Chrome OS 74 brings audio support to Linux apps

We may earn a commission for purchases made using our links.

In the middle of last year at Google I/O 2018, we learned that Chrome OS was gaining support for Linux applications starting with the Google Pixelbook. This feature had formed from what was known internally as “Crostini” and we had been tracking it throughout its development cycle. Since then, support for Linux apps has grown to a number of devices, but we’ve also learned which ones will never get official support as well (due to them using kernel version 3.10 and older). This development process has continued to expand and the latest information reveals that audio support for these apps is coming to Chrome OS starting with version 74.

The added support of Linux applications has been an interesting journey for anyone who has followed it. Beyond the platform gaining support for Android apps, this feature is one of the biggest that Chrome OS has received. As you can see, though, it hasn’t been done with a flip of a switch. Devices have slowly gained support and some will never receive official support. Simply supporting Linux apps isn’t going to help the casual Chrome OS user and even the added support of installing Debian packages or searching for apps to install from the launcher isn’t all the work that needs to be done.

Granted, those last two examples are going to help on the user experience end of things, but we hope more features are added in the future. You would think that Chrome OS supporting Linux apps would mean that it also supports audio from those apps as well, but anyone who has tested this has learned that isn’t the case. This was actually supposed to be added to version 73 of Chrome OS but had to be pushed back due to complications. However, a commit from last week shows that Google has ironed things out and audio support for Chrome OS will arrive with the update to version 74.