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




2,611 thoughts on “Chromium OS”

  3. 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

  6. 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

  8. 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

  9. 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

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

    Reply

  11. 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

  12. 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

  14. 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

  16. 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

  17. 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

  18. 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

  21. 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

  23. 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

  25. 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

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