Friday, October 19, 2012

ChrUbuntu on the ARM-based Chromebook: Let's Do This!

Update: We made it! Thanks to all who donated!

By now, you've probably seen that Google has announced a new $249 Chromebook and if you're reading this blog, no doubt you also know that unlike other Chromebooks, this one is based off of an ARM processor. That means these Chromebooks definitely will not work out of box with my ChrUbuntu 12.04 instructions which assume an x86 Intel processor.

However, I'm fairly confident that Ubuntu will run on these ARM based Chromebooks with a tad bit of work and some Google employees seem to agree with me. I can't really justify purchasing a new Chromebook since at last count, we have 5 Chrome OS devices in the house but I do want to see ChrUbuntu running on these units also. So I'm starting a ChrUbuntu on ARM-based Chromebooks campaign. Here's how it works:

  1. You donate an amount of your choosing to the campaign. Donations are accepted via PayPal so they're simple and secure. I'll keep this blog post updated with the total amount donated so far.
  2. If the donation fund doesn't reach $250 by November 19th (1 month from now), I'll refund all donors via PayPal.
  3. If the donation fund reaches $250, I purchase an ARM-based Chromebook and get to work on ChrUbuntu for ARM-based Chromebooks.
  4. I will do my very best to get ChrUbuntu running on the new Chromebook. If I'm successful, full details and scripts will be posted to this blog as has been the case for ChrUbuntu on the Cr-48, Samsung Series 5, etc. I'll keep the unit in order to maintain ChrUbuntu for ARM-based Chromebooks.
  5. If I fail to get ChrUbuntu for ARM-Chromebooks working by Jan. 1, 2013, I'll donate the unit to someone in need of my choosing (think along the lines of broke college student who has no computer).
If you're still reading, you can donate to the campaign here (goal reached, link removed, please stop giving me money).

2 comments:

  1. I have feature request, can you make it so installs to an USB or SD card instead of repartitioning/installing to the internal drive?
    I would be great if you do that when you update x86_64 script as well.

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  2. When do you plan to get the chromebook and by when will you publish a guide to how to run ubuntu on it?

    ReplyDelete