A new solution to my writing block woes. I like to write in the library. My laptop, while awesome, is heavy. It is very old and solid. Traveling around London and beyond by bike with a heavy laptop is not pleasant. Much of my bag is occupied by the laptop and long, clunky cord. Recently I purchased a Dell 11 Chromebook from ebay for £90.

Chrome OS is very nice. It is based on Gentoo Linux as well. However, everyday tasks like writing is an issue. Reading Microsoft dox. documents is problematic. Comments and other edits are not visible. Working offline in general seems clunky. I decided to install Lubuntu Linux using crouton. The processor in the Dell is an intel Celeron (which makes it great for Lubuntu) but it is not very powerful. Crouton installs Debian and Ubuntu flavours by default. Lubuntu is based on Openbox (LXDE really) and it is very light weight so it will not stress the processor too much. Unity, KDE, Gnome, Cinnamon and Mate are alternative Ubuntu flavours but they are a bit too bloated for the processor, I reckon. I only chose Lubuntu for the Ubuntu extra PPAs. I believe in the Debian social contract and I use Debian, but I wanted quick configuration.

Lubuntu and Chrome OS share drivers and the downloads folder, this really makes the Chromebook a productive little machine for research, writing and programming. My Chromebook is used for writing and research. I got help from here, here and here.

lubuntu on chromebook via crouton



1. install crouton in Chrome OS (it will download to the Downloads folder)

2. install lxde..-r trusty -t lxde ( this is done in the Chrome terminal environment.)

The Process:



Hit Ctrl +Alt+t



To enter a terminal environment type shell

To navigate to crouton in your Downloads folder and install Lubuntu try the following command:

sudo sh ~/Downloads/crouton -r trusty -t lxde

This will install Lubuntu 14.04 the long term edition that will be supported until 2017. I do not want to do too many upgrades in the next few years. The -r is the trusty 14.04 version and -t is the ubuntu flavour. Let it all install and watch it in the shell. To start Ubuntu type



sudo startlxde



Making LXDE Lubuntu



You will have a vanilla install of LXDE. In order to get the Lubuntu desktop, open a terminal and install the Synaptic Package Manager by typing,

sudo apt-get install synaptic

3. install synaptic…one must use the command, sudo synaptic in a terminal to open it.



4. install lubuntu…..In Synaptic install the lubuntu-desktop package

My desktop looks like this..

5. I installed 2 PPAs for eye candy…numix icons and ravefinity themes

6. I installed Lubuntu 13.04 artwork for the wallpaper from synaptic



7. I then installed the screenshot app Shutter from synaptic



8. I then created documents and pictures folders in ~

9. This is important if you use a UK keyboard, one must install

lxkeymap

from synaptic in order to use a UK keyboard

Use



To switch back and forth between Chrome OS and Lubuntu press shift+ctrl+alt+the back and forward arrows at the top of the keyboard

shift+ctrl+alt+the forward key

The crouton works smoothly on the Dell. The sound video and ports work well. To solve my writing delima I had to install LibreOffice Writer, but not the whole bloated suite.

