The Chromebook / Chromebox Thread

[The Catboy]

OK, that's fair. -I wonder if Google will release a Chrome OS Beta Channel update tomorrow. So far, updates are usually on Tuesdays or Thursdays. They seriously need to add some damn native gif animation support!

I have been thinking abut jumping back over to ChromeOS, but I haven't finished nor even got around to testing a Chakra OS installer for it. My goal is to attempt to make more Linux Distros widely available to the Chrome family. Thus far my efforts have help Chakra OS for the most part, but my advice has branched off into helping other distros work on them.
I really want Chrome to succeed, but I also really want more attention from hackers. Because I know our efforts will help create something better.

how does it work?

will i lose the update feature of a chromebook? will i need to install dual boot every time?

Here's a video

I have used Ubuntu on my Acer C7 with Ubuntu, both through chrubuntu and this method. I found the Crouting method works the best without much problems and it seems to update nicely as well. It does require some configuring once set up, but it works pretty nicely.

 

[LightyKD]

I have been thinking abut jumping back over to ChromeOS, but I haven't finished nor even got around to testing a Chakra OS installer for it. My goal is to attempt to make more Linux Distros widely available to the Chrome family. Thus far my efforts have help Chakra OS for the most part, but my advice has branched off into helping other distros work on them.
I really want Chrome to succeed, but I also really want more attention from hackers. Because I know our efforts will help create something better.


Here's a video

I have used Ubuntu on my Acer C7 with Ubuntu, both through chrubuntu and this method. I found the Crouting method works the best without much problems and it seems to update nicely as well. It does require some configuring once set up, but it works pretty nicely.

Thats some pretty awesome work. I would like to see someone try Android X86 on a Chromebook/box. Looks like I'll end up being the first to really give it a go... at this rate.

 

[RevPokemon]

Thats some pretty awesome work. I would like to see someone try Android X86 on a Chromebook/box. Looks like I'll end up being the first to really give it a go... at this rate.

Only reason is why do you want to do that when you can already use android apps on chrome os

 

[LightyKD]

Only reason is why do you want to do that when you can already use android apps on chrome os

As stated earlier, I plan on making a hybrid Windows/Android game console so I'll need to heavy-test Android x86.

 

[RevPokemon]

As stated earlier, I plan on making a hybrid Windows/Android game console so I'll need to heavy-test Android x86.

OK I get it now.

 

[LightyKD]

OK I get it now.

Not to mention ARC Welder is far from perfect and only a select few Android apps actually work.

 

[RevPokemon]

Not to mention ARC Welder is far from perfect and only a select few Android apps actually work.

True.
Only issue is still x86 is perfect on android (android on chrome os arm is probably a lot better)

 

[The Catboy]

Thats some pretty awesome work. I would like to see someone try Android X86 on a Chromebook/box. Looks like I'll end up being the first to really give it a go... at this rate.

Actually Android X86 works perfectly fine with the SeaBIOS, with the exception that the touchpad doesn't work. But a USB mouse (cordless and corded) does the job. As well, 98% of all my APPS work fine as well.
I am still working getting the touchpad to work though, I think the kernel it has is missing the drivers i2c-i801, i2c-dev, chromeos-laptop, and cyapa. Which are all needed to make Chromebook touchpads work.
But still, flashing the SeaBIOS onto a Chromebox should make it work. Of course doing so removes ChromeOS.
But I would like to mention the Bodhi Linux has made a Chromebook/Box compatible Linux distro, that all Chromebooks/Boxes should be able to boot into without having the flash the BIOs. http://www.bodhilinux.com/
Now my Chromebook is an older Acer C7, so I would still need to flash mine, but I do believe all later ones have the proper BIOS pre-installed to allow for USB boot.

 

[LightyKD]

Actually Android X86 works perfectly fine with the SeaBIOS, with the exception that the touchpad doesn't work. But a USB mouse (cordless and corded) does the job. As well, 98% of all my APPS work fine as well.
I am still working getting the touchpad to work though, I think the kernel it has is missing the drivers i2c-i801, i2c-dev, chromeos-laptop, and cyapa. Which are all needed to make Chromebook touchpads work.
But still, flashing the SeaBIOS onto a Chromebox should make it work. Of course doing so removes ChromeOS.
But I would like to mention the Bodhi Linux has made a Chromebook/Box compatible Linux distro, that all Chromebooks/Boxes should be able to boot into without having the flash the BIOs. http://www.bodhilinux.com/
Now my Chromebook is an older Acer C7, so I would still need to flash mine, but I do believe all later ones have the proper BIOS pre-installed to allow for USB boot.

You are a wealth of information tonight, thank you! I'll be doing research well into next week. A major question I have is whether I want to have Android And Windows as two, side by side dual boot systems or just make the whole machine Windows with access to a Android virtual machine. I want the project to feel like any other game console and the whole Android/Windows thing will be treated like Wii U and vWii.

 

[The Catboy]

You are a wealth of information tonight, thank you! I'll be doing research well into next week. A major question I have is whether I want to have Android And Windows as two, side by side dual boot systems or just make the whole machine Windows with access to a Android virtual machine. I want the project to feel like any other game console and the whole Android/Windows thing will be treated like Wii U and vWii.

I suggest making a back up flashdrive of Chrome OS
https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/6002417
That way if anything goes wrong, you have a back up to fall back on.
And Windows does work, but for Chromebooks, requires an external mouse and keyboard. I am not sure about the Chromebox, but the steps should be the same, which is just flashing the SeaBIOs and installing the OS like you would any other OS. Which should be as easy as following these steps
http://dak1n1.com/blog/20-asus-chromebox-fedora-20-install/
Like I said before, you do lose ChromeOS by doing so, but you do gain more OS's to use. I also suggest seeing up upgrading the storage because 16GB is ok for ChromeOS, but not much for any other OS.
I have been working in the Chromebook community for about 2 year now, so I've learned a lot

 

[LightyKD]

I suggest making a back up flashdrive of Chrome OS
https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/6002417
That way if anything goes wrong, you have a back up to fall back on.
And Windows does work, but for Chromebooks, requires an external mouse and keyboard. I am not sure about the Chromebox, but the steps should be the same, which is just flashing the SeaBIOs and installing the OS like you would any other OS. Which should be as easy as following these steps
http://dak1n1.com/blog/20-asus-chromebox-fedora-20-install/
Like I said before, you do lose ChromeOS by doing so, but you do gain more OS's to use. I also suggest seeing up upgrading the storage because 16GB is ok for ChromeOS, but not much for any other OS.
I have been working in the Chromebook community for about 2 year now, so I've learned a lot

Trust me, I'm WAY ahead of you on the Chrome OS backup. My Current Chromebox will stay a Chromebox as I enjoy computing within a Google environment as much as Apple fanboys love iOS. If I can't find an affordable HP Stream Mini before my Birthday then I'll default to getting a second ASUS Chromebox if it's cheaper.

 

[The Catboy]

Trust me, I'm WAY ahead of you on the Chrome OS backup. My Current Chromebox will stay a Chromebox as I enjoy computing within a Google environment as much as Apple fanboys love iOS. If I can't find an affordable HP Stream Mini before my Birthday then I'll default to getting a second ASUS Chromebox if it's cheaper.

Fair enough, even though mine has been flashed for over a year, I still have an up to date image just in case I go back to Chrome OS.
The only thing hold me back is my love for Chraka OS.

 

[LightyKD]

Fair enough, even though mine has been flashed for over a year, I still have an up to date image just in case I go back to Chrome OS.
The only thing hold me back is my love for Chraka OS.

Don't get me wrong, I have a few issues with Chrome OS that keeps me from being able to enjoy it completely:

- Google Drive sync sucks and tends to create multiples of files / Solution: Only use Google Drive from the website
- Videos from Google Drive take longer to load within the native file browser / Solution: Same as #1
- Custom Chrome OS apps need to be reloaded upon EVERY update or restart / Solution: Deal with it
- Google Books App not functioning properly / Solution - Make custom app that route to Play Books site
- No native gif animation support in the gallery app / Solution: Drag gif to browser window.

...ironically, four of the five above issues have more of an effect on my NSFW activities than my regular work.

 

[The Catboy]

Don't get me wrong, I have a few issues with Chrome OS that keeps me from being able to enjoy it completely:

- Google Drive sync sucks and tends to create multiples of files / Solution: Only use Google Drive from the website
- Videos from Google Drive take longer to load within the native file browser / Solution: Same as #1
- Custom Chrome OS apps need to be reloaded upon EVERY update or restart / Solution: Deal with it
- Google Books App not functioning properly / Solution - Make custom app that route to Play Books site
- No native gif animation support in the gallery app / Solution: Drag gif to browser window.

...ironically, four of the five above issues have more of an effect on my NSFW activities than my regular work.

There is one issue I had, but I am not sure if it's still there
If you delete anything, it won't regain the memory lost. So say, you delete 1GB of files, you don't regain that 1GB. I am not sure they fixed it because that was the issue I ran into that caused me to stop using ChromeOS.

 

[LightyKD]

There is one issue I had, but I am not sure if it's still there
If you delete anything, it won't regain the memory lost. So say, you delete 1GB of files, you don't regain that 1GB. I am not sure they fixed it because that was the issue I ran into that caused me to stop using ChromeOS.

Now that I think about it. I think I have spotted that issue. On my Chromebox you only get access to 9 of the 16 gigs yet I'm down to 4 and I rarely ever keep anything in the internal storage. I'm using my external drive as my main storage.

 

[BORTZ]

I bought a white Acer 11.1" chromebook. I was pretty happy with it, but once I found a tutorial to install Skype.apk, I became thrilled with it. Hands down one of my favorite devices I own right now.

My biggest gripe is that google play music blows as a music provider.

 

[LightyKD]

I bought a white Acer 11.1" chromebook. I was pretty happy with it, but once I found a tutorial to install Skype.apk, I became thrilled with it. Hands down one of my favorite devices I own right now.

My biggest gripe is that google play music blows as a music provider.

Play Music is fine if you're into uploading your own music. The part that sucks is that the popout player isn't as fully featured. Also it boggles me that but Music and Hangouts are split-apps with one portion as a pop out and the other as a webpage. It's fairly stupid.

 

[BORTZ]

My biggest issue is that hack services like Grooveshark (RIP) provided me with a better listening experience than Play Music does now. Quirks, chirps, and songs randomly not being available to me blows my mind.

 

[The Catboy]

Now that I think about it. I think I have spotted that issue. On my Chromebox you only get access to 9 of the 16 gigs yet I'm down to 4 and I rarely ever keep anything in the internal storage. I'm using my external drive as my main storage.

There's also a bug where copying from an external device to google drive, still takes up physical space on internal storage.
Oddly none of my google searches at the time pulled up these results. So I thought it was just a random bug, but it kept happening, even in the beta and unstable builds.
I did find any files physically copied or deleted within the Ubuntu part running Crouton, actually did remove it from the storage. Which tells me that it might be a bug where ChromeOS is storing the deleted or moved files in either a tmp folder or trash:/ folder and not properly emptying it or allowing the user to empty it. ChromeOS also doesn't allow the use of "Shift+Delete" to permanently delete files.
These were serious killers on my space at the time since I still had the 16GB SSD. It's pretty much the reason I swapped it out for a 320GB HDD, but also the reason I stopped using ChromeOS and started working on getting more OS's to work on the Chromebook.
I could be run though and these could be fixed by now, but I know these were big issues for me when I used to use ChromeOS.

 

[Flame]

There's also a bug where copying from an external device to google drive, still takes up physical space on internal storage.
Oddly none of my google searches at the time pulled up these results. So I thought it was just a random bug, but it kept happening, even in the beta and unstable builds.
I did find any files physically copied or deleted within the Ubuntu part running Crouton, actually did remove it from the storage. Which tells me that it might be a bug where ChromeOS is storing the deleted or moved files in either a tmp folder or trash:/ folder and not properly emptying it or allowing the user to empty it. ChromeOS also doesn't allow the use of "Shift+Delete" to permanently delete files.
These were serious killers on my space at the time since I still had the 16GB SSD. It's pretty much the reason I swapped it out for a 320GB HDD, but also the reason I stopped using ChromeOS and started working on getting more OS's to work on the Chromebook.
I could be run though and these could be fixed by now, but I know these were big issues for me when I used to use ChromeOS.

i think chrome 42 has fixed this error cause the space reappears once i delete data. tell you the truth ive only used 42 so i don't really know if this a Chromebook related error or ChromeOS.