Chromebooks Support Debian Applications

Aug 07, 2018

Containerized Debian environment is now available through the Chrome OS dev channel.

Google is finally bringing the ability to install and run traditional Linux apps in Chrome OS. The company announced Project Crostini back in May during the Google I/O event. Initially it was announced for Google Pixel, but support for Linux started landing on supported devices recently.

Chrome Unbox, a site that covers Chrome OS, reported that they have managed to install Debian apps on Chromebook.

If you are running the dev channel of Chrome OS, you can easily enable support for Linux on Chromebooks. All you need to do is go to Settings > About Chrome OS > Detailed build information and change the channel from stable to ‘dev’. It will ask you to powerwash your device, which means deleting all data and re-formatting the machine. Once the device is powerwashed, you would be running the latest dev branch of Chrome OS.

Users running dev channel will notice an option to enable Linux apps under the ‘settings > device’ option. Once you enable Linux, it will download and install the terminal app, which runs Debian with custom packages.

Users can simply run ‘apt-get’ to update Debian on Chromebook and install desired apps. Of course, it’s just the beginning and things need to be ironed out.

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