Converted it to run Ubuntu. Wiped out ChromeOS but, tested it with ChromeOS and it was fine. This makes a great 10+ hour portable LIGHT WEIGHT laptop. My wife loves it and I bought this for her. She wanted LIGHT weight and long battery life and this thing is right at 2lb. and 10 hours of life. She has a regular beast laptop that weighs 7lb but, this one she loves for going mobile.



Crouton used to work prior to June or July and then something changed and since then it only works for a few weeks and then get's overwritten in my own experience. It doesn't matter too much to me as my wife didn't want to use ChromeOS anyway.



No good using an external boot SD card either, your data will be ok but, getting the thing reset to boot your image is a mess. ChrUbuntu will not work at all. Either buy this thing to use ChromeOS or Ubuntu. If you are bent on dual boot then try another model or else find a way.



So conversion to Ubuntu is a one way trip! No going back to ChromeOS! You brick it it is your problem. You've been warned.



This worked FOR ME.



To convert to Ubuntu:



Open the back panel. Note: there are 9 screws and three of them are slightly longer so make a note of those. I seem to recall that the three long ones were the upper left and right corners and the one in the dead center (as viewed in my pictures i.e. upside down with the keyboard portion toward you.)



Remove the silver (8mm head) screw at the top back (hinge side) of the laptop. See Image A red circle and it's zoom in on Image B. In Image A the battery (large black rectangle at the bottom has been unplugged and moved down.) The red circle in ImageA is the area of interest and is zoomed in on Image B and C. In image A and B I have removed the WiFi Module and it is at a 45 deg. angle. It is shown reinstalled in Image C. Also, the ruler in image B is metric you see the screw in front of the 4 and 5 centimeter marks.



In Image C there is a red and green circle. The red circle is where the screw is from the factory and this is the NON-Overwrite mode. In Image C I have moved the screw from it's original position (that blocks overwriting the flash memory) to the position in the green circle which is just a blank screw hole that appears to be there for the purpose of retaining the screw.



You are now ready to reassemble your box. One last item per your preference. My wife can't stand the touch pad and I tried and found the soft shutoff to be flakey (i.e. xinput set-prop 10 "Device Enabled" 0) so I disabled the touchpad at the HW level by removing the connector in the blue circle in Image A (just above the battery, mid way up and slightly to the right.) You can see it's ribbon cable zig-zagging beneath it. If you are like us and can't stand the touch pad and REALLY want it off then CAREFULLY and very, very gently flip up the connector cover (in the blue circle) and remove the ribbon cable. This connector will break easily if you use a screwdriver so only use a fingernail.



Reassemble the box. The middle screw in the center back acts as a power safety switch so be sure to install one of the long screws in this hole otherwise your machine won't power on.



Lookup putting your Chromebook into Developer mode. But here are the short notes:



Press the "Esc" and ""reload" key and then tap the power on key.



You will see the recovery mode screen with the big yellow exclamation point and the warning that "disk verification is turned off" (this is a normal indicator of developer mode).



Press CNTRL-D to skip or wait 30 secs.



You will now see a RED exclamation point and the prompt to press ENTER to continue into dev mode.



Press ENTER



Go get a coffee. The box will reboot several times. It'll take about 15 min for it to complete the transition.



On startup screen bottom left below "Accessibility" there is a text link for "Enable Debugging Features" Choose that and enable root, debugging, Alternative OS loads, etc. and set a root password after it reboots.



Note: "Enable Debugging Features" only shows up after a PowerWash. Select that under Wifi Advanced options if you have to restore your Chromebook or just want to reset everything.



To activate this debug/root mode from ChromeOS type:



"CNTRL" - "ALT" - "->"



# run the following commands:



enable_dev_usb_boot

cd

rm -f flash_chromebook_rom.sh

curl -L -O h-t-t-p-s slash,slash,colon johnlewis.ie/flash_chromebook_rom.sh

sudo -E bash flash_chromebook_rom.sh



# For the firmware above, I sent this guy a donation for his excellent work on the firmware and you should too!



Download and prepare a USB Fob with a bootable image of Ubuntu - see their site for how to do this. Then insert the fob and reboot.



Note: I used the USB slot on the left of the upright machine as this is directly attached to the main board but, I have no reason to suspect that the other USB port wouldn't work fine too. But, just in case now you know.



init 6



Follow the installation instructions and enjoy your Ubuntu laptop.



Minor notes. The suspend mode doesn't yet work (firmware) so closing the lid won't suspend. Be sure to unset suspend in Ubuntu otherwise your instance is crash shutdown on a lid close.



It has been working great now for several months. Putting an 64GB SD Card into the external slot really works nicely.



Bootup is really slow! Just so you know it takes at least 20 seconds before the first indication of life on the screen shows up. But, running is fine.



Enjoy.