
That’s all there is to running Linux on a Chromebook. If you ever want to erase a Linux installation type: sudo delete-chroot To open Linux after a reboot, enter Chrome OS, tap Ctrl + T to open a Crosh shell, type shell, hit Enter, and then type one of the commands above based on what you’ve installed. Once the installation is done, you can enter your Linux build by typing the shell command sudo startunity or sudo startcli depending on which Linux desktop you installed. Make sure to use strong, random passwords to keep your data safe. During the installation process you’ll be asked for three different passwords: one to set the root password for your Chromebook, an encryption password for the Linux install, and a username and password for your Ubuntu user account.

In my tests, the process took about 30 to 40 minutes. Once you’ve told Crouton what to install, the command line will get to work installing Linux. If you want to install command-line Linux, the command would look like this: sudo sh ~/Downloads/crouton -e -t cli-extra unity tells Crouton to install the Unity desktop.-t tells Crouton you are about to specify which desktop you want installed.This will also require you to set a Chromium OS shell password -e tells Crouton you want to encrypt your Linux install.~/Downloads/Crouton is the file location for the Crouton script.

sh says you want to use an sh command language interpreter.sudo provides temporary super user privileges to carry out a command.To install Crouton with Unity, type the following into your Chromebook terminal and hit Enter: sudo sh ~/Downloads/crouton -e -t unity Another otpion for anyone who’s feeling hardcore is to install the command-line version of Linux with no graphical interface at all. In my tests on an Acer Chromebook 14 with a quad-core 1.6GHz processor and 4GB RAM, however, Ubuntu’s default Unity interface worked just fine.

The suggested desktop is XFCE since that environment is small in size and won’t be too demanding on a Chromebook processor. You also need to decide which desktop you’re going to use with Crouton. First, you should encrypt your Linux desktop to keep it secure.
