What is chromeOS?

The term Chrome, developed and controlled by Google, caused confusion. The same name referred to both the OS and the web browser. Google finally took care of this simple annoyance by changing the name of the OS to chromeOS following the same convertion as Apple — macOS macOS and iOS — where the name of the OS starts with lower case followed the word OS as a single word. The original version of chromeOS was intended for its line of laptops, marketed under the name Chromebook. Just like Google's portable OS, Android, it is also based on Linux.

By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=65277366

As of 2010, a year before its first release, the development of the chromeOS switched to Gentoo because of the flexibility of its package manager — Portage.

Although the OS is open source, users only have access to personal files, but no access to system files especially the kernel. chromeOS mostly runs web applications making it basically a thin client — except for multimedia with several (if not all) codecs, camera and daemons.

Running chromeOS (stable channel only) demands the user to completely trust Google as it controls all aspects of the OS including and perhaps not limited to updates, which is perfect for users. As a matter of fact, all applications are only accessible through the Chrome Web Store and there is little to no risk of viruses or other malware.

As of version 53 of the OS released on 09/2016, Google Chrome can run a Google Play, which allows users install and run Android apps.

chromeOS shipped with a limited shell in user mode named crosh, which runs on the browser. To access it, you must enter the following key combination.

      
      [CTRL] + [ALT] + [T]

Compared to other shells, crosh is fairly limited as you can see in the list of commands below.

autest [-scheduled] — Trigger an auto-update. To fake a scheduled update check use -scheduled.
authpolicy_debug <level> — Set authpolicy daemon debugging level <level> can be 0 (quiet), 1 (taciturn), 2 (chatty), or 3 (verbose).
battery_firmware <info|check|update> —
info: Query battery info.
check: Check whether the AC adapter is connected. Also check whether the battery firmware is the latest.
update: Trigger battery firmware update.
battery_test [<test length>] — Tests battery discharge rate for given number of seconds. Without an argument, defaults to 300 seconds.
bt_console [<agent capability>] — Enters a Bluetooth debugging console. Optional argument specifies the capability of a pairing agent the console will provide; see the Bluetooth Core specification for valid options.
chaps_debug [start|stop|<log_level>] — Sets the chapsd logging level. No arguments will start verbose logging.
connectivity — Shows connectivity status. connectivity help for more details
cryptohome_status — Get human-readable status information from cryptohomed.
dmesg [-d|-k|-r|-t|-u|-x] — Display kernel log buffer
dump_emk — Show the EMK (Enterprise Machine Key).
enroll_status [—mode] [—domain] [—realm] [—user] — Displays device enrollment information./
exit — Exit crosh.
ff_debug [<tag_expr>] [-list_valid_tags] [-reset] — Add and remove flimflam debugging tags. ff_debug help for more details.
free [options] — Display free/used memory info
help [command] — Display general help, or details for a specific command.
help_advanced — Display the help for more advanced commands, mainly used for debugging.
meminfo — Display detailed memory statistics
memory_test — Performs extensive memory testing on the available free memory.
modem <command> [args...] — Interact with the 3G modem. Run modem help for detailed help.
modem_set_carrier carrier-name — Configures the modem for the specified carrier.
network_diag [-date] [-flimflam] [-link] [-show-macs] [-wifi][-wifi-mon] <host> — A function that performs a suite of network diagnostics. Saves a copy of the output to your Downloads directory.
network_logging <wifi | cellular | ethernet | reset> — A function that enables a predefined set of tags useful for debugging the specified device. Can be used incrementally, then reset to default with the reset subcommand.
p2p_update [enable|disable] [—num-connections] [—show-peers] — Enables or disables the peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing of updates over the local network. This will both attempt to get updates from other peers in the network and share the downloaded updates with them. Run this command without arguments to see the current state. Additional switches will display number of connections and P2P peers.
ping [-4] [-6] [-c count] [-i interval] [-n] [-s packetsize] [-W waittime] <destination> — Send ICMP ECHO_REQUEST packets to a network host. If <destination> is gw then the next hop gateway for the default route is used. Default is to use IPv4 [-4] rather than IPv6 [-6] addresses.
rlz < status | enable | disable > — Enable or disable RLZ. See this site for details: http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/extensions/proposed-changes/apis-under-development/rlz-api
rollback — Attempt to rollback to the previous update cached on your system. Only available on non-stable channels and non-enterprise enrolled devices. Please note that this will powerwash your device.
route [-4] [-6] — Display the routing tables. Default is to show IPv4 [-4] rather than IPv6 [-6] routes.
set_apn [-c] [-n <network-id>] [-u <username>] [-p <password>] <apn> — Set the APN to use when connecting to the network specified by <network-id>. If <network-id> is not specified, use the network-id of the currently registered network. The -c option clears the APN to be used, so that the default APN will be used instead.
set_arpgw <true | false> — Turn on extra network state checking to make sure the default gateway is reachable.
set_cellular_ppp [-c] [-u <username>] [-p <password>] — Set the PPP username and/or password for an existing cellular connection. If neither -u nor -p is provided, show the existing PPP username for the cellular connection. The -c option clears any existing PPP username and PPP password for an existing cellular connection.
set_time [<time string>] — Sets the system time if the system has been unable to get it from the network. The <time string> uses the format of the GNU coreutils date command.
set_wake_on_lan <true | false> — Enable or disable Wake on LAN for Ethernet devices. This command takes effect after re-connecting to Ethernet and is not persistent across system restarts.
storage_test_1 — Performs a short offline SMART test.
storage_test_2 — Performs an extensive readability test.
swap [ enable <size (MB)> | disable | start | stop | status | set_margin <discard threshold (MB)> | set_extra_free <amount (MB)> | set_min_filelist <amount (MB)> ] — Manage the system /swap files. The enable/disable options update the config files settings and will take effect at the next boot. The start/stop options will turn /swap on/off immediately, but leave the config files settings alone (so next boot will revert back). Warning: If /swap is heavily used, then turning it off might cause the system to hang while the kernel tries to release pages and free up memory. In some extreme situations, this can take a long time to finish. The set_margin option changes the low-memory warning margin immediately and persistently to the chosen amount (in MiB). A value of 0, or the string default, restore the default behavior. The current value is shown with swap status. Similarly, the set_min_filelist and set_extra_free change obscure kernel parameters (which are similarly named) in the same way.
syslog <message> — Logs a message to syslog (the system log daemon).
time_info — Returns the current synchronization state for the time service.
top — Run top.
tpm_status — Prints TPM (Trusted Platform Module) status information.
tracepath [-4] [-6] [-n] <destination>[/port] — Trace the path/route to a network host. Default is to trace IPv4 [-4] rather than IPv6 [-6] targets.
u2f_flags <u2f | g2f>[,verbose] — Set flags to override the second-factor authentication daemon configuration.
u2f: Always enable the standard U2F mode even if not set in device policy.
g2f: Always enable the U2F mode plus some additional extensions.
verbose: Increase the daemon logging verbosity in /var/log/messages.
uname [-a|-s|-n|-r|-v|-m|-p|-i|-o] — Display system info
update_over_cellular [enable|disable] — Enables or disables the auto updates over cellular networks. Run without arguments to see the current state.
upload_crashes — Uploads available crash reports to the crash server.
upload_devcoredumps [enable|disable] — Enable or disable the upload of devcoredump reports.
uptime — Display uptime/load info
vmstat [-a|-d|-f|-m|-n|-s|-w] [delay [count]] — Report virtual memory statistics
wifi_power_save < status | enable | disable > — Enable or disable WiFi power save mode. This command is not persistent across system restarts.
wpa_debug [<debug_level>] [—list_valid_level] [—reset] — Set wpa_supplicant debugging level. wpa_debug help for more details.

The latter was taken from help_advanced.

Installing chromeOS:

Before early 2022, there was no OS installation. chromeOS is heavily isolated. In other words, the user has no root access — no control over the OS.

In case of extreme errors, there is a local utility that resets the system to factory settings from an on-board ROM chip called POWERWASH. Another alternative only when suggested by the Chromebook vendor was to re-store the OS creating a recovery USB flash drive and booting from it. In the latter scenario, you needed to contact the vendor for specific instructions.

Note that OS updates do not count as installations. Updates are pushed by default and the end user only needs to reboot the machine. These changes to the OS are written to a ROM chip. If you were to run POWERWASH, you would not have to reinstall all updates to the OS.

Introducing ChromeOS Flex:

In 2002, Google finally made chromeOS available to any computer running a 64-bit chipset — except for old Chromebook (upper case C, fairly annoying that Google cannot seem to follow its own naming convention). The new variation of the OS is ChromeOS Flex. I tried downloading ChromeOS Flex for my EOL (end of life, no longer supported, no more updates including severe security fixes) ASUS Chromebook C202SA, but the script used to verify the OS, manufacturer and model of the machine gave me the latest version of chromeOS and not Flex. I have not found a way to fool or bypass the script. It seems that Google does not want users to extend the life of laptops they have previously sold in order to push the user into buying a new machine. The life cycle of a Chromebook is eight (8) years.

Whether I want to admit or not, I will not buy another chromeOS system. I understand that Google wants to make money (advertisement revenue, store fees, cloud computing, etc.), but why should I pay for a machine (cash cow) that already makes money from every more I make.

As an alternative, some users have installed .

crouton is a set of scripts that bundle up into an easy-to-use, Chromium OS-centric chroot generator. Currently Ubuntu and Debian are supported (using debootstrap behind the scenes) (crouton GitHub, 08/09/2022).

This script allows you to install Linux. At this point, I would recommend a distro like Lubuntu for its low resource consumption and much better memory management than the distro crouton recommends.