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. Hi Arnold,

    I am having issues setting up WiFi on a Dell Latitude E5470 notebook which features the Intel AC-8260 WLAN chipset.

    running ‘dmesg | grep iwlwifi’ in a tty2 returns log entries indicating failure to load ucode (ENOENT). Yet when I check the existence of the ‘.ucode’ files in /lib/firmware I can see the

    iwlwifi-8000C-31.ucode

    Any clue please?

    Thank you,

    Ed-

  2. How do I turn it in developer mode? ESC + Refresh (f3) + Power is not working. Also enabling debugging features keeps failing.

      1. this works when booting from USB,
        but once i run `chromeos-install –dst /dev/sdb` it installs & boots fine from sdb..however, crosh doesn’t expose the ‘shell’-cmd anymore..its not in developer mode anymore :/
        Any advice?

  3. Hey Arnold,

    I’m having issues getting your images to boot on an older HP Pavilion desktop. I’ve narrowed it down to either the image being a UEFI image or the fact that it formats the drive to have a GPT partition table as opposed to MBR. On this particular computer, it won’t even boot past the HP splash screen. Any way you could help with this?

    1. Update: I flashed Ubuntu 17.04 to the flash drive I was using, and it worked just fine, so the problem isn’t with my flash drive or the way I’m flashing it.

    2. Try a different USB drive and/or different image writing software as some computers I found wont boot with some combinations! I have had problems none EFI booting. In one case boot started but stopped after 2 seconds and yesterday an image would not start to boot but worked in a newer EFI laptop it booted OK. I suspected the USB drive but Windows 10 image booted on all computers I tried. I usually use Win32image writer but have been using Etcher but writing the zip file did not work but unziping first did boot.

  4. Hey man, I’ve a question… It is possible to use the same flash drive with most than one computer without lose my google account configurations? I usually use my flash drive in public computers and everytime I log in I’ve to configure language and stuff…

  5. Hi, I am new to Chromium (and to this Chromium). I did what is described to install but when booting from USB, I kept ended up to my BIOS setup each time. I eventually figured out the EFI folder in the System Partition is empty. I am using Windows32DiskImager to burn on to USB drive. Any help as to what I am doing wrong would be appreciated.

  6. I’m wondering about the upgrade process. When you install COS to a hard drive, can you upgrade to a newer version? Or would you have to reinstall to do that? In other words, is the update server just for refreshing your current version, or is there a way to do a version upgrade from the hard drive?

  7. can u get google play store on Chromum os that’s the reason i want Chromum os in the first place also my Lenovo is slow as molasses and i know Linux works on it and runs fast it’s just kind of weird to use , use to windows but if Chromum works fat that’s even better and the play store would make it even better please let me know.

  8. ok i put Chromium on flash drive and it booted up fine but i have a touch screen so how or can i enable the touch screen and the auto rotate function in Chromium ?

  9. Hi, I made a bootable chrom os on a usb using you’r instructions but whenever i want to boot it to my laptop it does not boot, it just give me this sign “-” and stays like this until i restart the laptop and boot windows normally. Please help!! and thank you for your amazing work .

  10. I’ve tried installing the special build on a few different HP computers, but when I try to install from the command line, fdisk doesn’t find the hard drive. It only lists the USB as /dev/sda. Any idea how to find the hard drive?

  11. Howdy. I have downloaded one of the dailies denoted “CARMOS”, have written it to an 8GB USB stick, and have tried to use it with an ASUS Chromebook Flip (veyron_minnie). Nothing is displayed, although after a reboot and looking at the GPT in crosh, it seems to indicate that the boot was successful. Am I able to add rockchip support directly to the build?

  12. Hi Arnold,
    I’ve tried the last Chromium os special relase, and i’d like to mantain it on my device but I’ve some issues.
    My device is HP Pavilion x2 – 10-k000nl (ENERGY STAR) and the problem is that audio, web cam, battery icon and brightness regulation don’t work.
    I think that the cause of these problems is the missing of the driver, because even with windows I found this problem and I’ve solved installing Intel Chipset, Graphics, Camera and Audio Driver Pack from the HP Customer Support. Can you show me a version that can works for me? Or can you explain me if it’s possibile to install the corrcet kernel by myself?

  13. I have updated a small Acer Aspire One (N214) from 60 to 65 using the update button within the browser. No problem, the update went ahead. I performed a reboot as instructed. The machine now stops booting at the Chromium white screen. I can however reach the console without too much problem. Is there a way I can force the boot back onto the bank A (from the shell), which I assume still contains the older version?

  14. I’m trying to install the 64bit image into my 2013 chromebook pixel. I have dd the image to my USB drive (it results in two partitions, OEM, and State). When trying to boot via USB, nothing happens, it takes me back to the generic developer login. Any ideas on what is going on?

    1. Hi Andrea, when you state ‘dd the image to my USB drive’, have you used Unetbootin/Rufus/Win32imager or any other tool to write the image file to the USB stick? This is needed to make it a bootable stick and will make the right partitions. I have not seen the partitions you mention when creating my Chromium USB sticks.

  15. Just a thought – you may want to mention that the user will require a flash drive /bigger/ than 16 gig. The download size is deceiving – I was hoping for a compact size but ended up having to install on a 32gig flash drive.

  16. Hi, will these builds ever support android apps and google play compatibility? I recently heard of FydeOS, the evolution of Flint OS, and they managed to get the Play Store available. I even tested that build myself and apk installations and most apps from the google play work flawlessly. So, will this ever be ported to Arnoldthebat. Have a nice day

  17. So I’m trying to use the latest special build on an Asus ROG GL702VM (which ships with 16gb RAM, an Nvidia graphics card, and of course secure boot enabled by default), and I can’t get the USB to boot past the GRUB screen. I’ve tried both local and verified boot variants of image A, as well as the local image variant of B, but neither will boot. I’m just stuck with a black screen – no chromium logo, nothing. Can’t even use the alt+sysrq+REISUB combination to get the system to restart – only forcing it off via the power key does the trick. This is a problem both a recent daily/weekly build and the special one. Any ideas?

    (and yes, I did disable secure boot in the BIOS before booting.)

      1. Any chance you’d know if the driver(s) used provide support for the GeForce GTX 1060 6gb variant? I know it’s the one that ships with my laptop, and I think Chromium OS would really fly on it.

  18. Hey Arnold,

    I have a quick question related to the mouse acceleration – are you officially doing any changes to disable mouse acceleration(same goes for scrolling acceleration) in your builds?

    Thanks for your hard work!
    Cornel.

  19. Hello!
    I love your project. But i have issue with my Lenovo Miix2 10. There is rt5672 sound chip in my device. And i can not set it up. Can you help?

    Regards,
    Nik V.

  20. Just installed Chromium OS build 67.0.3396.78 (Developer Build) (64-bit) to a usb stick for portability. Ctrl-alt-f2 key combo not workimg to bring up shell, as to execute updates. Any help on getting shell up?

  21. Hi,
    I have just installed Vanilla ChromiumOS onto my laptop.
    However I am having a problem with videos not playing on sites such as twitter and facebook but are playing on youtube.
    Is there any way to fix this?

    Thanks

  22. I have a Samsung XE500T1C-HA2US. I have created the USB boot stick and it has booted as expected. The issue at the moment is the USB keyboard does not appear to be recognized so I have not found a way to select the USB stick as the boot device. Any suggestions?

  23. Is there an image that will work with many of the new RK3399 boards avail as they would seem to be more a less a Arm Chromebook on a board.
    I tried with the Rock64pro but it seems to fail to boot?

  24. Hello Arnold, can I ask to expand support for nvidia graphics cards, I have nvidia geforce 9800 gt, but 69 build has graphics glitches, in chrome: / / gpu writes that hardware acceleration does not work and a few more graphics functions, I assume that the problem is the incompatibility of the system and graphics card, it’s sad

  25. Ive successfully Installed onto USB and SDCard but when booting I get a list of 4 options

    Local A
    Local B and so on

    it then auto boots into local A and then nothing happens?

    What am I doing wrong?

    And why cant it boot straight in without that menu?

    Thanks in advance

  26. Hello Arnold. First of all, thanks for all the work on uploading the images files. I have been trying to make an booteable usb drive but I got the following issue. When I press “write” in the Win32 Image Writer, after it finishes, It just randomly generates multiple partitions on the drive, that I cannot format or merge, (I could solve that using some commands anyway) I tried that first, with a 4GB usb drive, in fat32 and NTFS, same problem. Then I thought it might be because it’s too small. So I tried with a 16GB usb drive, using Fat32 and NTFS, but I got the same problem. I also tried using Rufus, but I still got the same problem, USB gets a lot of partitions that in order to clean I have to do it through commands. Any suggestions about that? Do I have to use a different file system? Thanks in advance.

      1. Though i didn’t test to boot the USB device i managed to replicate what the other person has done, by replicate i mean it happened to me as well.
        Win32Image and Rufus 2.18 (Version 3.2 fails to scan the image so i can’t even try writing it using it) both write the image but at the end they create multiple drives that are have from a few MBs to absolute nothing. I managed to fix the USB drive with some commands but here are a few screenshots that showcase the outcome:

        https://i.imgur.com/WZkRA4r.png
        https://i.imgur.com/FAwNwlJ.png

        Tomorrow i will try to boot from the USB device as I’m having some sleep deprivation.

    1. If you just want to clean up the partitions on the USB drive you can use a partition manager but the easiest way is to install the “Chromebook Recovery Utility” on a Chrome browser and select “Erase Recovery Media”! I have used the utility to write to USB drive but you have to rename the file to .bin.

  27. Hi,
    I just installed this on my device. Everything seems to be working fine, except chrome://flags does not work. The page loads properly in guest mode, but doesn’t do anything, and when logged in, it doesn’t load properly at all. Also, editing the /usr/local/chrome_dev.conf to add command line args doesn’t work.

  28. will there be linux apps (crostini) support? tried installing for linux apps today but didn’t seem to be present in latest special build and i can’t enable the crostini flag.

  29. How can i turn of the guest mode. in the settings menu i can’t turn off this function

    is there an other way to disable the guest mode

  30. Hi buddy thanks for the great work. I was wondering if you plan to build a new special build now that we have v68 stable?

  31. i have dell precision m4700 and i used the latest build on ur website
    but it didn’t boot
    i used all possible actions
    i used rufus, etcher,win2flash
    and non works with me
    i even used EFI,GPT, MPR
    and the usb is not booting ??
    why
    is there is way to do that

  32. Hello, I would like to request a newer chromium os build for x86 platform, its been a year since it was updated, and I was wondering is it possible to build a newer version of it?

  33. Hi.
    I can’t start CARM on chromebook xe303c12. When ctrl-U-ing the netbook just beeps.

    I tried both with dd and with win32 image writer. Sums are correct. Can you help me with this?

    Sorry if this is a double post, chrome os crashed just after pressing “post comment”

  34. Please Help me decide which Chromium OS to pick! I need one w/ the WiFi on it, all the latest features, Adobe Flash, & automatic updates. I need it for my HP Chromebook 14 because Google’s support ends this year & I would like to replace it w/ Chromium OS. Please help.

  35. They don’t seem to work. 3 Partitions keep getting made and I think it’s keeps booting to the wrong partition. Do you have any IOS’s of those disk images? I think ISO’s would work better for me then IMG’s.

  36. For Android you put in the framework, but all necessary files are missing in
    /etc/init
    /opt/google/containers/android/
    /usr/local/Android_Images/
    No wonder Android not working…
    I tried to put in the files manually, but it ends up saying no space left, sneaky #Google 🤪🐸

      1. I got this working on a flash drive and it boots up with the chromium logo, but when it goes to setup, I have no wifi so I can’t set it up. Going to the terminal and entering a command brings up a error that the device isn’t a chromebook. Is this really chromium os or a pirated version of chrome or?

        1. Chromium OS is the open source project, used primarily by developers, with code that is available for anyone to checkout, modify, and build.
          Google Chrome OS is the Google product that OEMs ship on Chromebooks for general consumer use.

    1. Just dowload Chromeboo recovery Utility from Chrome Store and select the gear icon then your Chrome image and install to USB.

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