At Google I/O in Mountain View, Google quietly let slip that “all devices [Chromebook] launched this year will be Linux-ready right out of the box.” Wait. What?
In case you’ve missed it, last year, Google started making it possible to run desktop Linux on Chrome OS. Since then, more Chromebook devices are able to run Linux. Going forward, all of them will be able to do so, too. Yes. All of them. ARM and Intel-based.
This isn’t surprising. Chrome OS, after all, is built on Linux. Chrome OS started as a spin off of Ubuntu Linux. It then migrated to Gentoo Linux and evolved into Google’s own take on the vanilla Linux kernel. But its interface remains the Chrome web browser UI — to this day.
Earlier, you could run Debian, Ubuntu and Kali Linux on Chrome OS using the open-source Crouton program in a chroot container. Or, you could run Gallium OS, a third-party, Xubuntu Chromebook-specific Linux variant. But it wasn’t easy.
Now? It’s as simple as simple can be. Just open the Chrome OS app switcher by pressing the Search/Launcher key and then type “Terminal”. This launches the Termina VM, which will start running a Debian 9.0 Stretch Linux container.
Congratulations! You’re now running Debian Linux on your Chromebook.
Source: All Chromebooks will also be Linux laptops going forward | ZDNet
Which means that you ‘re not really running Linux on the hardware, but in a Virtual Machine. Which means that Google sees everything you do.
Robin Edgar
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