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Good day, I have a question, can I install Ubuntu on a Chromebook? And will audio, touchpad, usb4 work?

Adrian Pustułka
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    Why not read a blog from someone who's done it?? I've read such blogs and yes they report audio, touchpad & USB ports all function; alas I can't recall anyone mentioning USB4, and on some chromebooks the audio needed to be tweaked for some releases before it worked perfectly, but those were device/release specific & didn't impact other devices (or other releases when used; ie. kernel & hardware specific) – guiverc Feb 10 '25 at 10:02
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    Also: How to install Ubuntu on an ARM Chromebook? – Archisman Panigrahi Feb 11 '25 at 13:09
  • This was mentioned in UWN 879, which is intended to showcase good work in the community. Chromebooks have been a difficult topic over the years, but this here is slop through and through. You wouldn't accept it from professional support and you wouldn't accept such low quality content from an LLM, which is what you are competing with these days. – LiveWireBT Feb 18 '25 at 04:46
  • @LiveWireBT What is UWN 879? – Archisman Panigrahi Apr 15 '25 at 00:03
  • @ArchismanPanigrahi I think reference is to https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-weekly-newsletter-issue-879/54975 but I don't understand the point to that reference – guiverc Apr 15 '25 at 00:44

2 Answers2

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Most Chromebooks will accept a Ubuntu installation, however those with less than than 4 Gbs of RAM may run a bit sluggish. Therefore using one of the less resource intensive "flavors" may be required. Not all Chromebooks require a screw to be removed. Some require the removal of the battery and some require a jumper. https://docs.mrchromebox.tech/docs/getting-started.html gives a list of supported devices and a step by step tutorial on how to install.

Rex
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  • MrChromebox is the best resource on this topic. Mentions of jumpers and screws may be outdated for most models found now. Instead of making assumptions to cover a range models from over 15 years of Chromebook history: ask for the specific model. – LiveWireBT Feb 18 '25 at 04:51
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Linux can be made to work on many chromebooks, but you have to ask yourself if it is worth the effort. chromebooks often have low-end processors, marginal RAM size, and minimal available flash storage in the form of a slow eMMC chip instead of a (much faster) SSD.

Depending on the manufacturer and model, it may also be necessary to open up the back of the chromebook and remove a 'lock jumper' (in the form of a screw bridging two contacts) before the existing operating system can be overwritten with Linux.

A far BETTER option with most chromebooks is to clear out any superfluous junk that has been installed - essentially returning it to 'factory new' state, and then just use it as-is as a simple web-browsing appliance.

In summary: the answer is (usually) YES, but you might not want to do it!

Thomas Ward
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    Nitpick: The existing operating system is Linux. – Stefan Feb 10 '25 at 22:44
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    Installing Ubuntu on ChromeOS may take some time but it is definitely worth the effort ! – WinEunuuchs2Unix Feb 15 '25 at 00:44
  • @WinEunuuchs2Unix When I setup or reset Linux on my Chromebooks, it takes about 90 seconds. From my point of view that's hard to beat on Windows (WSL) or Mac OS (brew). – LiveWireBT Feb 18 '25 at 04:23
  • "clear out any superfluous junk that has been installed" I have never seen (pre-installed) junk on any of my Chromebooks. "low-end processors [...] slow eMMC chip" Your knowledge is not up to date (N2840 is from 2014, https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/82103/specifications.html), my Chromebook has an i5 and a NVME SSD. And it's a few years old already. I have no idea why you start rambling about Android and Vanilla Linux, ChromeOS is based on Gentoo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChromeOS – LiveWireBT Feb 18 '25 at 04:38
  • @LiveWireBT I think WinEunuuchs2Unix was referring to installing full Ubuntu on a chromebook – Archisman Panigrahi Feb 27 '25 at 01:58