Chrome OS

Introduction

Chrome OS, also known as Chromium OS, is an operating system that is a web browser. It is based on the Chromium Web Browser, (a.k.a. Google Chrome Web Browser) and Ubuntu Karmic Koala.

Both Chromium OS and Chromium Web Browser are free. They are also open source (meaning that anyone can download the source code and inspect or change it). You can download either from chromium.org. Chrome OS is not finished yet however so you cannot get an installation package or a CD from anywhere. Instead, it has to be compiled from source code. There is only one problem, it has to be compiled on a computer with a 64 bit processor which I do not have. It also needs to be compiled in a regular Ubuntu Linux install which I haven't taken the time to install (so far). You can get Ubuntu (free and open source) from the Ubuntu website. When you compile Chrome OS you end up with a binary disk image.

There are three ways to use Chrome OS, you can run it in a Virtual Machine, you can boot it from a USB drive, or you can manually install the disk image to your hard drive. I use VirtualBox for running virtual machines. VirtualBox runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux and it is free and open source.

Here are some Screenshots I took of Chrome OS: Screenshots

Getting Chrome OS

There are several places to download a compiled Chrome OS image (assuming you don't have your own). Some of the sites have two images, one for a USB drive and one for a virtual machine (images made for a virtual machine are usually made for VMWare which is not free or open source 1)), others have only a USB image. I have downloaded both types. I haven't had any luck running the images compiled for a virtual machine, but don't despair, you can easily convert a USB image to work with a virtual machine.

I haven't had any luck using the newer builds of Chrome OS in VirtualBox, the ones I have downloaded seem to get stuck after having booted partway. They get stuck on a black screen with a blinking cursor (not a terminal). They do work from a USB drive however, they just seem to run slower as compared to older builds also running from a USB drive.

Downloading the Compressed Image

If you want to run Chrome OS in VirtualBox you can just download my premade VirtualBox Application (I.E. preconfigured virtual machine). It should work on Windows, Mac, or Linux.  See the "Using Chrome OS with VirtualBox" section to learn how to use it (you should still read the other stuff though).

• • Premade VirtualBox Application, Chrome OS Cherry version (314 MiB): http://www.filedropper.com/chromeos-cherry

I have downloaded three Chrome OS Images, two from Hexxeh's site, hexxeh.net, and one from gdgt.com. Hexxeh's Chrome OS "Flow," as he calls it, is the newest image I have tried. Flow will run from a USB drive or a hard drive, although since flow is Hexxeh's newest build it does not work in VirtualBox, it just gets stuck. Flow can be downloaded directly from Hexxeh's site, or indirectly as a Torrent.

One of Hexxeh's earlier builds, Chrome OS "Cherry," is the build I have used the most. Cherry seems to work the best out of the builds I have tried and it also works with VirtualBox. Since Cherry is an older build, Hexxeh's site does not have a direct link to it. I was not able to find (or guess) a link to download Cherry hosted directly from Hexxeh's site, but I did find the torrent for cherry still hosted on his site. You will need a BitTorrent Client to download the torrent. I use Free Download Manager (free and open source) for downloading torrents (and other stuff too).

The last version, the build from gdgt.com, is almost identical to Chrome OS Cherry, it is just slightly older. Gdgt does require you to make an account on their site to download their image.

• • Chrome OS Flow, all versions: http://chromeos.hexxeh.net

  • Chrome OS Cherry, Torrent: http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/ChromeOS-Cherry.torrent

  • Chrome OS Gdgt, account required: http://gdgt.com/google/chrome-os/download/

1) Well actually there is a free limited version of VMWare, but it can only view virtual machines, you can't make your own

Extracting the Raw image from the Compressed Archive

Now you need to extract the raw .img file from the compressed archive. If the compressed archive is a .zip file you might be able to extract it with Windows. If you can't, or if it is some other type of archive such as a .tar.gz archive, you will need some other archive software. Some free ones are IZArc and 7-zip

Running Chrome OS

If you use VirtualBox you can run Chrome OS concurrently with your normal operating system. If you want to use Chrome OS natively instead you can run it from a USB drive or a hard drive. If you run Chrome OS from a USB drive you can run it without affecting your current operating system. If you want to put Chrome OS on your hard drive you can copy it from a USB drive onto your hard drive. You can also manually copy the raw image file onto your hard drive with a direct disk editor and a partition manager but I don't tell how to do that.

All the instructions on this page are based on Windows but many of the procedures are the same or similar for Mac or Linux. Many of the programs are cross-platform as well, meaning that they will run on Windows, Mac, or Linux. There is a extra section at the end of the links section for help installing Chrome OS to a USB drive. 

Using Chrome OS With VirtualBox

To use Chrome OS on VirtualBox, you will first need to download and install VirtualBox. There are two options for running Chrome OS on VirtualBox, Use the preconfigured VirtualBox Application (I.E. preconfigured virtual machine), or make your own Chrome OS virtual machine. If you want to use my preconfigured VirtualBox Application all you have to do is import it. If you decide to make your own virtual machine instead, you will need to convert the Chrome OS image from a raw .img file to a virtual hard disk. This can be done from the command prompt with VBoxManage. You will then need to create a new Virtual Machine and add the virtual disk image to it.

Installing VirtualBox

First you need to download and install VirtualBox. You can download VirtualBox from virtualbox.org. Run the installer and follow the prompts to install VirtualBox.

Importing the Preconfigured VirtualBox Application

Once you have downloaded and unzipped the VirtualBox Application you can Import it.

• 1. Start VirtualBox

  2. Click File > Import Appliance... in the menu at the top.

  3. Click the Choose... button.

  4. Choose the .ovf file from the folder you extracted the VirtualBox Application into.

  5. Click Next.

  6. Change any of the options you want to, for example you may want to double click on RAM and type in a larger or smaller amount.

  7. Click Finish when you are done changing the options.

  8. VirtualBox will now verify and install the Virtual Appliance, It will probably take several minutes to finish.

Making your own Virtual Machine

First we will use VBoxManage to convert the raw image to a virtual hard drive, then we will add it to a new virtual machine.

Converting the Raw Image

You will need to open a Command Prompt to convert the image. You can get to it several ways depending on your version of Windows. The most universal way is to open it from the Start Menu. Click on Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt to get to it. You can also open it by clicking on Start > Run and typing cmd, then pressing ok. Now that you have opened a Command Prompt you can convert the raw image.

• 1. You first need to change to the directory that VirtualBox is in, type:

     1. cd "\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox"

     2. If you have a older version of VirtualBox and get an error you may need to type this instead:

     3. cd "\Program Files\Sun\VirtualBox"

  2. (If you are curious cd stands for Change Directory)

  3. Now you can do the actual conversion:

• • 1. vboxmanage convertfromraw {imgnamepath} {vdinamepath}

• 4. where {imgnamepath} is replaced with the name and path to the .img file, and {vdinamepath} is replaced with the name and path where you want the .vdi (Virtual Disk Image File) to be made. For example, If your .img file was at C:\Chrome\CherryImage.img and you wanted the .vdi to be made at C:\VDIs\CherryDrive.vdi, you would type:

• • 1. vboxmanage convertfromraw "C:\Chrome\CherryImage.img" "C:\VDIs\CherryDrive.vdi"

• 5. The C:\VDIs directory must already exist for this to work. Notice also the quotes, '"', around the names and paths, these are required if there are any spaces in the filename or path.

  6. Wait for vboxmanage to finish converting the image and then you can close the command prompt by typing

• • 1. exit

Making the Virtual Machine

Now we need to create a new Virtual Machine. We will add the Virtual Hard Drive we just made as the main disk.

• 1. Open VirtualBox.

  2. Click New.

  3. Click Next.

  4. Type in a name for the virtual machine such as "Chrome OS".

  5. Change Operating System to "Linux".

  6. Change Version to either 'Ubuntu" or "Linux 2.6".

  7. Click Next.

  8. Choose the amount of memory to use, you should probably use 256MB+ unless you don't have enough to start with. Usually more is better (to a point).

  9. Click Next.

  10. We don't want to create a new hard disk, we want to use the one we converted. Choose "Use existing hard disk".

  11. Click the folder icon to choose a virtual hard disk.

  12. Click add and choose the .vdi virtual disk image that we converted earlier, C:\VDIs\CherryDrive.vdi in the example.

  13. Choose the drive we just added to the list and click Select.

  14. Click Next.

  15. Make sure everything looks right and then click Finish.

Running the Virtual Machine

Running a virtual machine is easy. First start VirtualBox. Then click the virtual machine. Then click Start.

Using Chrome OS With a USB Drive

You will need a 2GB or larger USB drive for Chrome OS Flow, 1GB or larger for earlier builds.

Installing Chrome OS onto a USB Drive

To install the Chrome OS Image on your USB drive you will have to physically write it to the drive. To do this you can use Image Writer (free and open source).

WARNING: this will erase everything on your USB drive! make sure nothing important is on it!

• 1. Make sure your USB drive is plugged in and working.

  2. Make sure that your USB drive is large enough, 2GB+ for flow, 1GB+ for others.

  3. Start Image Writer (there may be a few error messages saying that it can't read from a device, just click ok and ignore them, they are for other drives).

  4. Click the folder icon and choose the Chrome OS Image. Make sure that it is a .img file, not a .zip or .tar.gz file.

  5. Click the Write button.

  6. Wait for Image Writer to finish copying the image, Image Writer will say "Done" in the status bar at the bottom left when it is finished.

Note: If Image Writer doesn't work for some reason you can use physdiskwrite (free) to write the image in rawmode.

Running Chrome OS from a USB Drive

To boot Chrome OS from a USB drive you will have to boot your computer from the USB drive. Newer computers automatically support this, other computers may have to use a helper CD to boot from USB.

Booting with USB support

Plug in your USB drive and turn on your computer. It might boot to USB automatically or you may have to press some key to choose USB. For example, on mine it says to press F12 to choose the boot device. If I press F12 while the message is still showing but before Windows starts booting, a menu comes up. I can then choose to boot from the hard drive, the network (PXE), the floppy drive, the CD drive, or USB. You might need to change the boot order in the setup utility if your computer doesn't automatically boot to USB and you can't boot to USB from the menu.

Booting without USB support

You will need to make a helper CD to boot from USB. We will use PLoP Bootmanager.

• 1. Download PloP Bootmanager from www.plop.at (it's probably the first link on the page).

  2. Extract plopbt.iso from the .zip file.

  3. Open your disk burning software (I like InfraRecorder, it's free and open source).

  4. Choose the "Burn Disk Image" (or similar) option.

  5. Select plopbt.iso as the source image.

  6. Click on "Burn to Disk" or the equivalent (don't forget to put in a blank disc first).

Reboot your computer with the PLoP CD in the drive, make sure your USB drive plugged in also. Your computer should automatically boot from the CD. If it doesn't, see the above section about booting with USB support, just choose the boot from CD option instead. Once you boot from the CD there should be a menu of options to continue booting from. Choose the option to continue booting from USB. (PLoP running from a CD is essentially just a chain boot loader/boot manager)

Copying Chrome OS to a Hard Drive from a USB Drive

There are two options for copying Chrome OS to your computer's hard drive. You can multiboot Chrome OS and another operating system such as Windows or Linux, or you can install Chrome OS to your hard drive from a USB drive running Chrome OS. The second is easier to do but it will wipe out everything currently on the hard drive and replace it with Chrome OS.

Replace with Chrome OS

Copying Chrome OS to your hard drive as the only operating system is quite easy. You just run a script inside Chrome OS while it is running from a USB drive.

WARNING: This will completely erase EVERYTHING on your hard drive!!! Make sure nothing important is on it!

• 1. Boot Chrome OS from a USB drive.

  2. Log in.

  3. Press Ctrl+Alt+T to open a terminal.

  4. Type

     1. /usr/sbin/chromeos-install

  5. Follow the prompts.

Multiboot Chrome OS with another OS

Copying Chrome OS to your hard drive along With another operating system is a little harder, but don't let that discourage you. We will use GParted (free and open source) to do most of the work. First we resize the main partition to make space on the hard drive (unless there is already enough unpartitioned space), and copy the two Chrome OS partitions from the USB drive to the hard drive. Next we copy the Master Boot Record to a file to use with boot.ini, the Windows boot manager configuration file. We then go back to Windows and add Chrome OS to boot.ini.

Making a GParted Live CD

First we will make a GParted Live CD. If your computer doesn't have a CD drive for some reason you can also use GParted Live USB/PXE/HDD.

• 1. Download the GParted Live CD Image from Sourceforge.

  2. Open your disk burning software (I like InfraRecorder, it's free and open source)

  3. Choose the "Burn Disk Image" (or similar) option.

  4. Select the GParted .iso file you just downloaded as the source image.

  5. Click on "Burn to Disk" or the equivalent (don't forget to put in a blank disc first).

Make space for Chrome OS

Now we will check and see if there is enough unpartitioned space for Chrome OS, if not we will resize the main partition to make space for Chrome OS.

WARNING: This can POTENTIALLY mess up your hard drive, however, it is UNLIKELY to do so! Be careful!!!

• 1. Plug in your USB Drive with Chrome OS on it and put the GParted Live CD in the CD drive.

  2. Reboot your computer, it should automatically boot from the GParted Live CD. If not, see the above section about "Booting with USB support" under "Running Chrome OS from a USB Drive", Just choose the boot from CD option instead.

  3. Press the Enter key at all three prompts, when GParted is finished booting it should look something like this: 

• 1. (Optional) I like to maximize GParted, you don't have to but it makes it easier to use.

  2. Click the menu in the upper right to choose the Hard Drive you want to put Chrome OS on. /dev/sda (or /dev/hda) is the first hard drive, /dev/sdb is the second, etc... There should be at least two drives, Your main hard drive, and your Chrome OS USB drive. If you have more than one hard drive (or if you are using GParted from a USB drive) then there will be more drives. Make sure you choose the right drive, not the Chrome OS USB drive (or the GParted USB drive if you are using that). You can usually tell which drive is which by the size of the disk and/or the labels on each partition on the disk. On mine, /dev/sda is the main hard drive that I want to put Chrome OS on. /dev/sdb is the USB drive that I am copying Chrome OS from. Here's a Screenshot (/dev/sda is a little disk since I tested this in a virtual machine):

• 1. Look on the right end of the partition map along the top and see if there is enough unallocated space (gray section), 2GB+ for flow, 1GB+ for others.

     1. • If there is not enough unallocated space or if you want extra space for Chrome OS then continue with the next step.

        • If there is enough unallocated space skip to the "Copy the Chrome OS Partitions" section below.

  2. Click on your main partition (or another partition if you want to use it to make space instead and you know it's safe to use that partition).

  3. Click on the "Resize/Move" button

  4. Drag the Slider to the left to make space for Chrome OS. The bottom spinner shows how much unpartitioned space there will be after the partition. The unpartitioned space is displayed in megabytes so you will need 2000+ for Flow, or 1000+ for other builds.

• 1. Click on Resize/Move.

  2. Click Apply.

  3. Click Apply when the "Are you sure" dialog pops up.

  4. Wait for GParted to resize the partition.

  5. Click Close when it says it is finished resizing the partition.

  6. Leave GParted open and continue on to the "Copy the Chrome OS Partitions" section below. If you accidentally closed GParted double click on the GParted icon on the Desktop.

Copy the Chrome OS Partitions

Now we will Copy the Chrome OS partitions over to your hard drive. If you already closed GParted double click on the GParted icon on the Desktop to reopen it.

WARNING: This can POTENTIALLY mess up your hard drive, however, it is UNLIKELY to do so! Be careful!!!

• 1. Switch to the USB drive that has Chrome OS on it.

  2. Click on the first partition, the "C-STATE" partition, and then click Copy.

  3. Go back to the drive on which you are installing Chrome OS.

  4. Click the unallocated space on the right end of the partition map along the top.

  5. Click Paste.

  6. (Optional) If you have more than the minimum amount of free space required for Chrome OS , you can drag the right end of the slider further right to give Chrome OS extra space. Don't forget to leave space for the other partition!

  7. Click Paste.

  8. Switch to the USB drive that you are copying Chrome OS from.

  9. Click on the second partition this time, the "C-ROOT" partition, and click Copy.

  10. Go back to the drive on which you are installing Chrome OS.

  11. Click the unallocated space in the partition map to the right of the "C-STATE" partition

  12. Click Paste.

  13. If you can, drag the right end of the slider further over to the right to give Chrome OS some more space. It's ok to use up the rest of the space.

  14. Important: If you did not give Chrome OS more space in the previous step (step 13), make sure to uncheck the "Round to cylinders" checkbox! This will keep GParted from rounding off the partition size slightly too small for the data to fit (and creating an error when GParted copies the data). This problem seems to only affect this partition, it doesn't affect the "C-STATE" partition we already copied.

  15. Click Paste.

  16. Your partitions should now look something like this:

• 1. If something got messed up click Undo (several times if needed) and fix it.

  2. Now click Apply.

  3. Click Apply when the "Are you sure" dialog pops up.

  4. Wait for GParted to copy the partitions.

  5. Click Close when GParted is finished copying both partitions.

  6. Leave GParted open and continue on to the "Copy the Master Boot Record to a File" section below. If you accidentally closed GParted double click on the GParted icon on the Desktop.

Copy the Master Boot Record to a File

Now we need to make a Copy of the MBR to use with boot.ini, the Windows boot manager configuration file. We will first temporarily mark the main Chrome OS partiton as the boot partition. Then we will Mount the main drive so we can copy the MBR to a file on it. Next we will copy the MBR to a file with dd, we copy it to the same file twice. The first time we will copy the whole MBR from the Chrome OS USB drive to a file. The second time we copy only the partition infomation section of the MBR to the file, but this time it's from the main hard drive that we copied Chrome OS to. This gets written on top of the partition information from the USB drive. This will leave us with a file that contains the Chrome OS MBR code and the partition information from the main hard drive (with the main Chrome OS partition marked as the boot partition). We can then have the Windows boot manager use this file as the MBR to boot from when it wants to start Chrome OS. This way it will use the code from Chrome OS's MBR to load Chrome OS from the Chrome OS partition(s) we copied.

Before we can copy the MBR to a file though we will need to use GParted. If you already closed GParted double click on the GParted icon on the Desktop to reopen it.

WARNING: This can potentially mess up your hard drive, but only if you mistype something! Be careful!!!

• 1. Make sure you are on the hard drive you just copied Chrome OS to.

  2. Make a note of which drive it is, in this case /dev/sda

  3. Also make a note of the partition marked as the "boot" partition, we will need this information again later. The boot partition is usually the first partition, but not always!

• • 1.  

    2. in this case it is /dev/sda1.

• 1. Switch to the drive you copied Chrome OS from, the USB drive.

  2. Make a note of which drive it is, in this case /dev/sdb

  3. Switch back to the drive onto which you copied Chrome OS, the main hard drive.

  4. Right click the "C-ROOT" partition.

  5. Click Manage Flags.

  6. Check the "Boot" flag. This will set "C-ROOT" as the boot partition.

  7. Click Close.

  8. Double Click the Terminal icon to open it, you may need to restore (i.e. un-maximize) GParted to be able to see the desktop.

  9. Now we will make a directory on which to mount the main partition. Type:

     1. mkdir bt

  10. Now we will mount the partition. Type:

• • 1. sudo mount {partition} bt

• 11. where {partition} is your main partition, most likely the partition that was originally marked as the boot partition. In this case you would type:

• • 1. sudo mount /dev/sda1 bt

• 12. Now we will actually create the MBR file. We will call it CHROMEBOOT.BIN. To make it type:

• • 1. dd if={drive} of=bt/CHROMEBOOT.BIN count=1

• 13. where {drive} is the USB drive, in this case /dev/sdb. So you would type:

• • 1. dd if=/dev/sdb of=bt/CHROMEBOOT.BIN count=1

• 14. Now we will copy the partition information. Type:

• • 1. dd if={drive} of=bt/CHROMEBOOT.BIN  bs=1 count=73 seek=439 skip=439

• 15. but this time {drive} is the main hard drive, the one you copied Chrome OS to. In this case it is /dev/sda, so in this case you would type:

• • 1. dd if=/dev/sda of=bt/CHROMEBOOT.BIN bs=1 count=73 seek=439 skip=439

• 16. Now we will unmount the main partition. Type:

• • 1. sudo umount bt

• 17. Close the terminal by typing:

• • 1. exit

• 18. Back in GParted, right click on the partition that was originally marked as the "boot" partition, in this case /dev/sda1

  19. Click Manage Flags.

  20. Check the "Boot" flag. This sets the boot flag back to how it was originally.

  21. Click Close.

  22. Close GParted.

  23. Double click the exit icon.

  24. Choose whether to shutdown or reboot your computer and then click ok.

  25. Wait a minute for GParted Live to unload everything and then take out the CD (you can take out the USB drive too).

  26. Press Enter, in a few seconds GParted Live will either turn off or reboot your computer depending on which choice you selected.

  27. Continue on to the "Add Chrome OS to boot.ini" section below.

Add Chrome OS to boot.ini

Now we will add Chrome OS to boot.ini so the Windows boot manager will have Chrome OS as one of the boot menu options.

• 1. Start up Windows.

  2. Open My Computer.

  3. Double click on Drive C: (unless your computer boots from another drive).

  4. Set Windows Explorer to show hidden files (unless you already have):

     1. Click Tools > Folder Options... in the menu at the top.

     2. Click the View tab along the top.

     3. Check the box beside "Display the contents of system folders". Uncheck the boxes beside "Hide extensions for known file types", and "Hide Protected operating system files". If it complains just click yes, you are sure. Also change  the Hidden files and folders option to "Show hidden files and folders".

• • 1. Click Ok.

• 1. Right Click boot.ini and click Properties.

  2. Uncheck the Read Only checkbox and click Ok.

• 1. Double Click boot.ini to open it in Notepad.

  2. Add a new line at the end of the file under the [operating systems] section that says:

     1. C:\CHROMEBOOT.BIN="Chrome OS"

  3. You can put something else other than "Chrome OS" if you want but it still needs to be in quotes. boot.ini should now look something like this:

• 1. Click File > Save in the menu at the top.

  2. Close Notepad.

  3. Right Click boot.ini and click Properties.

  4. Recheck the Read Only checkbox and click Ok.

  5. (Optional) Rehide hidden files

     1. Click Tools > Folder Options... in the menu at the top.

     2. Click the View tab along the top.

     3. Uncheck the box beside "Display the contents of system folders". Recheck the boxes beside "Hide extensions for known file types", and "Hide Protected operating system files". Also change Hidden files and folders to "Do not show hidden files and folders".

     4. Click ok.

  6. Restart your computer and choose the Chrome OS option from the menu and see if it works :)

Tips, Tricks, and Links

This section has some tips and tricks as well as some links to sites that have more tips, tricks, and howtos.

Tricks

These are some tricks that I have come up with and/or modified from other sites.

Turn Chrome OS Off Properly

To properly turn Chrome OS off press the power button once, don't hold it. Chrome OS will turn itself off after a few seconds. You can also type sudo shutdown -h now in a terminal, see Login with the Default Username and Password below for the password.

Log in without a Internet Connection

If you can't login normally since you don't have a internet connection you have two options. You can temporarily plug in a Ethernet cable and login normally to configure the internet. If you can't do that you can temporarily login with the default username and password (see below).

Login With the Default Username and Password

The default username and password is facepunch. You can use that at the login screen as well as for sudo in the terminal. I didn't choose the username and password by the way.

How to get to a Terminal when VirtualBox won't let you

Sometimes on certain computers VirtualBox (or the host operating system) captures the Ctrl + Alt + T key combination and doesn't let it get to Chrome OS. If that happens you can't get to a terminal the normal way. Here is a workaround.

• 1. Go to any webpage, it doesn't matter which one.

  2. Click the Page icon and Save Page As..., or press Ctrl + S

  3. Save the page as whatever.deb, for example I usually save it as Shell.deb. Make sure that there is no other extension such as .htm or .php, only the .deb extension.

  4. Click to open the saved page.

  5. Type I and press Enter to install the "package", don't worry, since this isn't a valid package it won't install anything.

  6. When it asks for the command used to become root type

     1. xterm;

  7. this tricks the package manager into running xterm, don't forget the semicolon at the end.

  8. Type exit when you are done, if you want to do this again you can probably start at step 4.

Add Packages from Ubuntu Karmic Koala

apt, the package manager Chrome OS uses is missing some files it needs. We will add them.

• 1. Open a terminal with Ctrl + Alt + T, If you can't see the above section about opening a terminal when VirtualBox won't let you.

  2. Make the filesystem writable:

     1. sudo mount -rw -o remount /

  3. see the "login With the Default Username and Password" section above for the password.

  4. Now we need to make the directories the files go in, type:

• • 1. sudo mkdir -p /var/cache/apt/archives/partial

    2. sudo mkdir -p /var/log/apt

    3. sudo mkdir -p /var/cache/debconf

• 5. Now we make the config.dat file for debconf:

• • 1. sudo touch /var/cache/debconf/config.dat

• 6. (Optional?) Make it writable:

• • 1. sudo chmod a+w /var/cache/debconf/config.dat

• 7. Now we make the apt sources file:

• • 1. sudo touch /etc/apt/sources.list

• 8. Make it writable:

• • 1. sudo chmod a+w /etc/apt/sources.list

• 9. Now we add the repository URL to sources.list:

• • 1. echo deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu karmic main restricted > /etc/apt/sources.list

• 10. Now we update apt to match the repository:

• • 1. sudo apt-get update

Now you can add packages by typing sudo apt-get install {packagename}.

Increase the Display Resolution in VirtualBox

When you run Chrome OS in VirtualBox it runs with a very low display resolution, 800x600 to be exact. It only has this problem in VirtualBox because it thinks that is the highest supported resolution. You can set it higher by telling it that yes, it really can run at a higher resolution. To do this we will edit xorg.conf and set it to run at 1024x768, a more reasonable resolution. If you know how to use vi you can use that to add the text instead.

• 1. Open a terminal with Ctrl + Alt + T, If you can't see the above section about opening a terminal when VirtualBox won't let you.

  2. Make the filesystem writable:

     1. sudo mount -rw -o remount /

  3. see the "login With the Default Username and Password" section above for the password.

  4. Now we need to add two new sections to xorg.conf. Type this exactly, pressing enter at the end of each line:

• • 1. sudo cat >> /etc/X11/xorg.conf << endmod

    2. Section "Monitor"

    3.   Identifier  "Monitor"

    4.   HorizSync   30-60

    5.   VertRefresh 74-78

    6. EndSection

    7. Section "Screen"

    8.   Identifier "Screen"

    9.   Monitor    "Monitor"

    10. EndSection

    11. endmod

• 5. Reboot.

Keep Chrome OS from Complaining about Reopening Tabs

Chrome OS has a bug, it will always complain that you shut it down incorrectly. It does this even when you did shut it down properly. If you go to the basics tab of the settings page you can choose what to do on startup. There are three options. If you have chosen the default option, reopening the tabs that were open last, Chrome OS will complain. If you set it to one of the other two options instead it won't complain.

Links

Here are some links to other sites with more tips, tricks, and howtos.

Tips and Tricks from Hexxeh's Wiki

These are tips and tricks on Hexxeh's Wiki. I edited some things on it too.

• • Keyboard Shortcuts: http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/wiki/doku.php?id=keyboardcommands

  • Faq: http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/wiki/doku.php?id=faq

  • Tips and Tricks: http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/wiki/doku.php?id=tips_tricks

Installing Chrome OS onto a USB drive in Mac or Linux

• • Mac: http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/wiki/doku.php?id=mac_instructions

  • Linux: http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/wiki/doku.php?id=linux_instructions