Select Linux (Beta) and then click “turn on” in the Linux menu section. Do so by clicking the system tray in the bottom right corner and clicking the gear icon. If your device is up-to-date and compatible, you should be able to find “Linux (Beta)” when you go to your settings menu of your Chromebook. You can find the list of supported boards here and you will find a link where you can cross-reference the board name with your device. First, you’ll need to make sure your Chromebook supports Crostini, a.k.a.
HOW TO DOWNLOAD SPOTIFY ON CHROMEBOOK INSTALL
So, without further ado, let’s walk through the steps to install Flatpak on Chrome OS and install you first Linux desktop application.įor our purposes, we will install the Spotify desktop application but first, we’ll make sure everyone’s up to speed by going through the steps to install Linux (Beta) on a Chromebook. Still, a lot of these applications will run as smooth as butter on a Chromebook and for those users who prefer to have installable applications as opposed to Web Apps, this is a great option. Keep in mind, video editors take a lot of system resources so don’t be surprised if you experience some jank when you try to edit that 4K video of your kid’s gymnastics meet. As a matter of fact, Shotcut is available in a Flatpak alongside popular editors like Kdenlive, OpenShot and Olive. There are IDEs, games, productivity tools and yes, even video editors. These are just a few of the desktop applications that can be found at Flathub.
Here’s an example of some of the Linux apps you can grab from Flathub, the official Flatpak shop. Now, this is no Google Play Store we’re talking about but there are a lot of popular desktop applications that I know many a Chromebook user has wanted to use but have lacked the ability to do so until now.
HOW TO DOWNLOAD SPOTIFY ON CHROMEBOOK CODE
Flatpaks also have their own, official storefront where you can download and/or grab the command-line code to install them. The reason this is kind of a big deal is that Flatpak applications are simple to install and require very little know-how when it comes to using the Linux terminal. I’ll rope this in before we get too far off into the weeds. I’ve tried using Flatpaks on Chrome OS in the past with little success but today, I found that Crostini now works flawlessly with the official Debian setup process. What is Flatpak? In layman’s terms, Flatpak is a universal package management framework that attempts to make applications more flexible by making the application usable on a wide variety of Linux distributions. I say all of this so I can share my latest discovery.
At the end of the day, applications that require a lot of graphics horsepower are going to struggle on Chrome OS devices until more powerful GPUs are available and accessible via the OS. My Chromebox is a Core-i7 with plenty of RAM and I have GPU support enabled to squeeze a little more juice out of the onboard Intel HD graphics. Now, I’ve already received feedback from some users saying Shotcut is a little rough around the edges but a lot of that depends on the device that you’re using. Just yesterday, I shared a full-blown, professional-grade video editor running on my Chromebox thanks to some simple command-line codes. We haven’t quite gotten to the point yet but as I spend my days testing new apps and installation methods, I’ve discovered that Linux on Chrome OS is far more capable than I anticipated. On the flip side, I’ve long theorized that the masses could benefit from Crostini if Google could find a way to deliver Linux apps in a way that felt native to consumers. When Google announced that Chrome OS would officially support Linux apps via the Crostini project, I expected that developers and tinkerers like me would be the only ones genuinely excited.