This is already a thing: https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/9145439?hl=en

I'm guessing GP means natively, not in a VM. I've been super grateful for the VM-based method, but I still prefer the native experience like that provided by Crouton[1]. With Crouton being "maintenance-only" now I share GP's hope that a similar thing will be possible and easy.

[1]: https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton

Crostini should already host a fine vscode. https://chromeos.dev/en/linux

ChromeOS seems to consider it an anti-goal for users to be using the OS like a general purpose OS. Crostini allows them to keep the rest of the system locked down, where-as just running vscode on ChromeOS directly would mean giving Vscode more unconstrained access.

IIRC Crostini requires certain hardware CPU features, so you need a Chromebook model that supports it. Most Chromebooks released after 2019, as well as select earlier models in the list in the Wiki

https://chromeos.dev/en/linux/linux-on-chromeos-deep-dive

Very doubtful as running random binaries under ChromeOS would defeat the entire security model for ChromeOS.

You can already sideload APKs on Chromebooks with developer mode enabled, so I don't see why they couldn't allow the same thing with Linux binaries.

The whole idea of the Chromebook is that its sort of an internet appliance that you is supposed to be automatically updated and secure, and if in doubt, rebooting will return it to a known good state. If ChromeOS can run any random thing it's just a normal Linux laptop at that point.

That's why Developer mode isn't for the average buyer of a ChromeOS device, you have to hold down keys and specifically enable it after a big warning screen saying it will delete all data.

The official ChromeOS Linux support is a container that is inside of a VM.

I don't think the person you replied to was asking for it to be enabled out of the box. Them talking about using a Chromebook as a dev machine makes me think they'd be okay with having to enable developer mode to run Linux binaries.

My understanding is that is what developer mode allows you to do - treat a Chromebook as a regular laptop, install any Linux distro you wish to.

ChromeOS isn't a general purpose Linux distro, so in order to actually run a lot of things you'd need to install all their dependencies anyways.

> treat a Chromebook as a regular laptop, install any Linux distro you wish to

Apparently this is via a VM, with limitations (no hardware acceleration, for example); presumably the original commenter wants to be able to run Linux binaries natively.

> ChromeOS isn't a general purpose Linux distro

But based on the article, it seems Google is taking steps towards making it one (switching to Wayland, using standard Chrome for Linux, etc.).

I should note I am no expert on anything of this, I have a Chromebook as a sort of backup/alternative. FlipC434

Developer mode basically unlocks the r/w firmware, so you can boot from USB and replace the firmware etc, but the Read-only Google Root of Trust stays there, however as far as I know the ChromeOS 'distro' exists only to support running the Chrome Web Browser, and also Android and Linux VMs, +audio/video/input/etc. So if you have root on a ChromeOS device in developer mode, and you are dropped into a shell and want to run firefox, how would you do that? There are no packages for running on 'ChromeOS'. You can't just apt-get. I don't know if ChromeOS is self-hosted, ie. it is compiled and generated on itself and not some other Linux distro.

which

I don't think adopting Wayland or using the 'Linux' Chrome makes it move towards being a 'general purpose' distro. This just lessens the amount of change between ChromeOS and Linux so no more Freon library. It also seems to greatly reduce the difference between the CHROME_BROWSER_FOR_CHROMEOS and THE_CHROME_BROWSER_FOR_LINUX builds.

That is a VM, similar in concept to WSL on Windows, with the difference that the host is also Linux based.

"Linux for Chromebooks: Secure Development"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRlh8LX4kQI

https://chromium.googlesource.com/crosvm/crosvm/

https://chromeos.dev/en/posts/making-android-more-secure-wit...

I guess I wasn't clear about how I thought this stuff worked.

WSL is like the Chromebook Official Linux Developer thing -(he last time I updated it), Debian, inside a container, inside a VM, running under ChromeOS. You can run what Debian can run. Inside the container.

I thought ChromeOS as a distro is more like a runtime - it has the stuff to let it boot a Chrome Browser and VMs. etc +hardware support. There wouldn't be much point (other than fun) for Running random software on ChromeOS. It would be like OpenWRT, but without the package manager.

I would avoid using dev mode for production. If you press <space> during boot all is lost. + no guarantee that update will not fail.

Because APKs run in a pretty secure sandbox?

But android is sandboxed

The equivalent is linux/crostini

Those APKs run on a virtual machine (ART), inside of a virtual machine (ARCVM).

https://chromeos.dev/en/posts/making-android-more-secure-wit...

You can already launch docker containers, lxc containers and windows, linux and even macos via KVM from crostini. You can even run nested virt inside those vms. Curious what the motivation is that those options do not address. Is it mainly resource allocation concerns?