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. Sorry to ask but i have successfully written ur newest 02_06 image into my 4GB USB stick, and it can boot up to the chromium , however, it can’t detect my Wi-Fi signal , why???

    1. Hey. I have managed to get everything working but wifi. I have the Intel 5100 AGN. I see it’s been supported but it won’t load. I’ve downloaded the firmware and copied it to the /lib/firmware folder but still won’t loader. I’ve ‘modprobe iwlwifi’ and it throws back a FATAL message saying module can’t be found. I’ve ran ‘lspci’ and my wifi card is listed. Any suggestions or ideas? Other than my wifi issues, EVERYTHING works perfectly… minus the microphone. 🙁

      1. I replaced the Broadcom wireless chip in my HP mini netbook with an Atheros one, and now WiFi works perfectly. It’s totally worth it ($5). Warning: you may have to hack your BIOS.

  2. Hi, I’m on a super slow internet connection, so I wanted to ask before I downloaded: Any chance the ARM build could run on the MK802+?

  3. Hi,

    I downloaded the image and wrote it to my usb drive.

    sudo dd if=/home/john/Desktop/Cx86OS-20130309030101.img of=/dev/sdb bs=4M
    [sudo] password for john:
    604+1 records in
    604+1 records out
    2537521152 bytes (2.5 GB) copied, 789.429 s, 3.2 MB/s

    I then set the bios on the computer to boot from the usb drive. When it boots, I get the message: Non-system disk or disk error

    Does the usb drive have to be formatted before writing the image?

      1. Even though the bios has an option for usb, it doesn’t seem to work, so I tried PLOP Boot manager so that I can boot off a CD, and then point it to the USB drive.

        Now Chrome seems to start, but under that it says:
        Your system is repairing itself. Please wait. The computer then reboots itself and the begins again

    1. You generally need to format any OS drive as or if you cannot do that, FAT 32
      otherwise the pc will not recognise the drive as an operating system.

  4. Installed on a USB-stick and runs very well! Great job.
    Flash, PDF reader and sound added using instructions onhttps://gist.github.com/dz0ny/3065781
    JAVA doesn’t work – didn’t quit expect it would.
    Can’t get the update procedure working, still trying using every new build, no result yet.

  5. Hi, arnoldthebat, I wonder the image you build according to the develope install guide on the chromium project? Do you made some custom made change?
    And each time update from your Dev server, the system just install new things or update entirely?

    1. Hi

      Its a vanilla build currently so exactly the same as the chromium project deliver. The Dev Server simply updates with latest vanilla release. Nothing more..

  6. Hi,
    Got a major hang-up with last two builds, AFTER the flash/pdf patch. Writing the build on USB stick went smooth as usual, no problems with start up whatsoever. However, both the curl -L http://goo.gl/R4Amj | bash and the curl -L http://goo.gl/qPrfd | bash patches resulted in a Chromium splash screen followed by eternal darnkness.
    May be next build(s) will have this fixed, who knows?
    Hans

  7. Great job! Works fine from a USB flash drive on EeePC 1000, but when i want to install on SSD is not possible to choose which disk to install (eeepc have two disks, 8gb fast and 32 gb slow) maybe there is an option to choose which disk to install? Thanks

    1. It’s based on Linux. The master drive is called sda, and the slave is called sdb.
      Try the commande: ” install /dev/sda ” for installation on the masterdisk.

  8. Hi,
    I’ve got a question: I use a Toshiba Satellite laptop PC, dual boot with Windows 7 and Ubuntu 12:04. I can create a new partition on my hard disk using GParted. Can I then safely install Chromium OS from the USB stick onto this new partition? (Safely meaning no risk of destroying the Windows or Ubuntu installation.
    Thanks,
    Hans

    1. Yes You can if u create the partition in windows with g parted and then change your bios to boot from usb then install to the partition that you created useing g parted.

      Hope this helps you Hans

      1. It actually doesn’t work, because the default ChromiumOS installer doesn’t have any option to install in a different partition. It’ll wipe all your disk clean, and then install ChromiumOS, so don´t try it until anyone finds a way to make it!

  9. Hi,

    I’m trying to find a build of ChromiumOS that will run on an old netbook (eeepc 701), so far all the builds I’ve tried fail to even boot as the processor doesn’t have pae (the eeepc uses an Intel Celeron-M ULV 353 processor)

    is there any chance you could build or provide me with a little help as to how to build a version of Chromium without pae?

    Cheers,
    Sniper435

  10. Hello, Thanks for all the hard work! I’m currently trying to configure my dell mini (2gb ram, 32 internal ssd, 32 sdcard) as such: I have windows 8 running and wanted to have a chromium setup on my 4 gig usb drive so I can pick and choose which to run.
    I’ve downloaded the feb 20 2013 files from http://linux.dell.com/files/cto/ , loaded and ran it. I notice a few issues though…
    1. wireless won’t work and it seems the scripts that I’ve seen to remedy the situation like the one below
    won’t seem to work
    ————————————————————–
    Log in to your Chromium OS.
    Press CTRL-ALT-F2 to go to a Linux command prompt.
    log in. The username is chronos. The password is dell1234.
    Type cd /etc (to go to the folder containing the wireless install file.)
    Type sudo -s (to act as the super user.)
    Type .install_wl.sh (and the wireless drivers will install. When you exit this command window, you should see your wireless access points listed with your wired Ethernet connection.)
    ————————————————————–

  11. Hi, is there a build that will work with a samsung n150 plus. I have tried a couple of builds off another site and the mouse pad and wifi won’t work.

    Thanks.

  12. hi arnold. thank you for working on chromium. i wonder why my atom machine cant boot into my sdcard. have no problem with hexxeh build before. using the x86 img file. thanks again!

  13. My system starts to boot and Chrome OS comes up, and then it says:

    “Your system is repairing itself. Please wait. The computer then reboots itself and the begins again”

    and then the system reboots and it repeats over and over.

    Any idea what can cause that?

  14. Hi Arnold, I have a Hackberry A10 motherboard from here:
    https://www.miniand.com/products/Hackberry%20A10%20Developer%20Board

    I installed images with Linux on a SD card and the board can boot in Linux if the SD card it is inserted. I installed one of your img files for ARM instead on a USB flash stick to a SD card, to see what happens. The board did not boot from the SD card.

    Can you please help me with instructions how to make the SD card bootable?

    Thank you so much for your help,

    Regards,
    Doru

  15. Arnold the Bat,

    I would like to thank you for your work with this place and the images, thanks to you, I found a perfect image of this OS to use daily!

    Awesome!

  16. Should this run properly from a USB stick? I am running chromium from USB and it is just awfull – keyboard and trackpad have a lag of seconds, apps are very slow, etc. Is it possible that from a better USB stick it will run better? The stick is an 8gb Kingston DT101 G2 if that helps. The computer is an AMD Athlon II Neo K325 witn 3gb of memory. I would really like to try Chromium for a couple of weeks, but it is really unuseable. Maybe the processor is not really compatible, etc. Basically, I would like to know what are my options. I could also install to local SSD drive, even though I loath having to re-install windows… do you think that would make it function properly?

    1. It can be a tad slow, but is normally workable speedwise and no need to install to HDD unless you need to. Just checked the stats on your stick and they are more than OK. Try another build perhaps?

  17. Hi! My laptop have an Intel Centrino Wireless-N 100 card and I can’t connect to wifi using Chromium OS. Can you help me please? How can i do? (Sorry for my english)

  18. Could you please post the file in .iso? Because I want to try yumi (www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator) to get multiboot (Chromium os and Android x86) in the same pen drive.

    Thank you.

  19. Anybody know hwy I can’t login as chronos? I am stuck at the installation screen with no network access so I did a ctrl+alt+f2 and typed in ‘chronos’ and ‘password’ (both without quotes). It then tells me invalid login. I tried a blank password as well as ‘chronos’ as the password and still getting nothing.

  20. Hi,

    Was wondering if anyone had luck with a Realtek RTL8188CE wireless card. Have a Lenovo x120e. lspci -v shows the card and “Kernel driver in use: rtl8192ce” Kernel modules: “rtl8192ce” which all seem correct.
    Cannot connect to any wireless sids (hidden, open, wep etc).
    Maybe totally wrong question-but does a firmware package need to be included?
    Thank you.

    1. I have the same RealTek PCI wireless device (in a different laptop). I got it to work in hexxeh’s build (haven’t tried with arnoldthebat’s yet). You need to copy the firmware directory rtlwifi/ into /lib/firmware. You can get the firmware from, e.g., the Slackware kernel-firmware… package. I think only the file rtl8192cfw.bin is needed, but might as well copy them all. To do this, boot up a separe Linux OS (not Chromium), and mount the Chromium ROOT partition read/write, and then copy the files in. Hope that helps.

    2. Totally right question, Rich. I have the same RealTek PCI wireless device (in a different laptop). I got it to work in hexxeh’s build (haven’t tried with arnoldthebat’s yet). You need to copy the firmware directory rtlwifi/ into /lib/firmware. You can get the firmware from, e.g., the Slackware kernel-firmware… package. I think only the file rtl8192cfw.bin is needed, but might as well copy them all. To do this, boot up a separe Linux OS (not Chromium), and mount the Chromium ROOT partition read/write, and then copy the files in. Hope that helps.

      1. I tried to do that but when I try to copy the files in it is a read only file. I tried to remount it with sudo mount -o remount, rw /lib/firmware but I get the error you must specify the filesystem type. Then I tried sudo mount -o remount, rw, /lib/firmware/ -t ext4 it says not mounted or bad option. Any ideas? Thanks.

        1. Try:

          sudo mount -o remount, rw /

          The /lib/firmware/ directory is on the root (/) filesystem. You can confirm this by running:

          df /lib/firmware

          1. Jez thanks that worked for me and I was able to move the file!

            That did not make the wireless work though, it says that wifi is turned off. Did anyone else get this to work?

  21. Hi,

    First of all thanks for providing this to the public and offering nightly builds. my question is what is the difference between your builds and hexxeh’s builds? i couldn’t find info on that. Thanks in advance for any replies and keep up the great work!

    Best

  22. I really don’t know what I’m doing wrong, I did exactly the steps above. I have 2 USB devices, a live Ubuntu and Chromium OS, both can be booted as EFI or Legacy Mode (when Compatibility Support Module (CSM) is enabled in the BIOS), but when I install Chromium OS from a USB device with the install commands to /dev/sda (which is my 320 GB harddisk). It says:

    Installation to ‘/dev/sda’ complete.
    Please shutdown, remove the USB device, cross your fingers, and reboot.

    I unplug the USB device with Chromium OS, reboot and always end up in the BIOS. There is no bootable device… I checked the installation with GParted and everything seems fine (sda looks like the USB stick with Chromium), but for some reason, it doesn’t show me an EFI or at least Legacy Mode option to boot my harddisk… Has anyone an idea what I’m doing wrong?
    My notebook is Asus X201E, 64bit.

    1. Did you ever get to install Chrome OS on your Asus? I have this model and want to try to install Chrome OS if it’s possible.

    2. Hello, I have an Asus laptop VivoBook S200E and I have the same problem.
      I installed on the hard disk but there is no way to get it started.
      If anyone knows how to fix it ..

  23. Could you please post the file in .iso? Because I want to try yumi (www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator) and this program can’t read files in .img, I need to get multiboot (Chromium OS and Android x86, http://www.android-x86.org) in the same usb stick.

    Thank you.

  24. Hi,

    I was running my system on Windows XP. I wanted to try installing Google OS (Chromium) using USB. While doing so, I guess I accidentally formatted my hard disk by installing commands to dev/sda (which is my 160 GB harddisk) and I am not able to boot Windows XP. Could you please let me know if Chromium formatted the entire hard disk or just the C drive (partition). Is there any way to recover data that is formatted?

    Please help!

    Regards,
    Bunny

  25. hi,

    I tried your build because hexxeh doesn’t seem to update it’s build anymore. I use a Thinkpad Edge E330, which works flawless with the hexxeh build but brings graphic errors (and a final freeze some minutes into a session). the graphic errors are hard to describe, it flickers, some read areas on the screen, some parts of the screen disappear, but reappear when the mouse moves over them. the graphic card is a intel HD4000.

    can you think of a reason or a point in the development process where these errors may have been introduced and which buld should work better?

    1. Hi. As ever, these are Vanilla bulds and I dont really do much more than build and run then on my Dell Mini and Dell D630. Both of which work fine (albeit with post install tweaks).

      I cannot really offer much more help really, sorry!

    2. Hi. I’ve installed the latest 64bit build on an Edge E520, and I’m wondering if you managed to get your wireless card working. I haven’t yet. Device: rtl8192ce.

    3. I checked the dmesg contents and get
      rtl8192cd: Using firmware rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin
      rtl8192ce 0000:08:00.0: Direct firmware load failed with error -2
      rtl8192ce 0000:08:00.0: Falling back to user helper
      rtlwifi: Firmware trlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin not available

  26. Hello, I use some chrome dev library for my chromium book. libpepflashplayer and libpdf work, but libffmpegsumo don’t work (can’t read some mp4 movie and can’t play mp3 sound). How I can’t enable mp3/mp4 codec on my chromium book ?
    Big thanks for daily-builds and update server !

  27. I saw your comment “Tested on Dell Studio 1555 with Intel 5100 AGN Wireless” at the bottom of the article.
    I also have a Dell Studio 1555 but once chromium boots my wireless card doesn’t show up…So there is no wifi to chose from ….
    How did you get your Dell Studio 1555 to work??
    I’ve tried the 223.45 MB 6-Aug Cx86OS-20130807010102.img.7z 227.39 MB 7-Aug
    and Cx86OS-20130512010101.img.7z 234.60 MB 12-May .
    Both were not able to get the wifi working.

    Let me know if this can be done please.

    1. Ah, thats a slight fib on my part. I started testing on the above kit, but now use a dell mini 9 and dell latitude 630 exclusively for testing…

      Sorry for the confusion

  28. Hi,
    When i try you builds on my laptop, i get the chromium boot logo but then it goes to a plain white screen afterwards. Do you have any idea about this problem?

    Thank You.

  29. I’ve got an eee pc 900a that I’d like to install this into. The issue I’m running into is that the internal “SSD” is only “4GB.” I put them in quotations because the SSD moves more like an slow class 2 SD card and the 4GB is more like 3.6GB. The installer fails at dd’ing the image to the drive. Is there any manual way to install this? Parted (and thus gparted) isn’t reading the partition table on the USB installer correctly and thus I’m unable to just copy the partitions and set up syslinux manually.
    Does the default installer just dd the whole USB partition table and partitions into the hard drive?

    1. I take that back… it may not be the space. It may be the drive.
      Got a “dd: ‘/dev/sda'” cannot seek: Invalid argument” error.

  30. Hello,

    Just wanted to say thank you for all your work and update server, i am running on a Toshiba C650 laptop with very little hardware problems, don’t think the NIC works but the wifi does so i’m happy. i am now convinced that i dont need a windows machine and will be buying a Chromebook as my next main machine. Thanks again.

  31. Hi Arnold, does it mean that the daily builds no longer offer support for the broadcom wireless chip anymore?

    Thanks 🙂

    1. For now yes.

      I have had some success with the driver (it loads but does nothing) when I change the compile options. If I can progress from that, Ill release a special build for everyone to use

  32. I have the version 32bits of 21st August. Thank you for that is a great job, but when i’m in the console mode, I can’t connect with chronos user neither root user. I tried facepunch, chrome, chromeos, chronos, dell1234 for each user.
    What is the correct root password or chronos password ?

  33. thank you so much for your chromium os builds. it works perfectly on and revives my aged laptop. could you please also add local user account, e.g. ‘administrator’, as per instructions here http://www.chromium.org/tips-and-tricks-for-chromium-os-developers#TOC-How-to-enable-a-local-user-account ? I understand there is a guest account, which does not record browsing history for easy access later. Also, access to google servers is not reliable/no always available where I live (take a guess, hint “third world country”)

  34. hi,

    just running the 3 sept Camd64OS on a usb stick on my lenovo z560 laptop.

    the monitor is showing as unknown display in settings and is limited to 1024×768. Wifi, trackpad, keyboard all going well.

    Is there anyway to over-ride the display settings – is there a configuration file somewhere? or do I need some drivers for it. The card in the laptop is an nvidia geforce 310m.

    thanks for any help

  35. I’m new to trying Chromium, but after a few hiccups, I got it installed on my ASUS X401U.

    A couple things I was wondering if you might be able to help with:

    I can’t get to the command line. Whenever I hit ([ Ctrl ] [ Alt ] [ F2 ]) to try and setup the update server, the screen just goes black. I can hit ([ Ctrl ] [ Alt ] [ F1 ]) to bring the screen back on, but can’t access the command line.

    I installed Chromium to my hard drive, and it’s quite laggy. Is it just my slow 5400 RPM hard drive that’s the problem?

    Thanks!!

    1. That should be fine since Im running on 5400s as well. Time for Google on the [ Ctrl ] [ Alt ] [ F2 ] problem tho since there’s a good few results that are wroth a look. Never seen it on any of my builds so possibly a graphics card problem?

      1. Thank you very much for the response.

        I believe I’m just suffering from some hardware incompatibilities. But, I’ve tried a few different Chromium builds, and yours is the first I’ve ever got to boot, so it was definitely a step forward. I commend you on the work you’re doing and providing for many users.

  36. Is there any workaround to get Google Drive to be integrated into the Files App? I tried looking for one online, and someone said it was a problem with the newer builds. (I update nearly every day via the Dev Server.) I even tried a fresh install on my laptop with your Cx86OS-20130914010101.img.7z build. While I can still access Google Drive from the specific app (only opens drive.google.com), the Files App integration would be great, if there were a workaround.

    Thanks!

  37. Your comment is awaiting moderation.
    Hi buddy i was actually using Hexxeh build and was successful in installing those flash,pdf,mp3 plugins too.
    After some search i came to know ur builds and nw trying them, the point is i wasnt able to install those plugins using same method as the whole screen blinked or flashed all the time..pls help me..is it possible to install those plugins in ur builds..

  38. I’m posting this here as this is the automatic build repository for Chromium OS.
    The default builds assume two copies of the rootfs, which is by default 2GB. This means that the default builds require at least 5GB on the internal hard drive. This is why so many people are getting the DD invalid argument error when they try to install on their 4GB SSD.

    On the Google Chrome OS group board the following was suggested:
    “… You can change these values at build time by changing the sizes in the base layout of partitions 3 and 5 to smaller ones (both are 2GiB right now). These are defined in /src/scripts/build_library/legacy_disk_layout.json. These are fed into write_gpt.sh / create_image for the minimum sizes. You might be able to get away with changing these rootfs partition sizes to 1GiB but it’s likely not to be that supported.”

    Is it possible to change partitions 3 and 5 to 1.5GB, which should leave plenty of space for various needs but still fit in 4GB? I’ll try to manually make the change in a build to test.

    1. Hi Dan

      I wont be changing from the defaults, sorry. I need to keep the builds as per specification.

      I am planning on getting another build server soon to start to inject drivers and suchlike to try to make a more amiable build. I may consider it then…

      Feel free to change yours however!

      1. Unfortunately I have never built an os before and dont have build servers etc. Just trying to install an OS. Is there anyone who can just gen a 4GB write_gpt.sh file for the daily build — one time only. I have everything else working, but the partitions are just too byzantine to get all the sizes correct.

        Thanks in advance. I promise to post the modified write_gpt.sh and chromeos_install scripts somewhere noticable so other 4GB installers can avoid all this.

        1. I have modified the chromeos-script to call /home/chronos/user/Downloads/write_gpt2.sh. If you want to install a later build to a 4GB drive,

          The revised chromeos-script is here: http://goo.gl/4ako9D
          The only mod is it points to /home/chronos/user/Downloads/write_gpt2.sh
          The revised write_gpt script (write_gpt2.sh) is here: http://goo.gl/0q7Ng6.

          Download these to /home/chronos/user/Downloads/write_gpt2.sh (the default directory if you login in as Guest). Note that Chromium appended “.txt” to the chromeos-install filename.

          Then CTL ALT F2 and login as “chronos”, password = “password”.
          Copy another required shell script to the Downloads directory:
          cp /usr/sbin/chromeos-common.sh to /home/chronos/user/Downloads
          Then
          sudo bash /home/chronos/user/Downloads/chromeos-install.txt.

          Note that if the non-root partitions change from the 9/16 build I used, the partition map may have to change.

          THanks

          1. Hey Dan,

            I pulled my Dell Mini 9 out of storage to try find some use for it and wanted to go with Chrome OS. I’m currently on an April 2013 build released from Dell and ran into the problems of installing onto my 4GB SSD. A post from the mydellmini forums back in 2011 from Paul Ryan suggested tweaking the chromeos-install file to allow an installation onto a 4GB drive. However, the build they were using back then differs greatly from the 2013 file as I couldn’t find the lines to modify in the file.

            I stumbled upon your post here and got as far as hitting y to go through with the installation.

            I get this after 512 bytes copied and 16384 bytes copied:
            dd: ‘/dev/sda’: cannot seek: Invalid Argument
            and showing 0 bytes copied for the 3rd copy status prompt.
            It goes into running a hw diagnostics test and I get this:
            Error SMART Values Read failed: scsi error aborted command
            Smartctl: SMART Read Values failed.

            === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
            SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

            SMART Error Log not supported
            SMART Self-test Log not supported
            Device does not support Selective Self Tests/Logging

            Any insight as to what happened? I’m whatever caused
            dd: ‘/dev/sda’: cannot seek: Invalid Argument
            to happen prevented this from working.

            As of now, you’re pretty much my closest bet for getting Chromium OS onto my 4GB Dell Mini 9, as the easier alternatives include dedicating a decent speed USB drive to the computer, or purchase a $75 unreliable 64GB Kingspec SSD or shell out $130 for a 64GB Runcore SSD, at which point I’d probably resort to OS X or Windows 8.

  39. Awesome But Is There Anyway to force-install it to MBR partition table as i can get this to boot by copying the EFI-SYSTEM to my internal HDD from the restored iso from a USB and setting it active then it will boot the USB and then i can install but i then have to boot GParted livecd to copy the EFI-SYSTEM from the internal HDD to the restored iso usb but formatted as MBR and it is very annoying as i keep losing it

  40. Great builds. Thank you Tony.
    I found some problems in Chromium OS: 1) the system does not respond to double tap the touchpad to drag the window or change the window size, 2) Google Drive does not work in App Files; 3) the Google Talk plugin available in builds does not work.
    Sorry my english.

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