Laptop index

[Leon]

Hi,

Unlike macOS its quite easy to get your machine up and running with chromeOS - There is several methods and some work better than others - the easyist is by far "Cloudready" by Neverware - just head over to https://www.neverware.com/freedownload - download the installer and get rocking.

Here i will try and put together a little index of machines that i personally have tested.

 

Model	Wifi	Screen	Touchpad	USB	Ext. screen	Notes
Dell Latitude E5410	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Machine runs alot better than with Windows

 

[PorkchopOSX]

That is not an official distro, yes you can use features like touchpad, wifi, usb and what not, but you can not connect any devices to it, for example linking a Google Pixel phone, unrecognizable completely. I have a Latitude E5420 and E5430 and both of them were unable to even boot a vanilla installation, you get stuck in a loop when trying to sign into Chrome, and wifi doesn't work. USB support is minimal, you can get charge out of the ports and it recognizes devices, however you cannot interact with them. I tried to tether a Pixel and a Pixel XL 2, neither of them were able to share internet. It originally says "connected" however once you try to sign in, it throws into a loop and keeps disconnecting. Yes, certain Chrome OS "clones" are bootable,  but its very easy to build the Chromium OS interface (CloudReady is a Chromium flavor of the kernel with limited functionality). If anybody has any insight into how to get a true build of Chrome OS (not Chromium, you can get the source code from that directly from Google's page, they even encourage you to!) please let me know!! The Chromium OS derivatives are sluggish compared to true Chrome OS.

 

--Porkchop

 

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E5430 i7-3540m, 8gb RAM, 2TB hdd -- Mac OSX 10.14.5 Mojave, wifi works (airport extreme mpci-e card in WWAN port from 2008 iMac) usb key/mouse needed, eSata port, audio, bluetooth, and camera work

E5430 i7-3520m, 6gb RAM, 512gb ssd -- Mac OSx 10.11.6 El Capitan, fully functional, Nexis WiFi usb adapter for wifi, DW1504 bluetooth functions

E5420 i7-2620m, 4gb RAM, 320gb hdd -- CrOS Linux nightly  build, wifi unstable, tethered with Google Pixel as router, very fast with tethering.

Inspiron n5050, i5-2430m, 8gb RAM, 250gb ssd -- Mac OSX 10.13.3 High Sierra, fully functional, Atheros wifi kext for wifi, ASUS BT400 dongle for bluetooth, intelHDA patch works fine for audio and mic

[Leon]

Not sure if building your own since its still not ChromeOS but ChromiumOS - i know that arnold is doing some builds .. google ArnoldTheBat - tested some a while back.. seemed to run ok.. but might require specific hardware.