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 http://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 x86, 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




2,665 thoughts on “Chromium OS”

  2. I am currently working on converting a LENOVO ThinkPad E325 to a chromium device for my daughter. There is an AMD Fusion 450 CPU and a Radeon HD6320M graphic chip inside. I can boot the Live usb, but then I get screen flickering, wich stops the USB live boot before I can install. Making it impossible for me to do anything but watch the screen flicker. Anything I can do to fix it?

    Reply

  5. Hello, thank you very much for all the work.
    I have an Asus E205SA and already tried cloudready neverware but the mouse of the touchpad became very sluggish and the touchscreen didn’t work (albeit sometimes it worked for one of two actions). Which build would you recommend?
    Thank you very much in advance for your reply.

    Reply

      1. Hey, do you have any update on the rtl8821ce wifi driver? Is there something we can do? Would be amazing if this is supported!

        Reply

  7. Hey Arnold, I have a Lenovo S130-11IGM. Latest daily amd64 starts up but fails to find the touchpad. I can see it in linux as “i2c-SYNA3269”. Plugged in a mouse to move on but doesn’t look like the network adaptor is supported .. “Realtek 8821CE”. Tried the special build with the same outcome. spun up a VM and built from latest sources but still the same. Realised I have no idea how to add drivers during packaging 🙁 . Any suggestions. Many thanks.

    Reply

      1. My WiFi isn’t showing up, is there anything I can do? I have the intel centrino advanced n6205, it’s a Dell latitude e6330. I tried following an old guide you posted but, because it was an old kernel, i couldn’t do it. Thank you

        Reply

  8. Does the vanilla build support enterprise enrollment, i am going to be using mine for school and I want to know which to use. Also the amd64 R76 downloads as a .bin not .img, how would i install this then

    Reply

  9. How can I turn on my Qualcomm Atheros Wifi driver? Everything boots up fine except for my Wifi Driver (Qualcomm Atheros QCA 9377).

    Reply

  10. Hi,

    My Samsung XE303 chromebook with arm cpu stopped updating and i am looking for a solution to install chromium os.
    1) Can i use arm .img files so i can replace chrome os?
    2) Is there any tutorial how to install the arm builds?

    Thanks

    Reply

  11. Can’t get WiFi to work – it just doesn’t find any networks and when manually input my WiFi hub details in, it says network connection error. Using x86 vanilla (the latest version of it) – please help! I don’t understand what’s wrong 😅

    Reply

  13. why does the latest special dl extract as a .bin vs .img file? how do i create a bootable USB from a .bin?

    also it is 9 GB, i thought we only needed an 8GB USB drive.

    Reply

  15. Hi author. Works great when i run this os from usb stick. Any simpler way to install this on full hdd drivr in my old Toshiba Notebook? And last question. How i can run android apps?

    Reply

    2. If you can take the drive out of the Toshiba and put it in a USB case you can then install as if it were a USB drive (gpt partioned). I used the “dd if=ChromeOS.img of=/dev/sdX bs=4M” command line method on a Linux machine to create the drive with all partitions. Linux also has the partition manager gparted so the main partitions can be moved/resized. I moved partition STATE so that ROOT-A could be resized to 4Gb and STATE could then be resized to fill the disk space for user file usage.

      Reply

  16. Hello Arnold, I’ve been trying to find a way to make this run in a VM in Virtualbox to no avail. Can you please help me out with this?

    Reply

  17. I apologize up front for my lack of knowledge. I run into the problem of size of iso is too large for a fat32 8gb usb. When I try to create my usb drive, it gets partitioned into many drives and does not function. Then I have to low level format my usb drive back into working condition. Maybe you have a hint for me on how to correct?

    Reply

  20. Hi,
    After rebooting laptop hp compaq 6720s to install chromium os from USB is a problem with WiFi connection. Looks like wifi card is not working because any network is on the list but there are some of them and also my network shall be there. Without the step with connection to network installation can not do next steps. How I can solved this problem ?
    Thank in advance.

    Reply

  22. Hey Arnold, thanks for all the work you put into these builds, ive been using them for a couple years now at home/work (Im a K-12 network admin, so turning old computers into “free” chromebooks is really helpful for our limited budget) One thing ive always struggled with is getting wifi to work on basically any of our old macbooks/mac desktops. The wireless card is always the same, BCM43XX rev 1.0 firmware revision 5.10.131.42.4. Ive tried several times to find/install drivers for it, and havent been able to get one that works. It would be easier for me to just swap the wifi card with a currently supported model, but due to artificial limitations……….I mean features……….imposed by apple most of the wifi cards that I have avaliable to me are not physically compatible with computers other than the ones they came out of. Is it possible or even on your radar to get driver support for this model WLAN card? I know its old, but I have a good amount of computers that I can convert into chromebooks if I could figure out how to get wifi working.

    Also the trackpad doesnt seem to work on 2014 macbook airs, I have put 0 effort into figuring out why, and I honestly dont care either, they can use a regular mouse. Just figured I would mention it as well.

    Reply

      1. Thanks for the reply, I was testing on the latest Special build, and I just made a USB with the latest Alpha build, still no luck on wifi. Ill be the first to admit Im not some super duper linux admin, 99% of my devices that run linux are just ubuntu containers inside my proxmox environments, but I tried most of what I can think to try, and (to me) it seems like there arent any versions of this driver that are compatible with the 4.14.141 (.152 in the alpha build) kernel. Ive been digging around the internet, playing around with modprobe and generally trying anything to get wifi working but im stumped. Ive been keeping a small doc with notes and things ive tried, and I have found a precompiled version of the drivers for the 4.4.14 kernel, but that didnt end well….I will past some of the more useful links ive tried (no point in pasting my notes, theyre barely readile even to me :P) Im sure you would be able to make better use of them than me, or even if you look into it and its too much hassle, even just telling me that it cant and wont work would be fine, I have plenty of other projects to bang my head against 😀

        Thank you,
        Sebastian

        http://linuxwireless.sipsolutions.net/en/users/Drivers/b43/__v66.html = Firmware

        https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/net-wireless/b43-fwcutter = Gentoo packages?

        https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/net-wireless/bcm43xx-fwcutter = Cutter

        https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/docs/+/master/security/noexec_shell_scripts.md#What-are-noexec-mounts = NoExec Location

        https://slackware.pkgs.org/14.2/alienbob-x86_64/broadcom-sta-6.30.223.271_4.4.14-x86_64-1_SBo.tgz.html = REAL drivers

        https://www.broadcom.com/support/download-search?pf=Wireless+LAN+Infrastructure = Brodcomm Drivers

        Reply

  24. Running this beauty on asus 131t.

    Downloaded the special image, put it on USB with balenetcher, booted it and ran: sudo /usr/sbin/chromeos-install –dst /dev/–targetdrive–

    which in my cased seemed to be /dev/mmcblockxx
    Kinda weird but!

    Everything seems to work. Nice Job!
    Going to see what ChromeOS can do 🙂

    Reply

  26. It’s possible to add something like Proprietary Media Components (from Cloudready) in special versions
    I can’t play videos (Youtube, Facebook) in either version.

    Reply

  27. Dear Arnold,
    may I ask how to install the OS.
    It works fine as a live system-thank you!
    Please specify the command I must type into the console.
    Thanks, also for the OS itself.
    Regards
    Horace Hero

    Using a Trekstore Wintron 10.1 ” “WIN-” Tab from 2014
    (All-x64-archictecture BUT w/ an x36-UEFI)

    Not working would be e.g.:
    ” /usr/sbin/chromeos-install –dst /dev/[harddisk code] “

    Reply

  28. Hello,

    I’m trying to install Chromium OS on my daughters new PC I build (Specs Bellow), I have tried all three ALPHA (80, R78 9-8 & R78 9-29) images and I keep getting stuck on this screen with all of them:
    https://ibb.co/tbMFZYb

    I use a 32GB ScanDisk Cruzer Blade on my windows 10 PC to burn with Win32Disk Imager, and the only think I noticed that’s weird is that it creates a ton of partitions when doing so and don’t know if that’s normal. I was able to do a thumb drive boot pf ChromeOS with CloudReady on this before, but it crashed when clicking on links on chrome web sites. So that didn’t work, so trying more costume versions on your site. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

    ~Thanks~

    -David RN

    Processor – AMD Ryzen 5 2400G Processor with Radeon RX Vega 11 Graphics – YD2400C5FBBOX
    CPU FAN – upHere High Performance Water Liquid CPU Cooler with Adjustable 120mm PWM Fan,White LED (AM4 Compatible) CC1204
    Motherboard – ASRock Mini-ITX Motherboard (B450 Gaming-ITX/AC)
    RAM – Patriot Viper Steel Series DDR4 8GB 3000MHz Performance Memory Module – PVS48G300C6
    HDD – ADATA SU635 240GB 3D-NAND QLC SATA 2.5 Inch Internal SSD (ASU635SS-240GQ-R)

    Reply

      1. I have a similar problem with my machine. I’m using a GTX 1050ti and an ROG Strix B450-F motherboard. Both UEFI boot and Legacy boot mode has me stuck at essentially the same point. I’ve tried all the same builds as OP with the same result. If there are any logs I could dump that would help lmk.

        Reply

    2. Arnold,

      Was your reply to my post? Sorry I can’t tell, but if it is thank you. I will try this, but when you say “graphics card”. Do you mean the integrated Radeon RX Vega 11 Graphics my processor has?

      Thanks,
      ~David R-N

      Reply

  29. I am trying to install this onto my Lenovo yoga c630 (windows, not Chromebook), so that I can use chromefy. My laptop has a snapdragon 850 (arm64) processor, I’ve tried making a bootable usb with the daily and weekly arm versions, but my computer just continues to boot into windows when I select the usb (its always labeled usb partion 12. Any ideas on where I am going wrong? I have configured my BIOS settings to allow booting from usb, but the same thing always happens.

    Reply

  30. I’m using lenovo e41-15 laptop with QCA9377 wifi card and it’s not working on any of the vanilla and special chromium build. What should i do to make it working?

    Reply

  32. hello. i downloaded latest release and used 7zip then installed it with rufus, unetbootin, win32imagewriter and etcher and tried another pack but never boot it from my usb. i installed another linux distro on it(puppy) it worked but this one not booting

    Reply

  36. Hello, arnoldthebat,
    Thank you so much for the great builds. I have successfully created and installed chromefy img using your special build. Everything is great except wifi. My wifi signals are too weak. I am using rtl8723be card and it works fine in windows. I have tried many solutions but nothing worked for me. Another problem is I can’t enable developer mode as I am not using a real chromebook and I really need to access system files. kindly help me fix the wifi issue and guide me on how can I get access to system files without developer mode or help me to enable developer mode on non-chromebook hardware.
    Thanks in advance

    Reply

    1. Hello! i have some issues like this but wors. i have Realtek RTL8723BE Wireless LAN 802.11n PCI-E NIC and it doesn’t work with last daily build. ya know how you got that yours working? wich version are you using?

      Reply

  37. Hey there! I’m curious about trying out one of your images on a Pinebook Pro. Is there any helpful information about your generic ARM images you could offer? Does it use a specific u-boot, or have known incompatibility with any ARM boards?

    Reply

  38. Hi, I was wondering if there was a way to get one of your builds of Chromium OS working on something like VMware Workstation Player or VirtualBox?

    Reply

  39. Hi – I have an Acer Chromebook 13 CB5-311. I have tried to boot from the USB drive with an image to replace ChromeOS, but the Chromebook just hangs with a blank screen. Is there anything I could try?

    Thanks

    Reply

  40. Dear Arnold,

    I install the CHROMIUM OS version CARMOS-20200207010101 to DELL LATITUDE E5430 Laptop during startup the issue is (Invalid partition Table! and Wifi is not working with Intel Centrino Advance-N 6205 and the Video Card driver Intel HD Graphics 4000), will you please help us which correct version of CHROMIUM OS should i need to download and install to my laptop, please send to me the link to download

    Regards,
    Rolando Villanueva

    Reply

  41. Is there any way you could add support for newer ARM64 devices (specifically the Galaxy Book2/S and Surface X)

    Windows on ARM feels much more restrictive than CrOS would, thanks for your work, sir!

    Reply

  42. Hi thank you for such a commendable job with the OS. Really appreciate it. How can we run this in VirtualBox? Is there going to be a virtualbox friendly version of this?

    Reply

  43. Hello. How do we install the adobe flash scripts on R78? This is the last thing I am stuck on. I saw the links you sent to Mark but what do we do them?

    “Have a look at https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/tree/www-plugins/chrome-binary-plugins/chrome-binary-plugins-80.0.3987.106.ebuild and https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/tree/www-plugins/adobe-flash/adobe-flash-32.0.0.330.ebuild for bonary content locatoins and install directories.”

    Reply

  44. Thank you for your constant development and build updates they are much appreciated. The only issue I have is non functioning bluetooth in a Asus UX31E which I believe uses the Intel® QS67 Express Chipset with built in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth the wi-fi works fine but the blue tooth doesn’t . Is there a way to load drivers? I would appreciate some guidance.

    Reply

  45. Hi, I tried to install chromium os, on an asus x61s (intel coreduo, Chipset SiS 671DX + 968, ATI Mobility ™ Radeon® HD 4570 video card, 512MB VRAM, https://www.asus.com/Laptops/X61SL/ specifications /).
    I can start os from the usb stick and log in and use it normally, but when I try to install it on the pc I can’t.
    I have tried all the latest versions of the builds, but the same thing happens to me. When I give the lsblk command, he doesn’t see the hard disk, and despite trying to force the command / usr / sbin / chromeos-install –dst / dev / sda he tells me that I can’t.
    Note more. I also tried with the cloudready image, but in this case the boot stops at the image of the first screen just before the login, mouse, keyboard and CTRL + ALT + F2 work and in this case, with the lsblk command I can see the hard disk, I can also install on the pc, but it always remains stopped at the first screen.

    Reply

  46. Random request

    I have this weird little Spanish netbook thing called an ioxbook. for some reason its only possible to put Linux on it if I use a 64bit distro but a 32bit bootloader (yes I know)

    So I guess what I am saying is….is this possible to get the bootloader separate from you?

    Reply

  47. Hello,

    I loaded the latest image to a USB > Camd64OS_R80-12739.B-Special.7z

    While this will boot to a standard HW computer, I am attempting to load it to a VMware VM (esxi 6.7) and getting stuck with the ” Booting ‘local image A’ ” (I have also tried image B as well) and it just sits there 🙁

    I can get to the command line (Pressing ‘c’) but unfortunately I’m not the most versed to Linux.
    From reading possible others troubles (i.e. Radeon HW), could the reasoning be for this not loading/booting be due to the VM HW to load?

    Any possible guesses on steps that need to take place to get this to load from USB?
    I would then like to be able to load/install this onto a VM (not using VMWare Player – but there shouldn’t be much of a difference).

    Thanks for the help and supplying the numerous updates. Cheers to ATB!

    Reply

  48. Hi, I am starting with building Chromium OS for some devices in my school. I have proceeded through the process of building to creating image. But, I stuck every time on the booting to the device (Booting local image A). I suppose that there is some drivers/hw problem (because CloudReady works). So I suppose that I need to add some drivers to the build process. But there is a lack of information on how to do it. So I would like to ask if you can advise me?How is it possible that your build is about 600 MB size and my build is about 6 GB size?How have you done the special builds – how to add drivers etc?None of your builds work similarly to my build.
    I imagine that there is some folder where I can put existing drivers, for graphic, touchpad etc. for specific devices and then build with these modifications the image? Thank to you very much and have a nice day. PS: Is there any contact to you, email, Hangouts or?

    Reply

    1. Hi Petr

      My builds are compressed, hence the reduction in size. Uncompressed they are ~ 8GB in size.

      Re drivers; to get things working you need to read up on Gentoo and how you get drivers into the build that way. There are a good few examples in my overlay, plus Gentoo has many guides.

      Hopefully the drivers you need are already available, you just need to install them at build time.

      Good luck!

      Reply

  49. Still wondering if it’s possible to get an ARM64 build for snapdragon windows devices (i.e Surface X and Galaxy Book2)?

    Reply

Leave a Reply to arnoldthebat Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

The general witterings of a nerd