Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Looking for 2nd Gen Chromebook / Chromebox owners to try Ubuntu install

Update: ChrUbuntu works on both the Samsung Series 5 550 Chromebook and the Samsung Series 3 Chromebox (i5 and Celeron versions). Thanks for all the reports! FYI, I also got a i5 Chromebox at I/O myself and it's crazy how fast it is!

The 2nd Generation Samsung Chromebook and the 1st Chromebox are out! I'm looking for testers to try installing Ubuntu via the script on both of these devices. In theory, it should work but I can't say for certain. Worst case scenario, a USB recovery may be necessary.

It's not clear if these new devices will ship with a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Chrome OS since Chrome OS 19 and 20 were 64-bit but seem to have reverted to 32-bit in later releases. If the 12.04 install process errors out with "you need to be running a 64-bit version..." then try the 11.04 install process if you could.

If you try the install, let us know how it goes in the comments! In other news, I'm aware the 64-bit Ubuntu 12.04 installer won't work on Chromebooks any longer since Google reverted to 32-bit builds. I'll see if I can get a 32-bit release out soon.