You'll be presented with a warning about your Chrome operating system being damaged. When you switch it back on, hold the Power, Refresh and Esc keys down at the same time. Hold down the power button until you're logged off, and then hold it down again until the screen fades to white. Part 1: Put your Chromebook in developer modeįirst, make sure your Chromebook is switched off (not asleep). Anything else, including installed apps, extensions and Google Drive files are stored in the cloud so you don't have to worry about using them. We carried out our testing on an HP Chromebook 11 from 2013. Before you start, ensure any local files on your Chromebook are backed up. Installing Crouton is very simple, although your experience may vary depending on the Chrome OS device you're currently using. In addition, Developer Mode, which you need to use on your Chromebook, is insecure, meaning your laptop is more vulnerable to exploits and attacks. It's therefore recommended that you have some experience of Linux before you begin, although it's not mandatory it'll just help you understand the jargon used in Linux forums. Every Chromebook is different, meaning there might be hardware incompatibilities and other bugs. For a full list of pitfalls and potential problems, read the Crouton Readme file.

Limitationsīefore we go any further, there are naturally some limitations that should be discussed. The great thing about this method is that you keep Chrome OS and can instantly switch between your Linux and Chrome OS operating systems, without having to boot into them separately. The good news is that installing Linux is now very easy thanks to the open-source Crouton tool. You might have an application that you can only run in Linux, you might want to play games on Steam (if you have a higher-end Chromebook with decent specifications) or you simply might want a wider range of applications than Chrome OS can provide.

There are many reasons you might want to install a Linux distro on your Chromebook.

Run linux on chromebook