With every update to ChromeOS, the folks at Google continue to break the stereotype that “Chromebooks are perfect for your grandmother because they can only surf on the internet”. ChromeOS 75.0.3759.4 was released last night and packs a few useful changes as well as several enhancements:
ChromeOS 75.0.3759.4 is currently being rolled out to users in the dev channel. Unfortunately if you have chosen to enable the GPU, your Crostini instance may no longer function. You may get the following error message when launching Termina via crosh
Is that a Chromebook in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? I am a huge fan of Chromebooks and absolutely love ChromeOS, this should really come as no surprise to anyone who reads my blog. I have been the owner of a first generation GPD-Pocket Laptop for a while now and was wondering if it would be possible to get ChromiumOS to run on the GPD-Pocket. Sadly it is not as simple as downloading one of the pre-made forks of ChromiumOS and booting as essentially nothing works out of the box (but it does boot). I rolled up my sleeves this morning and started building my own custom fork of ChromiumOS.
Just a FYI, ChromeOS 73.0.3680.0 is currently rolling out to the Dev Channel and carries a nasty surprise. It appears to delete anything stored in your Downloads Folder without warning after installing it. Please backup your Downloads folder to Google Drive or an external flash drive prior to rebooting. This file deletion bug does not seem to impact anything outside of the Downloads folder including Crostini or Android files. It also does not impact any other files stored in folders outside of your Downloads directory.
One of the most understated features of ChromeOS is its ability to automatically connect to a compatible phone and share its internet connection in a feature called Instant Tethering. This feature currently only supports the Google Pixel line of phones but I was greeted to a pleasant surprise when I opened my Pixelbook at a train station and was greeted with a setup window for Instant Tethering on my Samsung Galaxy Note 9.
We know that Google is working on eventually adding the ability to integrate Google Drive with Crostini in the future but this feature is not expected to hit production Chromebooks until sometime next year. Sadly it is also not possible to mount a Google Drive share (or any remote filesystems) at this time as well. Fortunately there is a excellent third party Google Drive client that I have personally used for a few years on my Linux machines called Insync – it turns out that it works in Linux without much of an issue. Here is now to install it:
I have been contacted by serveral readers and seen countless posts on reddit from users who have been forced to powerwash their devices after a unstable “Dev” update to their Chromebook. While I do not recommend that users who demand stability use the “Dev” channel, I do understand why they do as it offers a lot of features that allow a Chromebook to replace their primary machine. I am a firm believer in a saying that says “If it is not backed up, you must not care about it”. As Google does not yet offer a way to backup your device, allow me to show you a simple way to do this via rsync and a remote server.
Heads up to all ChromeOS users in the dev channel. I am currently going through the changelogs to understand what changed and will be updating this post as I find things. If you spot anything, please feel free to drop a comment below.
ChromeOS 70.0.3524.2 is currently rolling out to users on the Dev channel. I am working my way through the changelogs to see what has changed. This list is only what I have been able to find after a few minutes of research, I will update it as I find more.
Over the past few days, instructions to install Debian Packages (.deb) files on ChromeOS via the Chrome OS File Manager have been floating around many major tech sites. I was originally not planning to cover this story as it was already covered so many times however I changed my mind after following the steps on these sites and was not successful. It turns out that they were missing a step – the .deb file needs to be placed in the “Linux Files” mount first. Here are the instructions: