Installing Linux on a Chromebook?

[Inception9269]

Had some questions on this, the first being is that something that can be done?

 

For me, I barely ever use laptops since my two gaming pcs are enough for me, and my phone does things well enough when I'm away from home. But there are times when I would prefer having a laptop, when I'm away from home or want to do something in my bedroom where there is no pc. I had a pretty decent laptop that was made in 2013, having 3000 series i5 cpu, but it died earlier this year, and for now I'm using an 8 year old laptop my friend gave me, it sounding like a literal hair dryer, and has a really weak AMD cpu in it.

 

I'd like to buy a new laptop at some point, but honestly I don't want to spend a whole lot on it since I'd just want it for basic things (as well as playing osrs) so don't want to spend anything above $200. I honestly, genuinely despise Chromebooks, however I can't deny that they are simple and decent enough, especially for my use case. With the laptop I got from my friend it originally used Windows 8, I installed Linux Mint Cinnamon on it, was wondering if it's possible to put that on a Chromebook, that being the only way I'd consider getting a chromebook.

[eeeee1]

not to my knowledge. also if you do anything such as gaming, performance will be like raytracing on a smart watch. not really but it wont be good.

[Inception9269]

3 minutes ago, eeeee1 said:

not to my knowledge. also if you do anything such as gaming, performance will be like raytracing on a smart watch. not really but it wont be good.

ah, well good to know.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Many chrome books will let you run normal linux distros with cruton, but there are some limits, and its not installed like a normal os. If you want a cheap laptop, id get a use busniess grade laptop. There almost always better buys for budget laptops.

[Inception9269]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Many chrome books will let you run normal linux distros with cruton, but there are some limits, and its not installed like a normal os. If you want a cheap laptop, id get a use busniess grade laptop. There almost always better buys for budget laptops.

I was considering a used laptop kind of like what I have now, but something made in the last 3 years, and just sticking in an SSD and upgrading the ram. Problem though, looking briefly on ebay as well as FB marketplace is people either have them in shit condition or they're selling them for more than they're worth, which is a common thing with the used PC market.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Inception9269 said:

I was considering a used laptop kind of like what I have now, but something made in the last 3 years, and just sticking in an SSD and upgrading the ram. Problem though, looking briefly on ebay as well as FB marketplace is people either have them in shit condition or they're selling them for more than they're worth, which is a common thing with the used PC market.

How about this https://www.ebay.com/itm/DELL-LATITUDE-E5470-2-4GHz-Core-i5-6300U-8GB-DDR4/193525969403?hash=item2d0f0bf1fb%3Ag%3AbZ8AAOSw9~xe7LbR&LH_BIN=1

 

or this 

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T440-i5-4300U-1-90GHz-8GB-500GB-HDD-Win-10-PRO-Ext-Batt/324205139517?hash=item4b7c21d63d:g:RaUAAOSwZmpe3oDI

 

or this

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/LENOVO-THINKPAD-X250-CORE-I5-5300U-500GB-HDD-8GB-RAM-WIN-10-PRO/313121649254?hash=item48e7813266:g:aj4AAOSw7qFe2VWO

 

Lots of good values in used buiness grade laptops out there that are still plenty fast.

[Inception9269]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

How about this https://www.ebay.com/itm/DELL-LATITUDE-E5470-2-4GHz-Core-i5-6300U-8GB-DDR4/193525969403?hash=item2d0f0bf1fb%3Ag%3AbZ8AAOSw9~xe7LbR&LH_BIN=1

 

or this 

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T440-i5-4300U-1-90GHz-8GB-500GB-HDD-Win-10-PRO-Ext-Batt/324205139517?hash=item4b7c21d63d:g:RaUAAOSwZmpe3oDI

 

or this

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/LENOVO-THINKPAD-X250-CORE-I5-5300U-500GB-HDD-8GB-RAM-WIN-10-PRO/313121649254?hash=item48e7813266:g:aj4AAOSw7qFe2VWO

 

Lots of good values in used buiness grade laptops out there that are still plenty fast.

Of those, I'd consider the Lenovo ones to be the better choice, don't trust Dell anymore.

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, Inception9269 said:

Of those, I'd consider the Lenovo ones to be the better choice, don't trust Dell anymore.

These are the dell buiness grade ones, so they are a good amount better than the consumer grade ones, and built much better.

[Gegger]

I'm using Linux (GalliumOS) on my chromebox right now, it's not the best but what can I say, it's a 2c2t cpu

 

you can dual boot chromeOS and your choice of Linux distro with chrx  -  but there are some things you need to check

 

you have to make sure that your cpu is compatible, most pre-skylake Intel cpus will work, while support for ARM and AMD cpus is bad - check here: https://wiki.galliumos.org/Hardware_Compatibility

 

I used chrx to dual boot ChromeOS and GalliumOS - https://chrx.org/ - also, you can single boot as well but I'm not too well versed on how to do that

 

you might need to flash firmware, check somewhere on here - https://mrchromebox.tech/#home

 

Crouton is also an option, but I didn't use that because it was too painful to understand the documentation at the time, I was like 11?

 

Or you could forgo this entire process and just get a budget laptop.

[Inception9269]

43 minutes ago, Gegger said:

I'm using Linux (GalliumOS) on my chromebox right now, it's not the best but what can I say, it's a 2c2t cpu

 

you can dual boot chromeOS and your choice of Linux distro with chrx  -  but there are some things you need to check

 

you have to make sure that your cpu is compatible, most pre-skylake Intel cpus will work, while support for ARM and AMD cpus is bad - check here: https://wiki.galliumos.org/Hardware_Compatibility

 

I used chrx to dual boot ChromeOS and GalliumOS - https://chrx.org/ - also, you can single boot as well but I'm not too well versed on how to do that

 

you might need to flash firmware, check somewhere on here - https://mrchromebox.tech/#home

 

Crouton is also an option, but I didn't use that because it was too painful to understand the documentation at the time, I was like 11?

 

Or you could forgo this entire process and just get a budget laptop.

Good advice, but I probably will follow the advice of the guy above

[Inception9269]

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

 

 

53 minutes ago, Gegger said:

 

Also if I do go with buying a used laptop, I'd still like to run Linux on it, but perhaps still have a virtual machine or something to run windows if ever needed. What's best solution for that on Linux?

[Gegger]

Just now, Inception9269 said:

 

Also if I do go with buying a used laptop, I'd still like to run Linux on it, but perhaps still have a virtual machine or something to run windows if ever needed. What's best solution for that on Linux?

I haven't dabbled in the world of virtualization or stuff like that, but I've heard Virtualbox is nice. Or you could dual boot windows, or a live USB.

 

https://www.virtualbox.org/

[Electronics Wizardy]

27 minutes ago, Inception9269 said:

 

Also if I do go with buying a used laptop, I'd still like to run Linux on it, but perhaps still have a virtual machine or something to run windows if ever needed. What's best solution for that on Linux?

id probably use kvm, with something like virtual machine manager