GalliumOS Wiki - User contributions [en]

Installing/Preparing

2015-12-30T00:10:38Z

Oxipup: typos

If you have already used Linux on your Chromebook in the past (Crouton does NOT count), you probably don't need to do this. This article will cover the very minimal requirements for making it work on each generation of Chromebook. This means we won't flash any firmware if we don't need to. If you want instructions for flashing firmware, see [[Flashing Firmware]]. Please note that this process can be very dangerous, so please carefully read everything and do not skip any steps. We are not responsible if you brick your Chromebook, even though we think it sucks that you did. Despite the fact that the Chromebook Pixel and 2015 Chromebook Pixel are Sandy Bridge and Broadwell respectively, you should use the Haswell process for both of them. We know this doesn't make any sense, but just trust us.

== Sandy Bridge / Ivy Bridge ==

With the exception of the original Chromebook Pixel, on Sandy Bridge Chromebooks, you will have to flash your firmware. Luckily, John Lewis' script makes it a very straight forward process. Unfortunately, you'll have to open up your Chromebook. Also note that after completing this process, you will no longer be able to run Chrome OS on your Chromebook, so no dualbooting for this one I'm afraid.

First, you need to put the device in developer mode. You'll know if you're in developer mode because you will see the "scary white screen" before you are able to boot the computer. If you are not in developer mode, you can get there by shutting down your computer, holding Esc and Refresh (F3), then powering on the computer. You will see a screen that says "Chrome OS is missing or damaged.". Don't panic! This is normal. You need to press Ctrl-D. Your computer will reboot a few times and you will see a few prompts. Please note that this will wipe your data (similar to a powerwash) so make sure you have backed everything up first. Now that you're in developer mode, proceed to the next step.

Now your Chromebook is rooted. Now, we need to flash the firmware. Unfortunately, this means you will need to open your Chromebook. You need to open your Chromebook and either bridge the jumper with a piece of tin foil, or remove the screw that governs hardware write protection. This process varies from model to model, so you should look up how to do it on the internet. We do hope to have a guide for all models here at some point, so you don't have to go searching, but it's not ready yet, so you'll have to do some googling.

Once you've disabled the write protection, we can really get started. First, log into your Chromebook and make sure it's connected to the internet. Next, press Ctrl+Alt+T to open a crosh session. Now, you can open bash by simply typing

<code>shell</code>

and hit enter. Now you should be in bash. You'll have a prompt that looks something like this.

<code>chronos@localhost / $</code>

Now, you just need to download and run John Lewis' script. Again, make very sure you have a stable internet connection before doing this. When you're positive you're ready, run

<code>cd; rm -f flash_chromebook_rom.sh; curl -L -O <nowiki>https://johnlewis.ie/flash_chromebook_rom.sh</nowiki>; sudo -E bash flash_chromebook_rom.sh</code>

and follow the onscreen prompts carefully. Hopefully, if everything went well, you should be good to go. Reboot your computer, plug in your GalliumOS USB, and start installing! Note that after completing this process your computer will be unable to boot. You must insert a USB drive with an operating system on it (hopefully GalliumOS :P) and install it to the hard drive.

== Haswell ==

Haswell Chromebooks are mostly incredibly easy to work with. There is no additional firmware needed. You just need to enable developer mode, enable a couple boot flags, and you're good to go!

First, you need to put the device in developer mode. You'll know if you're in developer mode because you will see the "scary white screen" before you are able to boot the computer. If you are not in developer mode, you can get there by shutting down your computer, holding Esc and Refresh (F3), then powering on the computer. You will see a screen that says "Chrome OS is missing or damaged.". Don't panic! This is normal. You need to press Ctrl-D. Your computer will reboot a few times and you will see a few prompts. Please note that this will wipe your data (similar to a powerwash) so make sure you have backed everything up first. Now that you're in developer mode, proceed to the next step.

Now your Chromebook is rooted. Now you need to enable a couple boot flags, and you're good to go. Log into your Chromebook and connect it to the internet. Press Ctrl+Alt+T to open a crosh session. Now, you can open bash by simply typing

<code>shell</code>

and hit enter. Now you should be in bash. You'll have a prompt that looks something like this.

<code>chronos@localhost / $</code>

Now, you just need to enable a couple boot flags. You can skip this step if you plan on using chrx to dualboot GalliumOS with ChromeOS.

<code>sudo crossystem dev_boot_usb=1 dev_boot_legacy=1</code>

If everything went smoothly, you should be ready to go. Just reboot your computer, pop in your GalliumOS USB, press Ctrl+L at the scary white screen, and install away! If you want to remove the scary white screen, or boot to Linux by default, see [[Firmware Flashing]].

== Broadwell ==

With the exception of the 2015 Chromebook Pixel, Broadwell is the same basic process as Haswell, but it doesn't come with SeaBIOS, so we'll have to install it before we can use it. Luckily, we don't have to open up the Chromebook, and the process is very simple.

First, you need to put the device in developer mode. You'll know if you're in developer mode because you will see the "scary white screen" before you are able to boot the computer. If you are not in developer mode, you can get there by shutting down your computer, holding Esc and Refresh (F3), then powering on the computer. You will see a screen that says "Chrome OS is missing or damaged.". Don't panic! This is normal. You need to press Ctrl-D. Your computer will reboot a few times and you will see a few prompts. Please note that this will wipe your data (similar to a powerwash) so make sure you have backed everything up first. Now that you're in developer mode, proceed to the next step.

Now your Chromebook is rooted. Now you need to enable a couple boot flags, and you're good to go. Log into your Chromebook and connect it to the internet. Press Ctrl+Alt+T to open a crosh session. Now, you can open bash by simply typing

<code>shell</code>

and hit enter. Now you should be in bash. You'll have a prompt that looks something like this.

<code>chronos@localhost / $</code>

Now, you need to download and run John Lewis' script. Again, make very sure you have a stable internet connection before doing this. When you're positive you're ready, run

<code>cd; rm -f flash_chromebook_rom.sh; curl -L -O <nowiki>https://johnlewis.ie/flash_chromebook_rom.sh</nowiki>; sudo -E bash flash_chromebook_rom.sh</code>

and follow the onscreen prompts carefully. If everything went smoothly, you're almost ready to go. Now, you just need to enable a couple boot flags. You can skip this step if you're planning to use chrx to dualboot GalliumOS with ChromeOS.

<code>sudo crossystem dev_boot_usb=1 dev_boot_legacy=1</code>

If everything went smoothly, you should be ready to go. Just reboot your computer, pop in your GalliumOS USB, press Ctrl+L at the scary white screen, and install away! Unfortunately, there is no way to remove the scary white screen on Broadwell (yet!), but you can set it up to boot Linux by default. For more information, see [[Firmware Flashing]]

== Bay Trail ==

On Bay Trail Chromebooks, you will have to flash your firmware. Luckily, John Lewis' script makes it a very straight forward process. Unfortuantely, you'll have to open up your Chromebook. Also note that after completing this porcess, you will no longer be able to run Chrome OS on your Chromebook, so no dualbooting for this one I'm afraid.

First, you need to put the device in developer mode. You'll know if you're in developer mode because you will see the "scary white screen" before you are able to boot the computer. If you are not in developer mode, you can get there by shutting down your computer, holding Esc and Refresh (F3), then powering on the computer. You will see a screen that says "Chrome OS is missing or damaged.". Don't panic! This is normal. You need to press Ctrl-D. Your computer will reboot a few times and you will see a few prompts. Please note that this will wipe your data (similar to a powerwash) so make sure you have backed everything up first. Now that you're in developer mode, proceed to the next step.

Now your Chromebook is rooted. Now, we need to flash the firmware. Unfortunately, this means you will need to open your Chromebook. You need to open your Chromebook and either bridge the jumper with a piece of tin foil, or remove the screw that governs hardware write protection. This process varies from model to model, so you should look up how to do it on the internet. We do hope to have a guide for all models here at some point, so you don't have to go searching, but it's not ready yet, so you'll have to do some googling. Also note that this process is very complicated on the Toshiba Chromebook 2 (2014 version) because of Toshiba's poor design.

Once you've disabled the write protection, we can really get started. First, log into your Chromebook and make sure it's connected to the internet. Next, press Ctrl+Alt+T to open a crosh session. Now, you can open bash by simply typing

<code>shell</code>

and hit enter. Now you should be in bash. You'll have a prompt that looks something like this.

<code>chronos@localhost / $</code>

Now, you just need to download and run John Lewis' script. Again, make very sure you have a stable internet connection before doing this. When you're positive you're ready, run

<code>cd; rm -f flash_chromebook_rom.sh; curl -L -O <nowiki>https://johnlewis.ie/flash_chromebook_rom.sh</nowiki>; sudo -E bash flash_chromebook_rom.sh</code>

and follow the onscreen prompts carefully. Hopefully, if everything went well, you should be good to go. Reboot your computer, plug in your GalliumOS USB, and start installing! Note that after completing this process your computer will be unable to boot. You must insert a USB drive with an operating system on it (hopefully GalliumOS :P) and install it to the hard drive.

== Braswell ==

We know nothing about Braswell yet. We'll let you know as soon as we have information about running GalliumOS on Braswell.

Installing/Creating Bootable USB

2015-12-29T23:45:45Z

Oxipup: typo

Creating bootable GalliumOS media is very similar to other Linux distributions. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean it's easy. The goal of this guide is to make it as straightforward as possible.

== On Linux ==

First, you need to download the GalliumOS iso for your Chromebook.

Once the iso is finished downloading (you MUST wait for it to finish), open up your favourite Terminal emulator.

cd to the place where you downloaded the iso. It's probably ~/Downloads.

<code>cd ~/Downloads</code>

Plug in your USB device, identify it, and unmount it. This is a little tricky. You can use <code>lsblk</code> to get a list of storage devices attached to your system. Try to find out which one is your USB flash drive. It is very important to not get this wrong, as it could cause catastrophic data loss. Once you've figured it out, make sure the USB flash drive is unmounted.

<code>sudo umount -f /dev/sdb1</code>

Be sure to replace sdb1 with the actual partition name as listed in lsblk. Next, use dd to copy the ISO to the USB flash drive.

<code>dd bs=1M if=galliumos.iso of=/dev/sdb</code>

Be sure to replace galliumos.iso with the filename of the iso you want to write. Usually typing "galliumos" and hitting tab will autocomplete it for you. Also be sure to replace sdb with the actual device as listed in lsblk. Make sure to write to the DEVICE and NOT the partition. This process can take a long time depending on the speed of your flash drive, USB connection, and hard drive. Be patient. Once the prompt comes back, the ISO should be written. If you're getting errors, try adding sudo to the beginning of the command. Before you unplug your flash drive, be sure to run <code>sync</code>

== On Mac OS X ==

# '''Download the GalliumOS ISO''' for your ChromeOS device: https://galliumos.org/download.html
# '''Insert USB media''' into Mac OS X machine
# '''Carefully determine device path''' for newly inserted USB media from a Terminal.app window<div style="background-color:#404040;color:white;padding:0.1em 0.5em;width:40em;font-family:monospace;font-size:1.2em"><span style="color:#00ff00">bash$ </span>diskutil list</div>The device path will be something like <code>/dev/diskN</code>. Replace <code>N</code> in all steps below with the correct disk number.<div style="background-color:#fff8f8;border:1px solid #cc0000;padding:0.2em 0.5em;width:80%"><span style="font-size:1.2em;font-weight:bold;color:#cc0000;margin:0 0.3em;padding:0.1em 0.3em;background-color:#ffdddd">⚡</span>It is '''''extremely''''' important to determine the correct device path for your USB media in this step. Using the wrong device path in the following steps could damage your OS X install and cause irreparable data loss!</div>
# '''Unmount USB media''' from OS X<br><div style="background-color:#404040;color:white;padding:0.1em 0.5em;width:40em;font-family:monospace;font-size:1.2em"><span style="color:#00ff00">bash$ </span>diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk<span style="color:yellow">N</span></div>
# '''Copy the ISO''' to USB media<br><div style="background-color:#404040;color:white;padding:0.1em 0.5em;width:40em;font-family:monospace;font-size:1.2em"><span style="color:#00ff00">bash$ </span>sudo dd if=<span style="color:yellow">./galliumos.iso</span> of=/dev/<span style="color:#00ff00">r</span>disk<span style="color:yellow">N</span> bs=1m</div><div style="background-color:#fffff0;border:1px solid #c0c044;padding:0.2em 0.5em;margin:0.5em 0 0 0;width:80%"><span style="font-size:1.2em;font-weight:bold;color:#888822;margin:0 0.3em;padding:0.1em 0.25em;background-color:#ffffcc">★</span>Be sure to use the <code>rdisk</code> device name in the output file (<code>of=</code> parameter), and use the correct path and filename for the <code>galliumos.iso</code> file which you downloaded in step 1.</div>
# '''Eject USB media''' from OS X<br><div style="background-color:#404040;color:white;padding:0.1em 0.5em;width:40em;font-family:monospace;font-size:1.2em"><span style="color:#00ff00">bash$ </span>diskutil eject /dev/disk<span style="color:yellow">N</span></div>
# '''Remove USB media''' from Mac OS X machine, it's now ready for your ChromeOS device

== On Windows ==

<embedvideo service="youtube" dimensions="640x480">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmuWZXtkBaE</embedvideo>
If the video is too fast for you, read the instructions!

First, download the correct iso for your device.

Wait for the download to finish completely before proceeding.

Also download, install, and open Win32DiskImager from [[http://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/files/latest/download SourceForge]]. If you already have it, just open it up.

Plug in your USB device and identify it's drive letter.

Click the folder button next to the empty box on Win32DiskImager.

Change the file type from Disk Images (.img) to *.*.

Use the file dialog to navigate to and open the GalliumOS iso from your Downloads folder (or wherever else it may have saved).

Select the letter of your USB drive from the dropdown in Win32DiskImager.

Click the Write button on Win32DiskImager.

If prompted to confirm overwrite or corruption of physical device, click Yes.

Wait for it to finish... It may take a while.

When you see the Write Successful popup, click OK.

Eject your USB drive before unplugging it.

== On ChromeOS ==

ChromeOS is very similar to Linux, but not identical. I will write a proper guide as soon as I have access to a Chromebook (that I haven't installed GalliumOS on :P)

Installing

2015-12-29T23:39:10Z

Oxipup: typo

== General Install Instructions ==
You have two possible options for installing GalliumOS:
# '''From an ISO image written to USB drive or SD card'''<br>This method works on '''most''' devices, and enables you to entirely replace ChromeOS on your internal SSD or HDD.<br>It also allows you to set up more complex configurations such as dual-booting alongside Windows or other Linux distributions.
# '''From the ChromeOS command-line using chrx'''<br>This method works on '''many''' devices, and will configure your device to dual-boot GalliumOS alongside ChromeOS.

See [[Hardware Compatibility]] for the installation options available for your ChromeOS device model.

=== Traditional ISO Install ===

The traditional installer allows you to use your entire SSD or HDD for GalliumOS. You will need to use a USB flash drive or SD card. You can even boot the GalliumOS Live image to try out the features of GalliumOS before you decide to install!

# Go to [[Installing/Preparing]] and get your Chromebook ready to run GalliumOS.
# Download a GalliumOS suitable for your device ISO from the [https://galliumos.org/download.html downloads page on GalliumOS.org]
# Write (or "burn") the ISO to a USB flash drive or an SD card. Detailed instructions for this are at [[Installing/Creating Bootable USB]]
# Plug your USB flash drive or SD card into your Chromebook
# Reboot your Chromebook and boot from the USB flash drive or SD card.
## If you have installed custom firmware, press Esc at the BIOS screen and press 2 to boot from USB.
## If you have the scary white screen, press Ctrl+L.
# Wait for GalliumOS to boot up. Once in the live environment you can play around with GalliumOS, or you can install it using the Install GalliumOS icon on the desktop.

=== chrx Installation ===

GalliumOS is also installable on many ChromeOS devices via [https://chrx.org/ chrx], which allows you to dual-boot GalliumOS alongside ChromeOS. Check the [https://chrx.org/#compatibility chrx hardware compatibility list] to see if your device supports chrx, and whether any preparation steps are required.

See [https://chrx.org#usage chrx installation instructions] for full details, but here's a quick overview:

# Prepare your ChromeOS device
## Enable Developer Mode
## Install firmware feature update if required (some Broadwell devices only)
# Boot device into ChromeOS and configure networking; you do not need to log in
# Switch to a virtual terminal by pressing <code>CTRL+ALT+F2(top row right arrow)</code>, then log in as user <code>chronos</code> with no password
# Run chrx: <code>curl -O <nowiki>https://chrx.org/go</nowiki> && sh go -d galliumos</code> (see [https://chrx.org/#options chrx docs] for additional options)
# Follow on-screen prompts to repartition your SSD and install GalliumOS. If this is the first time running chrx on this ChromeOS machine, chrx will reboot after the partitioning step and you will need to continue the installation by running chrx again with the same command line.
# After reboot, at the white "OS verification is OFF" screen, press <code>CTRL+L</code> for GalliumOS, or <code>CTRL+D</code> for ChromeOS

== Specific Device Install Documents ==
Our community is also making in-depth install guides for certain devices. Below is a list.
* [[Installing/Panther|Panther (ASUS Chromebox 2014)]]
* [[Installing/Parrot|Parrot (Acer C710, Acer C7)]]
* [[Installing/Peppy|Peppy (Acer C720, Acer C720P)]]
* [[Installing/Kip|Kip (HP Chromebook 11 G3, HP Chromebook 11 G4, HP Chromebook 14 G4)]]
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