Chromium OS

Chromium OS is an open-source project that aims to build an operating system that provides a fast, simple, and more secure computing experience for people who spend most of their time on the web.

All downloads are located at https://chromium.arnoldthebat.co.uk/. This will be updated daily where builds compile succcessfully..

Build Instructions for USB

  • Linux
    1. Use p7zip to extract the IMG file from the downloaded file.
    2. At the shell, run the following (where sdX is your USB stick and ChromeOS.img is the path to the IMG file you extracted):
      dd if=ChromeOS.img of=/dev/sdX bs=4M
    3. Boot from USB stick
  • Windows
    1. Use 7zip to extract IMG file from the downloaded file.
    2. Use Win32 Image Writer, then select the IMG file and select the USB device from the menu.
    3. Click on “Write”.
    4. Boot from USB stick

All builds based on amd64 and ARM generic board.

If you want to install to your hard drive, follow the instructions here and here. Heed the warnings noted in the links!

Please note: there is a new behaviour with the chronos user password. The password has been removed from build R55-8777 onward and will continue to be removed for better overall security. Older builds have the password of ‘password’.
This means you need to use ‘chromeos-setdevpasswd’ from either shell or console to set your own password from build R55-8777 onwards.

By default, this also disables SSH access so if you also need this level of access, you will need to set a separate password using ‘sudo passwd chronos’. This allows the password for dev access and SSH access to remain separate if needed.

You can also just set a password using ‘sudo passwd chronos’ and this will allow for both dev and SSH access if you need to keep them the same. Do not use ‘chromeos-setdevpasswd’ if you want to keep the passwords the same.

Once installed, you can update from the Dev Server noted here.

Thanks to The Chromium Projects

Chromium OS GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE




2,715 thoughts on “Chromium OS”

      1. Is this done automatically or do I have to change settings? If so, how do I do this?

        I found this:

        chrome.exe –user-data-dir=e:\userdata

        But not sure how to go about it

        Thanks

  1. Hi I have been trying to run it on my pc(desktop) but it just gets stuck after some time. I have an AMD CPU and 64 bit platform

  2. Please, can you help me? I have an iMac 2011 and I can’t run any build of Chromium for some reason. Most of them just shows errors on a black and other ones which works just unstable and flashes with white every time I click anything.

      1. Hey Arnold, good afternoon !

        I’ve just downloaded the latest special build, and when I selected it to boot, a sort-of command screen showed up, and I couldn’t boot the system, which is weird since I’ve download a weekly build and it worked. Do you know what would it be?

        Thanks!

  3. Hey Arnold…first of all, thank you for these builds.

    I’ve deployed it on 4 PC’s at work and had a hard time booting to HP Compaq DC5800 and updating to the latest BIOS did the trick.

    Currently, I’m trying to deploy on VMWare Workstation Pro 12.0 and I can’t get it to boot from the USB image. I’ve tried mounting it as SCSI, SATA, IDE and the closest I got was using plpbt.iso as the install medium and choosing the USB attached on the host computer. Being able to boot is as far as I got as I am experiencing the following errors, as mentioned above…I’m on an AMD system [and I’me xperiencing same situation with other AMD systems even with a physical install]:

    drm/i810 does not support smp
    EXT4-fs (sda3): couldn’t mount as ext3 due to feature incompatabilities
    piix4_smbus 0000:00:007.3: Host SMBus controller not enabled!

    then I get a bunch of “got write-back” errors and it hangs.

    Sorry for my ignorance, coming from the Windows environment. I’ve tried many troubleshooting tutorials [not that many are available really online] to no avail. Any help is appreciated! Thanks again!

  4. Hi Arnold,
    Total Linux novice here. School has 120 Tosh netbooks which I would love to install and run Chromium on to extend their life but am struggling a bit, mostly due to the GMA500, I suspect. Do you have an Arnold’s Guide for Complete Dummies anywhere to get me through this so I can clone them?
    Thanks in advance
    BT

    1. Same here. Also a for a school with roughly same number of Tosh netbooks (305s and 505s).

      Not had any luck yet. Neverware throws a million EXT4 errors, so I was trying straight up Chromium. Haven’t had any luck even getting it installed.

  5. UPDATE It now works on Tosh NB300 and NB250 after a fashion however it only enables the wireless when you plug in an ethernet cable – this would be an issue with 30 in a classroom!! (Atheros WiFi)
    Can’t get it working on NB510. Halts at the white Chromium screen. Any help gratefully received.
    BT

    1. Hi

      The problem is likely the apmanager getting confused. You can switch this off at command line by ‘sudo stop apmanager’

      Try the latest special build which should has this disabled by default.

      1. Woo hoo. Up and running nicely, Flash installed and although YouTube and iPlayer playback is a tad jerky, it looks like it might be an improvement on our slow netbooks. Thanks for all your help – just need to clone them all now!

        Just a thought, can I use the Chrome Recovery app to do that on Chromium OS ?

        1. And a couple of other problems if anyone can help.

          On the NB510, Chromium halts when booting with “gma500 trying to get vblank count for disabled pipe” message.

          Neither the NB250 or NB300 will resume from hibernation.

          Thanks in advance

          BT

          1. This may well be my final message here as build Cx86OS_R34-5196_Multi is currently working on the Tosh NB510s. \o/

            I have found this means of installing Flash etc works for the builds I have used on my Tosh netbooks. https://gist.github.com/rikels/4031126
            Total conversion time 20 minutes per netbook.

            User acceptance testing with teachers and pupils is underway.

            Thanks to everyone who has helped,
            BT

  6. Hi Arnold, just found your site.
    I followed your instructions and I am now enjoying your work.
    Everything works fine.

    I just wanted to say thank you.

    Grazie! (thank you in italian).

      1. Tested the 64bit special version on an old Sony VAIO VGN CR21S with 4GB RAM and on an Acer TravelMate P253 with 8GB RAM.
        It works really well on both.

        Thank you again.

  7. Hi

    Just loaded this Chrome OS but when it boots up from USB it switches off WIFI on my device. I am using an Acer aspire One net book. Old I know but well made.

    PH

  8. I prepared LiveUSB and booted it. The chromium logo on a white background appeared on my screen and then nothing more happened. What’s wrong?

  9. Greetings; I wanted to try out CrOS with a virtual image (vmware or virtualbox; either would work) and I see in the blog that it’s been “broke” since around last September(?). I know this is a goodness of your heart type project, but still, any ETA for when there might be downloadable/usable VM images again? :^) Thanks!

      1. Thanks for the quick response! Not to be a pest, but is there somewhere to read more about what the issue is with this? I would think the hardware for vmware and vbox both would be pretty basic. I probably don’t have the skills myself to look, but if it’s just tracking down the right driver or something, it’d be useful to know. Anyway, thanks for what you do, and I’ll wait with the rest of the folks for a build! ;^)

        1. It is pretty basic and used to work fine. I need to review the kernel config to see if I can fix it. It should play with generic VGA but for whatever reason, decides not to load.

  10. I can not get Dell Optiplex 740 pass the Default window of the Chromium OS USB setup

    It works perfectly when I did it on a HP 6530b laptop

    My school has approx 150 Dell 740’s
    Can you help me

  11. argh. cannot get it to boot.

    Using most recent 64bit weekly: Camd64OS-20160124010102.img.7z

    After the dd to a 16Gb USB flash drive, I get a GUID partition table with several partitions that appear reasonable.
    i.e. Part 1 shows as “ChromeOS Firmware” in gnome disk utility, and there is a volume labeled ROOT-A that looks like the a valid linux root dir.

    But it will not boot on an Intel NUC-i5 or samsung laptop, with “legacy boot” / “secure boot” disabled.
    For both it pauses then falls back to the next choice in the boot order.

    Any ideas?

  12. Scusate per l’italiano
    Non mi fa piu entrare nella shell con il login chronos e password : password
    non so come fare
    ci sono bug grafici
    non va l’audio (mp3)
    per l’installazione sul hdd ci vuole una guida nuova visto che con la combinazioni di tasti crtl+alt+f2 non va piu

  13. I have an old Compaq 6715b Laptop with Turion 64 Dual Core with ATI Radeon X1200 Series display adapter.
    I downloaded the Special build (with extra drivers) for 64bit architectures and managed to get the old dear to boot from USB.
    Unfortunately, all I see is flashing opaque triangles with the occasional glimpse of the OS underneath 🙁
    Is there anything I can try? Are you likely to do a build with some old graphics drivers in to support this adapter?

  14. So I have really wanted to install chromium OS on my brothers old laptop, everything Is going fine I boot up from the usb and that’s when I get stuck on the chromium loading page, I read that I needed to disable ad manager so I do ctrl alt then f2. It asks for localhost name and I type in chronos then it asks for password I try typing it in but it only accepts enter and keys other than letters, enter turns into ^H and other keys turn in to weird combination of symbols. Please help!

  15. Update! I have now installed it on my laptop but now it just stays on the chromium loading screen! I tried turning off app manager but when I press f1 I don’t exit the cmd thing?

  16. Chromium says no Flash plugin installed, using the Special R48 build. Tried looking under plugins and no flash…
    How to get this working, first time i am trying this Chrome OS, so a little rusty in the Linux way, been using Ubuntu a few years back, but only Windows since that.

  17. Hi, how are you?
    I recently downloaded the special build Cx86OS_R48-7549.0.U-Special and runs from USB normally but the Flash Player does not work or is not integrated, I would like to know how I can do to install this plugin because even when entering chrome: // plugins do not see the Flash Player, appreciate the help.

  18. Hi Arnold,
    Awesome job. Thank you!
    Got your Jan27th build working from a USB key on a first gen Lenovo X1 Carbon. Tried same build on the new X1 Yoga and it did not work. Saw boot menu with options (i.e. local image A, local image B, etc.) but none of them work. Tech specs of the system are i7-6600U x64 CPU, 16GB of RAM. Anything I’m doing wrong for this processor? or is Skylake CPUs too new at this time?
    Thanks!

      1. Hi Arnold,
        Wrote your latest Feb14 special 64bit img into a USB key. Rebooted and selected the USB device (SanDisk Cruzer). Nothing happened (quick flash came back to boot options screen). Same system Lenovo X1 Yoga. Anything I need to change in BIOS or any other advice? Will try the latest daily build to see if that makes a difference. You can message to my email if more details needed. Thanks.

        1. Tried the daily build and the Lenovo X1 Yoga (maybe too new?) can’t recognize the USB key. Used a 3 year old Lenovo X1, and could boot to Chromium. However, encountered that WiFi was not recognized. Nevertheless, I wanted to run Chromium on the latest X1 Yoga. Any tips please let me know. Thank you.

          1. Possibly too new (Intel 520). Are you sure the USB key is OK? You may need to go into BIOS and allow boot from USB (or select boot options as a one off). You ‘may’ have to allow legacy boot and switch off secure boot as well on newer models.

  19. Hey Arnold:
    I downloaded your latest VDI image. When I start it in VirtualBox I get these errors:
    0.109000 Failed to access perfctr msr (MSR c0010004 is 0)
    0.348056 atkbd serio1: probe failed
    0.443529 EXT4-fs (sda3): couldn’t mount as ext 3 due to feature incompatibilities
    1.694562 piix4_smbus 000:00:07.0: SMBus base addrees uninitialized – ugrade BIOS or use force_addr=0xaddr

    Do you have instructions on settings to avoid this??

  20. Hello and thank you to Arnold for this site and the rest of you for all the advice. I have successfully installed Chromium in my Acer netbook, but my older HP Pavilion dv 1000 does not seem to be working via the USB stick like it does on the Acer.

    I get the “warning, PAE disabled, use parameter “forcepae” to enable…” I updated the bios on this laptop, but still wont load Chromium… is this HP Pavilion simply to old? the new bios version date is 2006… I am hoping I can salvage this laptop and not junk it as it makes a good internet only pc for a spare room.

    It is Win XP, x86 based pc, 992mb RAM, Intel Pentium 1.60ghz

    Thanks for any suggestions,
    BT

  21. i can’t install Chromium OS on HDD, it says “Error: can not determite destination device. Specify –dst yourself.” please help me!

  22. Hi, I m using Camd64OS-20160206010101 on a Lenovo laptop 2gb ram, dual core.
    When I get to the launguage/keyboard and network configuration it gets stucked.
    I mean at first the wifi networks are visible. I select mine and insert the correct password. But after that I get a notification in the bottom corner that it failed to configure the network and after that the wifi (inbuilt) turns off and the wifi networks are gone from the list.
    The laptop uses Atheros for wifi (also atheros for bluetooth).

  23. Hi Arnold! I installed sucesfully chromium on my Samsung np530u3c with Intel i3-3217u CPU but i have some problem with touchpad. Physical buttons and cursor work but there is no touchpad’s clicks , double taps, gestures etc. Also there is no touchpad’s controls in settings (there is an information that system didnt recognise touchpad). As i know the touchpad is elan tech. Is there any fix for that?

  24. Hello there!

    Why is that any download is giving me the Gnu GRUB 2.00 screen? Is the problem inside my notebook (Dell Vostro 5470) or did I do anything wrong? I ask that because I was able to boot earlier, but since then, any other download is unbootable.

    Thanks!

  25. Hi. I want to try out Chromium OS on a Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop via a USB key. I have tried the latest 2 special version and the last 2 x86 versions and the n°49 versions but none will work. It keeps hanging at the Chromium white screen. I have used the CTRL+ALT+F2 to get into the dev console to try your previous suggestions. I login and get to the command prompt and type ‘sudo stop apmanager’ and the date sync. But then I cannot get back tot he Chromium window. I have tried CTRL+ALT+F1, CTRL+ALT+F7 plus every other combinassions I can find but it stays in the dev console.

    The Laptop has 1.73ghz Intel core 2 duo processor and 1gb of RAM.

    Anyone know how I can exit the dev console and get back to the chromium screen?

    Anyone succeed to use Chromium on an Inspiron 6400?

    thanks

    1. Ok. So I’ve now tried the last 2 64 bit versions as well. I get ‘Loading vmlinuz.A…. ready’
      early console in decompress_kernel
      KASLR using RDTSC…
      Decompressing Linux… Parsing ELF… Performing relocations…done.
      Booting the kernel.

      And then nothing. It freezes here.

      Help!!

  26. Hi,
    I was just wondering if I could install this to an external harddrive or to a partition on my main harddrive. Thanks in advance for the response.

  27. Hi, me again. When using the daily builds, if my Dell Inspiron Mini 10 goes in to standby, it doesn’t seem to come out of it, or doesn’t go in to it properly meaning that I have to hold the power button to turn it off to be able to turn it on again. I am guessing this is related to a driver as this doesn’t happen on the specials. Any ideas as to if this is fixable? I would use the specials, but I want more frequent updates, plus the trackpad setup is different between the two builds.

    1. Hi.

      The dailys are just vanilla builds so I dont change those so we always have a baseline. The specials have more generic power support so will work more often than not. Just how often do you need updates?

      1. Thanks… On the last special I was seeing issues with Chrome Remote Desktop not working, and using the daily seemed to resolve the issue, so I was assuming that there was some sort of update issue, unless it just wasn’t working at all with that special. I haven’t tried the latest one yet. Plus the trackpad setup is different (see my comment on the latest special) which makes it easier to configure to how I want it.

        Is there anything I can lift out of the specials into the daily build that I am running, or is that not possible due to different kernel versions?

        1. Not going to be easy due to diffs in the kernel as you note. Getting freon working is on the list of things to sort but its failing miserably at the moment on anything other than Intel graphics! (On my laptops anyway)

          1. Ah, ok. So freon is what I need to look in to. The laptop I am running has an Intel gpu, so I might not see any issues. Got any resources you can point me to so I can have a play? Thanks.

  28. Hi,

    I have a Samsung NC10 notebook with an Intel Atom (N270) and 2GB RAM. I tried a live USB of one of the latest daily builds however my wifi card was not working properly. I have previously used a hexxeh build which worked fine . Also I have a touch screen on the laptop and was wondering if that would be supported and can be calibrated through the X11 evdev like on other linux distros.

    Many thanks, Steve

    1. Thanks, the special build works great! Wifi, bluetooth and even the touch screen (axis are inverted) are working otb. Going to install to hdd later thanks for the help!

  29. Hi. I want to try out Chromium OS on a Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop via a USB key. I have tried the latest 2 special version and the last 2 x86 versions and the n°49 versions but none will work. It keeps hanging at the Chromium white screen. I have used the CTRL+ALT+F2 to get into the dev console to try your previous suggestions. I login and get to the command prompt and type ‘sudo stop apmanager’ and the date sync. But then I cannot get back tot he Chromium window. I have tried CTRL+ALT+F1, CTRL+ALT+F7 plus every other combinassions I can find but it stays in the dev console.

    The Laptop has 1.73ghz Intel core 2 duo processor and 1gb of RAM.

    Anyone know how I can exit the dev console and get back to the chromium screen?

    Anyone succeed to use Chromium on an Inspiron 6400?

    thanks

  30. Hi Arnold.

    I have been running Chromium on my Lenovo Thinkpad E540 and it doesnt play any video or music files. Any advice?
    I have already downloaded like a ton of apps but none of them works…..

  31. hi there;
    I’m new to all this! Thanks for the builds…
    I got the latest special build Camd64OS_R50-7881.0-Special.7z onto a usb key and it booted up fine.
    Except there is “no network”; although the motherboard has some sort of built-in ethernet.
    How do i go about getting chromeos to discover the ethernet?

  32. Thanks for you help on the driver.
    Setting that aside, everything boots up fine; but I’m having trouble installing to an internal hard drive… and it’s failing the same way on two different computers with 3 different hard disks so I think it must be something I’m doing wrong! So to run the installer I do:
    sudo chromeos-install –dst /dev/hda

    It quickly throws some ERRORs and then drops into “Running a hw diagnostics test…”.

    [I can’t figure out how to capture the output of chromeos-install, so I took a picture(!) How do i save the output text?]

    Last few lines before it starts to run the hw diagnostics are:

    Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: Done
    ERROR: Can’t read enough: -1, not 512
    ERROR: Cannot read secondary GPT header
    (those two lines repeat)
    Installing partition 12 to /dev/sda
    [: 415: -ne: unexpected operator
    /usr/sbin/chromeos-install: 415: 5: parameter not set

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