The Linux kernel has always been present in ChromeOS internally. But until about 2021, it was a PITA to convert Chrome machines to "real" Linux; you had to esta

The Linux kernel has always been present in ChromeOS internally. But until about 2021, it was a PITA to convert Chrome machines to "real" Linux; you had to establish a dual-boot environment which was finicky and the process was different on every machine. But now Google has improved the process so you can basically just flip a switch and use the underlying Linux [0] [1]. It's kind of like WSL, but to me it feels like 100% Linux. [0] https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/install-linux-on-your-chromebook https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/install-linux-on-your-chromeboo... [1] On Intel Chromebooks. For ARM Chromebooks, you still need to dual-boot to get something that feels like "real" Linux. [2] [2] Which is kind of ironic given that ChromeOS can run Android apps now, and Android apps are ARM based [3], so they have to be run in emulation mode on Intel CPUs. [3] Okay they're bytecode based. Android apps on Intel Chromebooks used to run the JVM in emulation mode (I think) but there may now be a native Intel version of Dalvik or whatever-Google-calls-their-JVM-these-days.