The Chromebook will reboot and you’ll see the screen with the red exclamation mark. You will see a timer counting down in the top right hand corner of the screen.On the next screen press Ctrl+D to bypass this message.With your Chromebook turned off hold down the ESC and R efresh While keeping them held down, press the power button once.Compact USB 3.0 drive for the Linux installationĭeveloper mode will wipe your Chromebook back to factory settings so make sure you back up any data not on your Google drive.Live Linux USB drive (I’m using Ubuntu 16.04).Chromebook (I’m using the Toshiba Chromebook 2.It’s a good idea to have your mains power plugged in to avoid any low battery issues.

Lastly, the great thing about this method (RW_LEGACY) is that you DON’T have to open your Chromebook up meaning you aren’t invalidating your warranty and you can’t brick your Chromebook.

It’s a good solution because it doesn’t stick out of the side of the Chromebook too much and costs only around $30. USB 3.0 drives provide fast read/write speeds and a compact one like the SanDisk 128GB Ultra Fit is the one I chose. This means I’ll leave the Chrome OS install on the internal drive and install Linux on a always plugged in USB 3.0 thumb drive. Check this post out if you or looking to dual boot on your internal Chromebook drive. With only a 16GB internal drive on the Chromebook, it’s not worth partitioning it for the Linux install and so I’m using a USB 3.0 drive instead. In short, the process is very similar to John’s script. You will find it here with ample explanation about how to use it. It is based on John’s work but includes more options and features. Update: Please use Mr Chromebox’s BIOS mod instead of John’s. You may find my post about the difference between BOOT_STUB and RW_LEGACY useful as well. For dual booting on a Chromebook you should use the RW_LEGACY BIOS mod. John has provided some great resources on his site along with the modified BIOS needed to make installing Linux on a Chromebook possible.

Install linux on chromebook from usb