux well, no need for a specialized distro post 2016 or so. De-chrome by installing mr. chromebox firmware and xubuntu (or distro of

Chromebooks generally run Linux well, no need for a specialized distro post 2016 or so. De-chrome by installing mr. chromebox firmware and xubuntu (or distro of your choice) and you're set. I still use my acer c720 as a daily driver today.

jleahy 5y ago
It’s started to change unfortunately, for example audio doesn’t really work on skylake or kabylake chromebooks yet. They are moving to more custom hardware.
- jclulow 5y ago
  The design of the Intel audio stuff in the Skylake systems is pretty horrid. Previously things had HD Audio hardware which was at least sufficiently self describing to be able to attach a general driver. The new stuff depends on this topology file which you have to pull out of your hat -- there's no reason it can't be open source as far as I can tell, but it's maddeningly not something the hardware itself can provide to you. It's not an improvement.
forty 5y ago
Last time I looked (a long time ago) there were some issues with running Linux on Chromebooks, like having to press some combination of keys at each boot and/or risking to erase everything if the wrong combination of keys was pressed (if I remember correctly). Does this mrchomebook firmware fix this kind of problems?
- pwdisswordfish8 5y ago
  I spent a couple years thinking about this risk every time I rebooted and got the white screen prompting me to press space to restore ChromeOS. In reality, at least for the Dell Lulu platform mentioned above, what will actually happen is it will probe for recovery media first. In the event that it doesn't find any, it will leave the underlying system untouched and just complain at you about it (and tell you to go visit a URL on another computer so you can create a USB/microSD recovery disk).
  - thefunnyman 5y ago
    Perhaps the situation has changed recently, but a few years ago I had an acer c720 and remember this being mitigated by flashing seabios. This completely removed chromeos rather than dual booting, but it worked excellently for taking to lectures early in my undergrad.

jleahy 5y ago

It’s started to change unfortunately, for example audio doesn’t really work on skylake or kabylake chromebooks yet. They are moving to more custom hardware.

jclulow 5y ago
The design of the Intel audio stuff in the Skylake systems is pretty horrid. Previously things had HD Audio hardware which was at least sufficiently self describing to be able to attach a general driver. The new stuff depends on this topology file which you have to pull out of your hat -- there's no reason it can't be open source as far as I can tell, but it's maddeningly not something the hardware itself can provide to you. It's not an improvement.

forty 5y ago

Last time I looked (a long time ago) there were some issues with running Linux on Chromebooks, like having to press some combination of keys at each boot and/or risking to erase everything if the wrong combination of keys was pressed (if I remember correctly). Does this mrchomebook firmware fix this kind of problems?

pwdisswordfish8 5y ago
I spent a couple years thinking about this risk every time I rebooted and got the white screen prompting me to press space to restore ChromeOS. In reality, at least for the Dell Lulu platform mentioned above, what will actually happen is it will probe for recovery media first. In the event that it doesn't find any, it will leave the underlying system untouched and just complain at you about it (and tell you to go visit a URL on another computer so you can create a USB/microSD recovery disk).
- thefunnyman 5y ago
  Perhaps the situation has changed recently, but a few years ago I had an acer c720 and remember this being mitigated by flashing seabios. This completely removed chromeos rather than dual booting, but it worked excellently for taking to lectures early in my undergrad.