Installing Chrubuntu on the Acer Chromebook C720P

Chrubuntu is not real Ubuntu--it uses a modified ChromeOS kernel, so it won't run VirtualBox. But it's easy to try if you want to.

Entering Developer Mode

Power on your Chromebook. ChromeOS starts.

To enter developer mode press the following key combination:

Esc + Refresh + Power Button

(The refresh button is the 4th button from the left at the top and looks like a curly arrow).

Upon restart, a "scary screen" appears, saying "Chrome OS is missing or damaged".

Press Ctrl+D. From now on you need to press Ctrl+D every time you launch ChromeOS.

It says "To turn OS verification OFF, press ENTER".

Press Enter.

Now it says "OS verification is OFF".

After 20 seconds it beeps and says "Your system is transitioning to Developer Mode."

After 6 minutes, the "OS Verification is OFF" message appears again, there are three beeps, and the Chromebook restarts.

Now it says "OS verification is OFF".

Press Ctrl+D Chrome OS starts.

Enabling Developer BIOS and USB Boot

Don't log in to ChromeOS.

Press CTRL+ALT+=> (=> is the forward arrow where the F2 key would be on a PC, that is, above the "3" key).

Log in as chronos. No password is needed.

Execute these commands:

shell

sudo crossystem dev_boot_usb=1

sudo crossystem dev_boot_legacy=1

set_gbb_flags.sh 0×489
Hold down the power button to turn the Chromebook off.

Installing Ubuntu 15.04

Insert a Ubuntu 15.04 bootable USB drive and turn the power on again.

The prompt says "SeaBIOS" and then "Press ESC for boot menu".

Press Esc.

Press the number corresponding to your install USB.

When the little Ubuntu man appears at the bottom of the screen, press Enter.

Select English.

Select "Install Ubuntu".

At the "Welcome" box, accept the default selection of "English" and click Continue.

At the "Wireless" box, accept the defajult selection of "I don't want to connect..." and click Continue.

At the "Preparing to install Ubuntu" screen, accept the default selections and click Continue.

When the "Installation type" box appears, click the "Erase disk and install Ubuntu" button. Click "Install Now".

In the "Erase disk and install Ubuntu" box, select your target USB drive. In my case, it was SCSI1. Click "Install Now".

After a minute or so, a box pops up titled "Write the changes to disks?". Click Continue.

In the "Where are you?" box, select your location and click Continue.

In the "Keyboard layout" box, accept the default of "English (US)" and click Continue.

In the "Who are you?" box, enter account information and click Continue.

The installation process takes a while. When I did it, it took 35 minutes.

When you see a prompt asking you to remove the installation media, do that and press Enter.

When the machine restarts, press Esc and 1. You now have Ubuntu!

Installing Chrubuntu

Connect to wired Ethernet.

Power on the Chromebook but don't log in.

Press CTRL+ALT+=> (=> is the forward arrow where the F2 key would be on a PC, that is, above the "3" key).

Log in as chronos. No password is needed.

Execute these commands:

curl -L -O http://goo.gl/s9ryd

ls -l
You should see a file named "s9ryd" that is 9626 bytes in size.

Execute this command:

sudo bash s9ryd
At the "Enter the size" prompt, enter 9 and press Enter.

The Chromebook restarts, and shows a message saying "Your system is repairing itself. Please wait."

After a minute or two it starts again. Now it says "OS Verification is OFF". Press Enter.

You should see the ChromeOS startup screen again.

Press CTRL+ALT+=> (=> is the forward arrow where the F2 key would be on a PC, that is, above the "3" key).

Log in as chronos. No password is needed.

Execute these commands:

curl -L -O http://goo.gl/s9ryd

ls -l
You should see a file named "s9ryd" that is 9626 bytes in size.

Execute this command to install the latest version of Ubuntu, which was 15.04 when I wrote this (July 2015):

sudo bash s9ryd latest
Press Enter to continue.

Many messages scroll up the screen as the whole Ubuntu OS downloads and installs.

After a minute or two, four prompts will pop up asking you what language to use. Just accept the defaults and continue.

After about 4 minutes, it prompts you to press Enter.

Troubleshooting

When I first did this, it connected over IPv6 and the install froze at 2%. I suppose some part of the Ubuntu software distribution system is not 100% working over IPv6.

So I did this to connect over IPv4 only:

Stop the script with Ctrl+C

Reboot to unmount the volume.

Upon reboot, in the Chronos shell,

sudo sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.eth0.disable_ipv6=1

sudo bash s9ryd latest

First Chrubuntu Boot

Chrubuntu will prompt you to log in. Log in as user with password user.

Execute these commands to make Chrubuntu the default OS:

sudo cgpt add -i 6 -P 5 -S 1 /dev/sda

sudo reboot
At the "OS Verification is OFF" screen, press Ctrl+D.

Chrubuntu boots!

Log in as user/user.

Adding a GUI

This is a non-graphical environment. To add a normal Ubuntu desktop, execute these commands:
sudo ifconfig eth0 up

sudo dhclient -v

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop -y
Messages scroll up as software downloads and installs. After ten minutes the display will go black--you can press Enter to wake it up.

When I did it, on a fast home Comcast connection, it took about 13 minutes.

When it finishes, execute this command:

sudo reboot
At the "scary screen", press Ctrl+D.

It reboots and shows you a pretty graphical Ubuntu desktop.

And both the touchpad and the touchscreen work :)

Setting the Locale

When I did it, I was unable to launch a Terminal window.

This is a known bug in Ubuntu 15.04.

To fix it, search for "xterm" and run it. In xterm, execute these commands:

sudo update-locale LANG=C.UTF-8

sudo reboot

Sources

How To Install Ubuntu On The HP Chromebook

How to install Ubuntu and Minecraft on the HP Chromebook 14

Setup for Android Auditing on Ubuntu Linux

https://github.com/divx118/crouton-packages/blob/master/README.md

http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-for-chrome-os-devices/acer-c720-chromebook

http://chromeos-cr48.blogspot.com/2013/05/chrubuntu-one-script-to-rule-them-all_31.html

terminal won't launch with a customized locale

Another new Free Software machine: the Acer C720 Chromebook running Ubuntu


Posted 7-4-15 by Sam Bowne

Initial Chrome Setup

It asks about language, keyboard, and networking. I used a wireless connection to keep both USB ports available.

Click Continue.

Click "Accept and Continue".

Log in with a Google account.

A Chrome browser window opens.