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posted by cmn32480 on Monday June 26 2017, @11:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the seems-like-a-salad-idea dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Chromebooks are one of the most secure devices you can give a non-technical end user, and at a price point few can argue with, but that security comes with a privacy trade off: you have to trust Google, which is part of the NSA's Prism programme, with your data in the cloud.

Even those who put their faith in the company's rusty "don't be evil" mantra may find Chromebook functionality limiting—if you want more than Google services, Netflix, some other Web apps, and maybe the Android app store, then you're out of luck.

Geeky users willing to engage in some entry-level hackery, however, can install Linux on their Chromebook and unleash the Power of Torvalds™.

[...] Trying out Crouton is easy, and worth an evening's tinkering. Enter developer mode on your Chromebook, which for most users means holding down the Esc and Refresh keys while tapping the power button. Doing so will erase all local data on your Chromebook (in the unlikely event that you have any locally stored data on a cloud-focused device, granted). Hit Ctrl-D, Enter, and wait five minutes or so for the Chromebook to wipe.

Once in developer mode, your Chromebook will offer a warning message every time you boot-up that the device is now vulnerable. David Schneider, the Crouton maintainer, who works for Google but was unable to get permission to speak to Ars for this article, outlines the security trade offs on the Crouton wiki:

"Dev mode out of the box does several things that compromise security, including disabling verified boot, enabling VT2 [terminal], and activating passwordless root shell access. This means even without Crouton, if you're in dev mode, someone can switch to VT2, log in as root and add a keylogger that runs at startup, then switch back without you knowing. If you're logged in, they can also access the unencrypted contents of your Chrome profile and copy it elsewhere. If an exploit to Chrome is found, verified boot will no longer protect you from persistent compromises. Essentially, dev mode by default is less physically secure than a standard laptop running Linux."

You've been warned. Once in dev mode, enter your Wi-Fi password and accept the EULA, then select "Browse as Guest." Head on over to Schneider's GitHub repo and download Crouton, and follow the instructions.

There are a few more seemingly straightforward steps detailed in the article. Thinking of those in the community who might like to give it a try, who here has already converted a Chromebook to run Linux? Was it worth it? What hardware did you have? What 'gotchas' did you run into?

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 26 2017, @01:21PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 26 2017, @01:21PM (#531295)
    Checkout GalliumOS [galliumos.org]:

    A fast and lightweight Linux distro for ChromeOS devices.

    • Performance
      Optimizations that eliminate system stalls and improve overall responsiveness.

    • Touchpad
      Integrated ChromeOS mouse driver provides a touchpad experience similar to ChromeOS.

    • Xubuntu
      Built on top of Xubuntu to provide a lightweight and fully functional desktop.

    • Bug Fixes
      Fixes for issues that affect ChromeOS devices and are not found in standard distros.

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +2  
       Interesting=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 1) by optotronic on Tuesday June 27 2017, @02:43AM

    by optotronic (4285) on Tuesday June 27 2017, @02:43AM (#531711)

    I've been using GalliumOS for a year or so on my Acer C720 and find it much better than Chrubuntu or ChromeOS.

    The combination is good for web browsing. Composition (emails, programs, etc) is not as good because of missing keys and inadvertent touchpad contact. I don't mind the quality of the keys for my limited use, but not having some keys (page up/down, home/end, etc) is sometimes frustrating.