Notes for setting up a dev environment in Chrome Linux (Crostini VMs & containers) on Chromebooks
Once Linux Apps has been enabled in System menu, open a browser window
Open a CROSH window: ctrl-shift-T
crosh>
Enter built-in ChromeOS Linux VM termina, based on Gentoo
(termina) chronos@localhost ~ $
Make a clean baseline snapshot to revert in case things go wonky
(termina) chronos@localhost ~ $ lxc snapshot penguin penguin-baseline
...
(termina) chronos@localhost ~ $ lxc info penguin
...
Snapshots:
penguin-baseline (taken at 2018/09/19 23:47 UTC) (stateless)
View current state of the default (and other downloaded) containers:
+-------+--------------+--------+---------------------------------------+--------+----------+-------------------------------+
| ALIAS | FINGERPRINT | PUBLIC | DESCRIPTION | ARCH | SIZE | UPLOAD DATE |
+-------+--------------+--------+---------------------------------------+--------+----------+-------------------------------+
| | 980e37d286ad | no | Debian stretch amd64 (20180904_18:31) | x86_64 | 286.61MB | Sep 19, 2018 at 11:39pm (UTC) |
+-------+--------------+--------+---------------------------------------+--------+----------+-------------------------------+
Manually log into Debian 9 container ("penguin") - this is an alternative brute force method, versus the preferred style of just using the Terminal button in "Linux Apps" in the Chromebook Launcher:
"fred" here is just an example. For typical gmail logins, it would be, e.g., "yourName" in yourName@gmail.com
Last login: Wed Sep 19 23:44:39 UTC 2018 on UNKNOWN
Linux penguin 4.14.65-05969-g6f2926628697 #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Sep 4 16:08:40 PDT 2018 x86_64
The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.
Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by applicable law.
fred@penguin:~$
fred@penguin:~$ uname -a
Linux penguin 4.14.65-05969-g6f2926628697 #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Sep 4 16:08:40 PDT 2018 x86_64 GNU/Linux
fred@penguin:~$ cat /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)"
NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="9"
VERSION="9 (stretch)"
ID=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://www.debian.org/support"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.debian.org/"
High-voltage, use at your own peril: To get a peek at Developer Mode (not Dev channel, but Developer Mode with unverified boot [not recommended]):
$ cat /etc/issue
Developer Console
To return to the browser, press:
[ Ctrl ] and [ Alt ] and [ <- ] (F1)
To use this console, the developer mode switch must be engaged.
Doing so will destroy any saved data on the system.
In developer mode, it is possible to
- login and sudo as user 'chronos'
- require a password for sudo and login(*)
- disable power management behavior (screen dimming):
sudo initctl stop powerd
- install your own operating system image!
* To set a password for 'chronos', run the following as root:
chromeos-setdevpasswd
If you are having trouble booting a self-signed kernel, you may need to
enable USB booting. To do so, run the following as root:
enable_dev_usb_boot
Have fun and send patches!