Install ubuntu on Samsung Chromebook 3

[Leon]

Hi,

So, this is a bit outside of the OSX religion of things - but got my hands on a Samsung chromebook series 3, cute little machine, reminds me alot about a cheap Macbook air .. but with a weird and messed up OS on it.

ChromeOS is great and all.. but if you want to tinker a bit more then its time to look for different alternatives - and there certainly is a few out there.

I decided to take Ubuntu LTS (currently 12.04) out for a spin.. wich.. lets just say.. wasent as easy as i hoped.

Anyway, here is my notes on the subject, i hope this helps to get somebody else going.


Requirements:
* A Samsung chromebook series 3
* ChomeOS booted in dev mode
 

 

Prepare for dev. mode:

1. BACKUP ANY IMPORTANT DATA
2. Turn of the machine
3. Hold ESC+RELOAD buttons and press once on the power button (This will bring up a warning about going to boot mode, press CTRL+D to go into dev. mode.. notice all data will be removed)
4. Once inside chromeos, open a terminal by pressing: CTRL+ALT+F2
5. Login as chronos
6. Install the dev. firmware by running: sudo chromeos-firmwareupdate mode=todev

We are now in 100% correct dev. mode and the real fun can start.

Download and installations
We will be using chrubuntu for installation, you can find more info about it here: http://chromeos-cr48.blogspot.se/2013/05/chrubuntu-one-script-to-rule-them-all_31.html

For my setup i wanted the Unity and LTS, so i use the following command to download and install Ubuntu.

>> curl -L -O http://goo.gl/s9ryd; sudo bash s9ryd ubuntu-desktop lts

.. ubuntu will now be downloaded and installed, the machine will automatic reboot after installation.
The default username is "user" with password "user"

 

Fixes:
----------------------------------------------

Flash player
Get Chromium from the Software Center then run this
mkdir /tmp/chrome
sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p3 /tmp/chrome -o ro
sudo cp /tmp/chrome/opt/google/chrome/pepper/lib­pepflashplayer.so /usr/lib/
echo "CHROMIUM_FLAGS=\"--enable-logging --enable-smooth-scrolling --log-level=1 --scroll-pixels=30 --ppapi-flash-path=/usr/lib/libpepflashp­layer.so --ppapi-flash-version=\"$(egrep "^VERSION=" /tmp/chrome/opt/google/chrome/pepper/pep­per-flash.info|sed -e 's/^VERSION=//' -e 's/\"//g')\"\"" | sudo tee -a /etc/chromium-browser/default
sudo umount /tmp/chrome
rm -rf /tmp/chrome

Touchpad Fix
mkdir ~/backup
sudo mv /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/* ~/backup/
cd /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/
sudo wget http://craigerrington.com/chrome/x_alarm_chrubuntu.zip
sudo unzip x_alarm_chrubuntu.zip
sudo rm x_alarm_chrubuntu.zip

Keyboard layout
sudo gedit /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-keyboard.c­onf
edit the "gb" to whatever keyboard layout you use. For me it's "us"

PPA FIXES 
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:hrw/my-own-packages
sudo apt-get update
let update manager run updates

SOUND FIX
In terminal, run alsamixer