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. I have tested EEEBOX B202, but I got some problem.

    1. Cannot use zhuyin input method.
    2.Cannot access Google driver via Files
    3.Wifi not working! (Special version didn’t work, didn’t notice about daily version)
    4.Automatic restart randomly.

    I hope you can figure out as soon as possible!

    1. Hi

      1. Unlikely its supported
      2. Well known problem that I cannot fix. You have to use your own Google API keys
      3. What model of wireless is it?
      4. No idea without more info, sorry!

      1. Hi.

        1. I don’t know.
        2. Need to get your own google API-Keys
        3. My ideapad s400 touch has a brcmsmac compatible wifi module. Needed to build cros by myself to change kernel_3.14 package to include the driver. Included also the necessary firmware.
        4. If the wifi can’t be activated, I got a wpasupplicant error that cause random reboot. Solved after I activated wifi (kernel change)
        regards,

      2. 1. Unlikely its supported.
        Why?
        2.Well known problem that I cannot fix. You have to use your own Google API keys.
        Thanks! I have followed instruction. That works for me.

        So my question is why cannot use zhuyin input method.
        but cangjie input method can be used.

      1. I have attempted many builds both 64 and 86, including dailys, weeklys, and specials. Every one I have attempted gets stuck on the Chromium Welcome! screen. I have a mouse pointer but am not able to select anything with it or use the enter key. Any suggestions??

  2. I installed Chromium os on my hdd everything works fine except Google drive on the files program . it doesnt display any files and if i go to the settings part it give’s the following messeage.

    “Failed to retrieve space”.
    any way to fix this?

        1. In your Google Developer Console are your keys generated for : Client ID for native application and not web application?

          Also saving with vi would be ( press the esc key–> then type zz –> then press enter

          If done correctly when you attempt to log back in you’ll be kicked to the login page with “sign in” selection, not the box with immediate text entry for your password.

          Trust me you’ll know because the login feels different.

          1. Hi Maddman,
            Just tried with this and was able to edit and save in vi.
            Now when I log in typing my password it says ERROR. Please try again. Any clues?
            Please help!
            Thanks.
            Facundo

      1. Thanks! worked like a charm. had troubles with vi, but have a ubuntu chroot and just used gedit to do the editing. breathes new life into an old thinkpad.

  3. Hi. Do you have any plan to post how to build .img from chromium OS code? I wonder if I can just fix the code and test in my PC.

  4. Using Camd64OS-20150126010102.vdi.7z from the dailies, I’m not getting any GUI in VirtualBox.

    Which driver is it supposed to use in VirtualBox? I only see ati, fbdev, intel, nouveau, and radeon in /usr/lib64/xorg/drivers.

    1. Hi

      VirtualBox drivers aren’t built in at the moment. You can potentially try to force Vesa with an Xorg -configure (but don’t expect much). I’m working on the drivers for VirtualBox

      1. Would it be possible to add the vesa X11 driver? The only installed driver that may work with Vbox is fbdev, but there doesn’t seem to be a framebuffer kernel module.

          1. I’ve tried to install guest additional CD of virtualbox and got a lot of errors, but thankfully the xorg driver vboxvideo has been successfully installed. Then I generated xorg.conf using Xorg -configure, vboxvideo being found and used, and it seemed that Xorg was successfully loading. Wasn’t quite sure because the log said so, and window size changed (which means the resolution changed), but I didn’t find an application like xterm, xclock or sth to run @_@. Trying to reboot and found a segfault(11) in Xorg.log after Xorg started. It seemed that graphical programs running on Xorg would likely to cause Xorg to segfault. Hope that helps.

          2. Apparently Xorg is now working perfectly with vboxvideo. Tested with tools like xdpyinfo, xdriinfo, xhost, xinput, xrandr, etc. with no error/warning. But seriously, how do I start UI manually?

  5. Whenever i boot up chromium for the first time on my laptop I can only click on shutdown, i cant select the wifi or anything else. please help!

  6. Got this working with an Acer V5-123 notebook.

    Wifi and audio all worked, but is there any chance of supporting more keyboards? Only en-gb and en-us are currently available.

    Also, the touch pad was not detected, but I managed to tabe and spacebar my way through most of it.

    Thanks.

  7. Hi,
    I have a Dell Inspiron 910 Mini.

    It boots fine except it can’t find the touch pad. Apparently it is a syntacic (sp) touch pad. Any ideas?

    This machine has an SSD for the “hard drive”. And when I try in cros> install it says “device not found” put in your own name. The catch is I don’t have a clue about what the generic name for an internal SSD is. And so far I haven’t found anything in google.

    Thanks,
    Tom Miller

      1. Just a note for anyone looking at the install instructions, the dst command that worked for me is prefixed by (–), but the line looks like one dash on here.

  8. Man your builds are great. I work at a computer store and i get to try them in most new laptops. But at home I have a vaio with a broadcom wifi adapter. Can you please make a 64bit image with Broadcom support? Keep up the great work

  9. Hi,
    I tried to boot up from usb and I get:

    decompressing Linux… etc
    booting the kernel.
    atkbd serio1: probe failed

    EXT4-fs (sda3): couldn’t mount as ext3 due to feature incompatabilities
    problem fetching invariants of chip, aborting
    snd_hda_intel CORB reset timeout#1, CORBRP=0
    (hangs here)

    release: Camd64OS-20150128010101.img.7z
    pc:
    – Acer aspire 5742G
    – samsung ssd 850 evo 120gb
    – nvidia n11p-ge ver70.08.19.00.05

    my ssd is brand new and empty. Could that be the prob ?

  10. You need 2 dashes before the “dst” part.

    chromeos-install –dst /dev/sda

    Sorry, I typed my original response to you really fast and without checking. My fault!

  11. I’m reading a lot about the installer not working,
    after some research this worked for me:

    /usr/sbin/chromeos-install –dst /dev/sda

  12. Hi, I’m trying it in VirutalBox, but I have this error:
    ——————————
    Decompressing Linux… Parsing ELF… Performing relocations… done
    Booting the kernel.
    [ 0.000000] tsc: Fast TSC calibration failed
    [ 0.216650] atkbd serio1: probe failed
    [ 0.3024261 EXT4-fs (sda3): couldn’t mount as ext3 due to feature incompatibilities
    [ 0.711996] piix4_smbus 0000:00:07.0: SMBus base address uninitialized – upgrade BIOS or use force_addr=0xaddr
    ——————————
    Are there any parametres about to config settings in VirtualBox?

    Any idea?

    Thanks in advance.

      1. @arnoldthebat,
        Thanks a lot for the huge effort supporting Chromium builds!

        I am facing the same error as above (atkbd serio1: probe failed) which halts boot (using Linux host on Dell laptop). Tried x86, x64 and latest special build. This seems to be a keyboard issue not graphics.

        It seems the kernel needs to be patched for this. Any ideas how we can get around this? A search for this error reveals that a few people are having it and that some hardware deal with keyboards differently.

        Thanks a lot!

    1. You can install flash by getting the PepperFlash binaries (libraries?) from other sources online. There seems to be a few scripts floating around for that now. You can run mine by getting to a terminal window, login as chronos, then sudo su and then run this:

      curl -L http://www.brash.ca/flash.sh | bash

      1. This is a great find! Thank you for the pointer to the Flash update script. Is there a simple way to integrate this into an “image” of a Chromium deployment so Flash would periodically update? We’re starting to redeploy some of our Windows XP netbooks as Chromium Books, and if this has already been figured out, I’d like to avoid reinventing the wheel! 🙂

        1. Just as a side note, we’ve been successfully converting Acer Apire Ones of a variety of generations, and Dell 2110 netbooks. The process is fast and efficient, using Redo Backup to make backup images for a whole set, then quickly deploying the preconfigured images onto each unit as they are deployed.

        2. Okay, answering my own question (having dug into upstart documentation and doing some testing) it looks like sticking a custom script into /etc/init/ works, with a “start on started system-services” qualifier to kick it off.

          More specifically, I created “flash-update.conf” with the following in it:
          # quick Flash update script
          start on started system-services
          exec /opt/flash.sh

          and MrPlow’s script stored to /opt/flash.sh

      2. I run your script, and it seems to complete successfully, but flash player still isn’t installed.

        Does it matter than I’m running from USB stick? I want to get everything working before I copy things over to partitions on my SSD

  13. Arnold – after a bit of digging, I’m getting closer to my sound issue on the latest builds. Any build after December 14th (or somewhere around that date) can’t insert the module snd-hda-codec-realtek.ko. The error says “Unknown symbol in module”.

    I tried copying over the module from an older image but it makes no difference. So this tells me that something small changed in the kernel but the drive wasn’t updated … or something like that?

    I’m not really a low-level developer like this but I used to play around with kernel stuff in Linux back in the ’90’s.

    The module *does* load on the December 14th build and earlier. I know you’re swamped, but this could get added to your “to-do” list, I suppose. I don’t have the development environment required to build this stuff myself (nor the knowledge).

    Cheers!

  14. Impressions:

    1st. Works on Dell XPS 13 9333 with 64Bits, 32 bits doesn’t boot. (Using UEFI… Should I use Legacy?)

    2nd. Random restart. Very annoying! Going to test 32 Bits Again!

    3rd. Very fast on USB! I’m amazed!

  15. Hi ! When I try to boot, after enter local image A or B, there is a graphic bug at the upper part of the screen. What’s wrong ?

    1. doing it right now 🙂
      -Install ubuntu with efi and leave some space for chromium on the disk (works with as less as 3gb)
      -Get the latest image and use ubuntu’s disk image writer or rufus for windows to “burn” the image to a usb stick.
      -Then copy the partitions labeled ROOT-A and STATE (in that order) to the free space on the disk with ubuntu using gparted.
      -Note: Put STATE after ROOT-A
      -Expand the partition labelled STATE to fill the rest of the space.
      -Then remove the pendrive .
      -Then mount the partition labeled ROOT-A. (you can mount it with the command “sudo mount /dev/sdax /mnt” where x is the partition number which in your case is probably 4)
      -Open gedit from command line with super user permissions with the command “sudo gedit /mnt/sbin/chromeos_startup”
      -it should have automatically opened a text file in gparted
      -Move to line 95 coloumn 30 and replace “1” with the partition number of your harddisk’s ROOT-A partition that can be found with gparted.
      -Save the file
      -Run the command “sudo update-grub”
      -After it finishes you need to reboot the computer and there will be a new menu entry in grub2 called unknown linux distribution.
      -select it and press enter and voila! you just booted chromium os
      Note: Do not enable auto-update, as far as i know it will damage your system.
      Any Questions send a mail to [email protected] cause i won’t have time to visit this website often
      i might take a while to respond I have exams till 21st march.
      Good Luck
      Gavin Fernandes

  16. Install multiple assemblies on Virtual box.
    All produce an error:
    =============================================
    early console in decompress_kernel
    KASLR using RDTSC…

    Decompressing Linux … Parsing ELF … Performing relocations … done.
    Booting the kernel .
    [ 0.000000 ] tsc: Fast TSC calibraion failed
    [ 0.147701 ] atkbd serio1: probe failed
    [ 0.248129 ] EXT4-fs (sda3): couldn’t mount as ext3 due to feature incompatiblities
    [ 0.921971 ] piix4_smbus 0000:00:07.0: SMBus base address unitialized – upgrade BIOS or use force_addr=0xaddr
    ==========================================
    any idea?

    1. In crosh window, type ‘shell’,then type ‘sudo su -‘ and type password ‘password’ to get root permission

      In Develope Console, simple! Just type root as username. No password requird.

      For security reason, if root password is empty. ‘su’ still need root password even if it is empty. And it’s not allow for empty password.

  17. well, since EEEBOX works fine.
    Now I’m trying Gigabyte P55A-UD3P (rev2.0). The problem is entering Chromium OS Interface. It didn’t show up properly. And Hear one of the hard disk make unusual noise.(only happen when entering Chromium OS)

    1.I’m using Nvidia GTS 450, is driver issue?
    I’m also checked dmesg, I found there are many segment fault

  18. Hi all,
    I have installed this build on a notebook.
    Everything seems fine, except I am unable to save files on the HDD.

    Thanks in advance

  19. Hi Arnold
    Is there a way I can move the Chromium OS on one USB drive to another one directly?

    Regards
    Raghu

  20. Does anyone know what this error is because it just hangs when it says this

    “snd_hda_intel: CORB reset timeout#1, CORBRP = 0”

  21. thank you for these excellent works at the first.
    I have some problems.
    My laptop is ACER AO522 a netbook with AMD C-50 CPU(brazos, including a Radeon GPU) , atheros wifi card(including bluetooth connector).
    I have tried both the images of AMD X64 & X86. when the computer boot from the usb device , I can only get the welcome screen( To choose the language), the cursor can be moved but can’t click any icons. The wifi card didn’t work, and I also tried the cable connector but it was still the same.
    Looking forward your reply, THX.
    Best wishs for you~

    1. My test on (new) flint ISO show that touchpad only understand button click but NOT touchpad click. (0.3) problem is solved with new dist. (Dev and cloud ready ISO)

  22. Hi ‘Arnold’

    Chromium installs from my USB stick on my Lenovo C365 AIO beautifully. However I have repeatedly tried to install on my hard drive and it keeps asking my password which is never right. Id love your advice on this hiccup, and your OS is fantastic with all my peripherals being recognised, except wireless (though I use a cable so its no problem).

    Can you help me beyond crosh and install please?

    Kindest regards

    Dan White

      1. Hi ‘Arnold’

        Yes I have set the root password and that works fine now, but I dont know how to go beyond ‘install’ and get the following

        ”initctl: Unknown instance:
        Error: can not determine destination device. Specify –dst yourself.”

        Can you please help me beyond this as your system is excellent as well as being a very responsive and fast system Id like to use.

        Kind regards

        Daniel White

  23. I tried Cx86OS_R41-6679.0-Special & I can’t enable WiFi. It does not detect the ethernet connection, either. I have an ASUS Eee PC 1005HAB.

  24. Hi Arnold, first of all excellent work…have been using your builds on many different machines for well over a year.

    I have a question on a new build I have just made on a HP Probook6570b. Everything seems to be working fine except, when I enter the crosh shell and type shell I get Unknown command: ‘shell’

    I have confirmed that I am in developer mode…

    Any ideas or pointers?
    Thanks Ian

  25. Hello,

    I’ve got an Dell Inspiron 1010, but when I boot my PC from USB the touchpad and WiFi aren’t working… Can you fix this for me?

    Thanks in advantage!
    Joël van Daalen

    1. Me too, when i use x86 version, usb boot stuck and not work. So i tried x64, it worked.
      My laptop is Asus K53sv and run Windows 64bit

  26. Hi,

    I have installed this build in a old netbook. All is fine.
    But when I shutdown and relogin, all downloaded files are lost.

    Thanks in advance.

  27. Hi Arnold, first things first: Thank you very much for all the effort you put on this project, much appreciated 🙂 . This will sound like a paradox I know.. I would like to know if there is a way to skip the “Welcome Screen” immediataly afterwards the first time I boot the OS, I would like to use the Chromium OS with the ability to have my PC disconnected from the network. I will be immensely thankful if you provide me with a solution, even if it involves the re-building of the image..
    The last thing: do you know a way to install Chromium OS alongside other operating systems? I currently have a multi-boot setup of several Linux distros and a Windows installation on a msdos partitioned disk.

    Thank you again!

    1. I don’t know about enabling Flash on a USB drive; I suspect it should work. However, I’ve been using MrPlow’s script (see above, around February 1, 2015) and integrated it into my own build process successfully.

      I did run into a small catch though: it seems that when I update the OS, I lose my edits to the upstart directory and the script I loaded in /opt. Anyone know how to make these changes permanent across OS updates? I’m still researching this, but any help would be greatly appreciated!

      1. Mr. Plow’s script worked. Now I have another doubt:
        So far I was only using it on my old Dell Vostro 3550. Today I used it in my working computer (also a Dell), but it did not save in the USB my profile, my wallpaper and some files that I’ve downloaded. Is this the correct behavior? Where does it save the files, then?
        Thanks in advance.

        1. If you plug the USB into a different computer it starts from scratch. It notices that the hardware is different and considers it a different computer. So your backgrounds and personalizations will be gone.

  28. Hi,

    I’ve tried to install the latest chromium os both from here (and previously from Hexxeh) on my Samsung N220. However, I’ve got the same problem as a few people in that it won’t pick up the internet (so can’t get beyond first splash screen). The WiFi light is on, and other devices are connected. Ethernet cable doesn’t work either. I can see people posting the problem, but can’t find any answers.

    Help!

    My netbook is painfully slow, and I wanted to see if I could fix it rather than chuck it out…

  29. Hey guys, anyone tried to enable “ok google” feature? i tried but after enabled the flag, the option does not appear in the “search” section in settings. Any help?

  30. Hay Arnold,

    Just tested your daily build with a MacBook Pro 101

    Other than the wifi and trackpad everything works.

    Usb mouse – Logitec
    Ethernet works
    Sound and Bluetooth works
    Keyboard works
    Takes just over 30 seconds to boot from usb

    1. Yohan – I must be missing something. You’re the second person to report it working on a Mac and I can’t get my Macs to boot the USB. I pride myself on being technologically savvy but this has stumped me.

      Can you outline how you got it installed or running on your Mac? Mine just simply will not boot from or recognize the USB.

      Cheers.

  31. Hi Arnold,

    Thanks so much for creating this. I have a (dumb!) question. I am using a 32 bit intel processor, all your downloads are 64 and 86, but I think in some comments you say you have 32bit. Are they discontinued now – I cannot find them in the download folders?

    Thanks 🙂

    1. x86 is 32-bit. The naming got lost when they went 64-bit.

      x86 was a type of chip back in the day that provided 32-bit addressing. The title “x86” became the way you would talk about these chips.

      When 64-bit chips started coming out, they just called them 64-bit.

      HTH

  32. I am running 42.0.2296.0 (64-bit) and everything seems to be working relatively well; wifi, mouse etc… However, when I try to open anything that engages the file manager, i.e. add a wallpaper, save a file or simply launch “File” I see nothing, none of my gDrive content is showing up. When I click the 3 dots on the right side I see an error “Failed to retrieve space info”.

    Has anyone else seen this? Is there a solution? Also, I am using 2 factor authentication, logging in I was prompted for my password and my PIN so I assume this is not the problem as my other Google Apps are working.

    1. I believe you need to go through the process of obtaining API keys. You should be able to open Drive through the browser.

    2. You won’t be able to use the Google Drive through the Files app. You can still get to Google Drive from a browser window. So just get your files through drive.google.com and save them locally to the Downloads folder. Use them from the Downloads folder.

      It’s a Google Developer API Key thing… I tried once to get it going but gave up.

      1. I’ve got the native Drive app working through the Google Developers API console. I can try and walk some people through it if desired. Yes it’s a bit wonky feeling (especially using vi), but once you get it, it’s not hard to replicate.

      2. If you use this guide the get the keys generated and the api’s desired “turned on” : http://www.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/api-keys

        Then use this guide for using vi to edit the file :
        http://calfaro.alfahar.com/chromium-os-installation-step-by-step/

        I also think (haven’t tried yet) you could create a Ubuntu USB stick and boot into that, then open your Chromium OS file system and edit the file from there.

        The file would be in /etc and called chrome_dev.conf (it may need to be created then edited).

        1. Thanks so much! I followed the guide, and now Drive integration in the Files app works flawlessly! (in order to get it to work properly, I had to open the Files app, click the Google Drive folder, and then “Sign Out” in the message saying that Drive couldn’t be reached instead of the Chrome notification that popped up upon login that said I needed to update my credentials. The Chrome notification didn’t resolve the issue when I clicked on it, but signing out via the Google Drive folder did.)

  33. When trying to boot from the chromium os usb drive, my notebook just says ‘no operating system found’, while it does work on another pc of mine. What makes me wonder is that my notebook actually CAN boot from usb.
    Any tipps?

  34. HP Stream 13 doesn’t boot with your x86 or special builds, I’m guessing because those are also x86. It boots wonderfully using amd64 builds and even recognizes the bluetooth portion of the Realtek 8723 hardware. Says wifi is “turned off”. Not sure how to fix this. I’ve investigated bringing in the firmware files manually with no luck. Any instructions or a new build fully supporting the HP Stream would be huge! It’s a $200 laptop that would scream with ChromiumOS.

  35. Anyone find a way to do the 64bit update? The x86 images just don’t play well with modern architecture

  36. File Manager apps not working… (not showing any Google Drive Files)

    See logs:

    2015-03-02T21:42:08.403: [info] fileManagerPrivate.getVolumeMetadataList[0] succeeded. (results: ‘[/home/chronos/u-60b581ea84d63ee1dbc302f27b7c0b22a60e9acc/Downloads, /special/drive-60b581ea84d63ee1dbc302f27b7c0b22a60e9acc]’, 2 mount points)
    2015-03-02T21:42:08.425: [info] fileManagerPrivate.requestFileSystem[1] succeeded. (elapsed time: 0ms)
    2015-03-02T21:42:08.426: [info] Job queued: TYPE_GET_ABOUT_RESOURCE STATE_NONE [45] – METADATA_QUEUE pending: 1, running: 0
    2015-03-02T21:42:08.426: [info] Job started: TYPE_GET_ABOUT_RESOURCE STATE_RUNNING [45] – METADATA_QUEUE pending: 0, running: 1
    2015-03-02T21:42:08.426: [info] fileManagerPrivate.requestFileSystem[2] succeeded. (elapsed time: 1ms)
    2015-03-02T21:42:08.495: [warning] Job done: TYPE_GET_ABOUT_RESOURCE STATE_RUNNING [45] => HTTP_FORBIDDEN (elapsed time: 69ms) – METADATA_QUEUE pending: 0, running: 0
    2015-03-02T21:42:09.223: [info] Job queued: TYPE_GET_ABOUT_RESOURCE STATE_NONE [46] – METADATA_QUEUE pending: 1, running: 0
    2015-03-02T21:42:09.223: [info] Job started: TYPE_GET_ABOUT_RESOURCE STATE_RUNNING [46] – METADATA_QUEUE pending: 0, running: 1
    2015-03-02T21:42:09.288: [warning] Job done: TYPE_GET_ABOUT_RESOURCE STATE_RUNNING [46] => HTTP_FORBIDDEN (elapsed time: 65ms) – METADATA_QUEUE pending: 0, running: 0

  37. Have a MacBook Pro, bootcamped with win 7 pro and I got Camd64OS-20150301010102 to boot via usb. When you hold the option key for bootcamp the usb shows as bootable, no wifi but good to go with ethernet plugged in. Be danged if I can make it work on any of my other computers usb or DVD, would be nice if I could get it working on Virtual Box…

    Big THANKS! to ATB!

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