Chromebook C-7 Running Ubuntu 12.04

By on February 12th, 2013

I finally got my hands on a Chromebook in November of 2012.  I enjoyed the idea of a quick simple PC and wanted to get one for myself so I did.  I purchased an Acer C7 Chromebook.  But not just to run ChromeOS, I wanted it to be a multi-boot machine so I could do various things in different OS\’s on a very nice and slim platform for portability.

I was able to find enough information to make this work, now I want to share with anyone else that might want to get this working on their Acer C7 as well.

First things first – Many people put a lot of time and effort into making this work so all credit and accolades are due to them.  Secondly *PLEASE NOTE* This instruction set is for educational purposes only.  If you follow these instructions and something bad happens to your computer you will need to contact your support staff / warranty center for support.  There is no written guarantee or warranty implied or inferred with this instruction set.  Use at your own risk.

This write up is for an Acer C7 only – Not sure if it will work with other models.

The creator of Chrubuntu has a great step by step setup on how to install Chrubuntu on your Acer C7. *A word of caution* Create a backup USB or SD card so you can revert back if you need to.  Minimum 4GB SD / USB card required  I had to use it twice and it made for a quick restore and start over. Full Recovery info and quick info is boot in to ChromeOS – open chrome://imageburner in your browser and follow the steps. You can download the windows image creator or mac image creator if needed as well so they have multiple ways to get you back to square one.

After you create the backup usb you need to enable Developer Mode on the Acer C7.

To enable developer mode you need to do the following –

  1. Backup any files you have on the C7 locally on the drive.
  2. Power down Acer C7.
  3. Push the esc +F3 (refresh key).  While holding those buttons push the Power button to turn the C7 on.
  4. A screen shows up a Chrome OS is missing or damaged (this is what you want).
  5. Press ctrl+d to boot into developer mode.
  6. The screen will say press ENTER to turn OS verification off.
  7. Press Enter.
  8. It will reboot the machine.
  9. At this point until you change it your Chromebook will always boot into OS Verification is off screen.
  10. You can either wait 30 seconds (it will beep twice at you ) then boot or you can push ctrl+d to immediately boot.
  11. The first time you run into Developer Mode it will actually transition your system to Developer Mode – *This will delete your local files if you have any on the chromebook*
  12. Now you are in Developer mode the instructions from Jay Lee will now work.

Once your Acer C7 is in developer mode you now need to go Here for how to install Chrubuntu.  JayLee has a donate button so throw him some money if you actually use the code to help pay for random stuff.

Once you have chrubuntu installed and are inside Chrubuntu you can set it up to always boot into Chrubuntu or vise versa.

To boot into ChromeOS from Chrubuntu.

  • In Chrubuntu type sudo cgpt add -i 6 -P 0 -S 1 /dev/sda (That is a ZERO after P) to boot into Chrome OS in a terminal window
  • password for sudo is user if you did not create one via passwd method.
  • reboot into Chrome OS

To get into Chrubuntu from Chrome –

  • Before you log on to Chrome push ctrl+alt+f2 to get into developer console
  • Login – chronos
  • type in  sudo cgpt add -i 6 -P 5 -S 1 /dev/sda This will boot into Chrubuntu always until you change it.
  • type exit.
  • ctrl+alt+f1 (go back to login screen for chromeos)
  • Power down.
  • Power back up and it should boot into Chrubuntu.

A very good video going to developer mode, to installing Chrubuntu on an Acer C7 is on youtube Here  Just do this for the wget command instead – wget http://goo.gl/tnyga; sudo bash tnyga

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