Has anyone got a decent Debian install working on a Chromebook?
I need a new laptop/notebook/whatever you call it, and it seems a Chromebook may have certain advantages and be fairly cheap also. I have seen a lot of tutorials regarding dual booting Ubuntu and ChromeOS but since, as we know, Debian and Ubuntu can be very different and because I see a lot of mentions of opening up the device and voiding the warranty I wanted to ask whether anybody has a dual-boot Debian and ChromeOS setup on a Chromebook and, if so, which one?
I'm almost certain I will go for an x86 so that I have Flash in Linux but, then, it occurs to me just now that I've just watched a few hours of HTML5 video from YouTobe so is that a concern any more?

don't they use ARM architecture?
quite a few distros support it these days, certainly also debian.

rokytnji has a thread on linuxforums.org about problems with a new chromebook.
it's not about debian, but it kind of proves how pointless it is to buy spanking brand new hardware and install linux on it.
i'd let it sit for at leat a year.
in other words, buy something used that has proven itself to work with (...insert.distro.here...) - and you don't have to worry about voiding your warranty.

Maybe test it out with Raspbian on a usb stick (it's ARMhf), if that works you could try to install Debian using ARM or a variant.

I bought an Acer C710 (refurbed) because it was cheap, it uses an Intel x86, and both ram and hdd (standard 2.5") are easy to swap. From photos I've seen the C720 switched to an mSata format ssd. And you're correct, many of the others, such as Sumsungs, use ARM.

Ondoho's advice is good: make sure of the internals before you buy, and make sure others have proven it can be booted to another OS. Mine will only be used for surfing at work occasionally so it's staying on Chrome for now. The configuration of the C710 gives me linux options in the future. And I've already voided the warranty by adding a stick of used ram to bump it up to 3G.

Thanks, I have subscribed to this thread regarding Slackware on a Chromebook:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...i3-4175516548/
Which seems encouraging since I tend to find Slackware can be closer to Debian Sid than Ubuntu at times.
I don't really want to be a test pilot with this though as I can only afford to buy one new system and since it will be a backup to my desktop in case of failure I want it to work fairly reliably. I do know that Chromebooks are fairly new but I think I'm right in saying that the older ones are of a similar vintage to my graphics card (NVIDIA GT 640) so their hardware ought not to be too old for Sid? It does seem odd to me that these things have been around for a while now but I don't see much evidence of people using them dual boot with something like Debian on a day-to-day basis.

The Acer C720 is a good choice. It has an Intel 64-bit Haswell CPU, and is a good piece of hardware. I have Debian Sid running both on a USB drive and in a chroot inside ChromeOS. I find I rarely boot the USB drive, just jumping into the chroot when I need to do something in Linux, which isn't that often any more. You can replace the SSD with a larger one and dual boot if you want, or entirely replace CrOS, or boot from a USB drive, whichever you prefer. I find that once the OS is loaded from the USB drive, it runs rather fast. I'm using this drive and it works pretty well. You can leave it in the USB port full time if you want. It also comes in larger sizes. There are Youtube videos showing how to replace the internal SSD if you want to go that way. The RAM is soldered in, so it's not upgradable, so I suggest getting a model with 4GB. I'm really happy with my C720, probably the best investment I've made in a long time. It's a great machine for the money.

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Thank you sgosnell, your post is very much appreciated and exactly why I started this thread. My, perhaps seemingly cryptic, allusion to reasons to want to keep ChromeOS are due to things like Amazon Video being potentially doable on it and other, similar, things. However, I know if I had to deal only with ChromeOS on a day to day basis it would annoy me as much as iOS does on my iPad.

That's what I thought until I started using it. Now I spend almost all my time in it. The only things that it doesn't do that I need is run Citrix and a few other proprietary things, and there is no email client. For day-to-day use, it's about all I need. YMMV.

Perhaps I will be pleasently surprised -- I only know that iOS and Abdroid were both as useless as I thout (Android more so than I thought, but that's another story).

Did you have to make physical changes to the machine in order to install Debian? Also, does the touchpad worl without compiling a custom kernel?
I have googled the combination of Acer C270 and Linux and the results seem to point to a few issues.

From memory (which gets more faulty as I grow older, and I haven't booted from the USB drive in months), no physical changes are necessary, but you must put the device in developer mode. That requires some keypresses. I don't even recall the exact sequence, but it's well documented on the Google help pages. The touchpad does not work, but a mouse works fine. I settled on running Debian in a chroot, using the crouton scripts, because everything works there, and I don't have to reboot to switch between the OS's. It's instantaneous, and the results are good enough for me. Plus, I can cast anything from my chromebook to a TV using a chromecast. That's amazingly useful, especially for presentations and watching videos. I can cast Youtube, Hulu+, Amazon, MLB.tv, whatever. I'm also using the identical setup on an Asus Chromebox, and I'm happy with both. I replaced the SSD in the Chromebox with a larger one, and added RAM, and it's very responsive. I haven't even tried running pure Linux on it, it just doesn't seem worth the effort. The chroot gives me all I need. Again, YMMV.

The touchpad not working could almost be a deal breaker for me, since there are cheap laptops out there. I can see how the chroot could be good but can you do things like connecting over SFTP with Thunar or, indeed, use SSH with keys rather than passwords? Can you mount ext2/3/4 USB drives?
I don't necesarily need full blown Linux much of the time but when I need something I need it to just work.

Since my thread was mentioned. Let me clarify a point. Mine came refurbished from Acer. So no telling what could have been the root
cause of my problems. My main complaint was support answers, and the proprietary nature of bios accepting only certain SSD drives
plus the UEFI nature of the bios with a Microsoft mindset when it came to installing other operating systems.

So mine was a "refubished C710 Acer Chromebook" with a corrupted bios mostly.
Sgosnell has a better skill set/handle than me on these things. Mine is still a learning
adventure. But for the time being. It sits as a media receiver for the TV.

I have other Linux Laptops for use so no biggy/priority for me on getting my Chromebook to play with Linux yet.
I am just a happy camper I turned it from a doorstop to a working unit again.

Edit: Even though Jeff Hoogland left Bohdi. Before He left. He made a kernel that shows some love for
the touchpad on a C720 and a Bohdi release for just the C720. I also heard scuttle butt that the newer linux kernels are going to support the touchpads on Chromebooks also.

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I am becoming more convinced not to buy a Chromebook. Which is a shame as I think dual booting Chrome OS could be more useful to me than dual booting Windows 7 (the direction I feel I am heading).
I do thank you for your help -- it's much appreciated.

I don't use ssh, so I can't comment on that, but you can certainly connect USB drives, of any filesystem. I do it all the time. I have one large HDD that has both ext4 and ntfs partitions, and all are recognized just as they would be on any Linux system. In the chroot, you don't see the other partitions on the chromebook, but you can't normally access them anyway. The only part of the SSD you can use is the Downloads folder, and it's the same in both CrOS and the chroot.

If you don't want a chromebook it's your money, but I like mine a lot. I wouldn't even consider a standard laptop now. I have all I need. YMMV.