chroagh is a fork of crouton, that allows you to run another Linux distribution side by side with Chromium OS.
The main idea of this branch is to get people to test features before they are pushed to crouton, especially for Arch Linux users. Expect things to break, and please file bug reports when they do!
This is essentially crouton, with the following branch merged:
These instructions assume that you want to install Arch Linux.
First, switch your Chromebook into developer mode (careful, this will erase all your data), see the instructions here. It will take about 15 minutes. From then on, on each boot-up, you will need to press Ctrl+D.
Launch a crosh shell (Ctrl+Alt+T, you can paste in the console using
Ctrl+Shift+V), then enter shell
.
Download and extract chroagh:
cd ~/Downloads
wget https://api.github.com/repos/qntmpkts/chroagh/tarball -O chroagh.tar.gz
tar xvf chroagh.tar.gz
cd qntmpkts-chroagh-*
Create the rootfs:
sudo sh -e installer/main.sh -r arch -t xfce
You can specify a mirror using
-m 'http://mymirror/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch'
.
(Be careful to keep the single quotes around the mirror URL.)
On ARM, the URL is in the form
-m 'http://tw.mirror.archlinuxarm.org/armv7h/$repo'
: just change the
country code from tw
to somewhere near you;
On x86, you can pick one from this list.
Run either of these commands:
sudo startxfce4
to start XFCE in a separate screen (you can switch
between screens with Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Back or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Forward)sudo enter-chroot
to launch a bash shellThis repository is a bit strange, because we constantly rebase on
dnschneid/crouton
That means you need to do the following to fetch modifications from the tree:
git fetch --all
git reset --hard origin/master
Be careful, as this will erase any other commit you did in your own master
branch.
Original documentation follows:
crouton is a set of scripts that bundle up into an easy-to-use, Chromium OS-centric chroot generator. Currently Ubuntu and Debian are supported (using debootstrap behind the scenes), but "Chromium OS Debian, Ubuntu, and Probably Other Distros Eventually Chroot Environment" doesn't acronymize as well (crodupodece is admittedly pretty fun to say, though).
It stands for ChRomium Os Universal chrooT envirONment ...or something like that. Do capitals really matter if caps-lock has been (mostly) banished, and the keycaps are all lower-case?
Moving on...
Anyone who wants to run straight Linux on their Chromium OS device, and doesn't care about physical security. You're also better off having some knowledge of Linux tools and the command line in case things go funny, but it's not strictly necessary.
Like virtualization, chroots provide the guest OS with their own, segregated file system to run in, allowing applications to run in a different binary environment from the host OS. Unlike virtualization, you are not booting a second OS; instead, the guest OS is running using the Chromium OS system. The benefit to this is that there is zero speed penalty since everything is run natively, and you aren't wasting RAM to boot two OSes at the same time. The downside is that you must be running the correct chroot for your hardware, the software must be compatible with Chromium OS's kernel, and machine resources are inextricably tied between the host Chromium OS and the guest OS. What this means is that while the chroot cannot directly access files outside of its view, it can access all of your hardware devices, including the entire contents of memory. A root exploit in your guest OS will essentially have unfettered access to the rest of Chromium OS.
...but hey, you can run TuxRacer!
You need a device running Chromium OS that has been switched to developer mode.
For instructions on how to do that, go to this Chromium OS wiki page, click on your device model and follow the steps in the Entering Developer Mode section.
Note that developer mode, in its default configuration, is completely insecure, so don't expect a password in your chroot to keep anyone from your data. crouton does support encrypting chroots, but the encryption is only as strong as the quality of your passphrase. Consider this your warning.
It's also highly recommended that you install the crouton extension,
which, when combined with the extension
or xiwi
targets, provides much improved integration with Chromium OS.
That's it! Surprised?
crouton is a powerful tool, and there are a lot of features, but basic usage is as simple as possible by design.
If you're just here to use crouton, you can grab the latest release from
https://goo.gl/fd3zc. Download it, pop open a shell
(Ctrl+Alt+T, type shell
and hit enter), and run sh ~/Downloads/crouton
to
see the help text. See the "examples" section for some usage examples.
If you're modifying crouton, you'll probably want to clone or download the repo
and then either run installer/main.sh
directly, or use make
to build your
very own crouton
. You can also download the latest release, cd into the
Downloads folder, and run sh crouton -x
to extract out the juicy scripts
contained within, but you'll be missing build-time stuff like the Makefile.
crouton uses the concept of "targets" to decide what to install. While you will
have apt-get in your chroot, some targets may need minor hacks to avoid issues
when running in the chrooted environment. As such, if you expect to want
something that is fulfilled by a target, install that target when you make the
chroot and you'll have an easier time. Don't worry if you forget to include a
target; you can always update the chroot later and add it. You can see the list
of available targets by running sh ~/Downloads/crouton -t help
.
Once you've set up your chroot, you can easily enter it using the
newly-installed enter-chroot
command, or one of the target-specific
start* commands. Ta-da! That was easy.
crouton
shell
and hit enter) and run
sudo sh ~/Downloads/crouton -t xfce
sudo enter-chroot startxfce4
or, as a special shortcut, sudo startxfce4
-e
parameter when you run crouton to create an encrypted chroot
or encrypt a non-encrypted chroot.-k
parameter
to specify a file or directory to store the keys in (such as a USB drive or
SD card) when you create the chroot. Beware that if you lose this file,
your chroot will not be decryptable. That's kind of the point, of course.-r
parameter specifies which distro release you want to use.sh ~/Downloads/crouton -r list
to list the recognized releases and
which distros they belong to.extension
or xiwi
version to your chroot.Installing the extension and its target gives you synchronized clipboards, the option of using Chromium OS to handle URLs, and allows chroots to create graphical sessions as Chromium OS windows.
-t core
or -t cli-extra
sudo enter-chroot
startcli
will launch a new VT right into the
chroot.croutonversion -u -d -c
from the chroot (run croutonversion -h
to see what those parameters actually do).sudo sh ~/Downloads/crouton -u -n chrootname
.
It will update all installed targets.Add 'xiwi' or any other target to an existing chroot with the '-u' option using: sudo sh ~/Downloads/crouton -t xiwi -u -n chrootname
This will also make 'xiwi' the default xmethod.
If you want to keep the 'xorg' xmethod as the default then enter it first using: sudo sh ~/Downloads/crouton -t xorg,xiwi -u -n chrootname
sudo edit-chroot -b chrootname
backs up your chroot to a timestamped
tarball in the current directory. Chroots are named either via the -n
parameter when created or by the release name if -n was not specified.sudo edit-chroot -r chrootname
restores the chroot from the most recent
timestamped tarball. You can explicitly specify the tarball with -f
sudo sh ~/Downloads/crouton -f mybackup.tar.gz
Unlike with Chromium OS, the data in your chroot isn't synced to the cloud.
edit-chroot
command; it likely does what you need it to do.sudo chromeos-setdevpasswd
passwd
-p
to specify the directory in which to install the chroot and
scripts. Be sure to quote or escape spaces.sudo sh /path/to/enter-chroot
), or use the
-c
parameter to explicitly specify the chroots directory.crouton
shell
and hit enter) and run
sudo sh ~/Downloads/crouton -d -f ~/Downloads/mybootstrap.tar.bz2
-r
parameter if you want to specify for which release to
prepare a bootstrap.sudo sh ~/Downloads/crouton -f ~/Downloads/mybootstrap.tar.bz2
. Make sure
you also specify the target environment with -t
.This is the quickest way to create multiple chroots at once, since you won't have to determine and download the bootstrap files every time.
-T
parameter.This is great for automating common tasks when creating chroots.
sudo delete-chroot evilchroot
sudo edit-chroot -d evilchroot
, which I
suppose makes it a bit of a deceptive Swiss Army knife friend...still good?-n
, break them, then make
new, better ones!-m
-P
lets you specify one (or disable it).brightness
. You can assign
this to keyboard shortcuts to adjust the brightness of the screen (e.g.
brightness up
) or keyboard (e.g. brightness k down
).sudo startxfce4 -b
croutonpowerd -i
croutonpowerd -i command and arguments
will automatically stop inhibiting
power management when the command exits.-t touch
improves touch support./etc/crouton/shares
file, or read all about it in the wiki.Running another OS in a chroot is a pretty messy technique (although it's hidden
behind very pretty scripts), and these scripts are relatively new, so problems
are not surprising. Check the issue tracker and file a bug if your issue isn't
there. When filing a new bug, include the output of croutonversion
run from
inside the chroot or, if you cannot mount your chroot, include the output
of cat /etc/lsb-release
from Crosh.
That's great! But before your code can be merged, you'll need to have signed the Individual Contributor License Agreement. Don't worry, it only takes a minute and you'll definitely get to keep your firstborn, probably. If you've already signed it for contributing to Chromium or Chromium OS, you're already done.
If you don't know what to do with your time as an official Contributor, here's some suggestions:
Yes!
There's a way For Everyone to help!
croutonversion
(or the output of
cat /etc/lsb-release
from Crosh) when you submit the bug.crouton (including this eloquently-written README) is copyright © 2016 The crouton Authors. All rights reserved. Use of the source code included here is governed by a BSD-style license that can be found in the LICENSE file in the source tree.