Install Ubuntu 14.10 on Chromebook Pixel (2013)

With this instructions you get a Ubuntu 15.04 on Chromebook Pixel, installed on the SSD without removing Chrome OS. This means dual boot from development mode prompt to either Chrome OS or Ubuntu. Alle relevant components work on Ubuntu as you would expect it, including Bluetooth, touch and Wifi.

This guide is for the Chromebook Pixel from 2013. Most of the things here will work for the Pixel 2015 as well. You will have issues with the Kernel as it is lacking some drivers required for the newer Pixel. If anyone wants to send me a Pixel 2015 get in touch by email (simon AT longsleep DOT org) and i will see what i can do.

Assumptions

• Chromebook Pixel is already in developer mode.
• You are willing to shink Chrome OS (this will remove all data).

So just get this repository and extract it into ~/Downloads. You need to be able to run the various scripts shipped in this repository.

This repository provides all the gear to install Ubuntu along side with Chrome OS. During this process Chrome OS will be shrinked and will reset all its data. You have been warned!

Shrink Chrome OS

sudo bash shrink-chromeos

Install Ubuntu

The Chrome Book Pixel hardware works out of the box with Ubuntu 15.04. No extra equipment is required.

sudo bash install-minimal

Kernel settings

• Add line i915 modeset=1 into /etc/modules.
• Add tpm_tis.force=1 tpm_tis.interrupts=0 to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT in /etc/default/grub and run sudo update-grub afterwards.

Disable bluetooth on startup

Edit /etc/rc.local and add rfkill block bluetooth before the exit 0.

Dim screen on startup

The Pixel's screen is very bright and boots up at full intensity. So I find it a good idea to dim it on startup. Edit /etc/rc.local and add echo 2800 > /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness.

Hot keys

• I use the CTRL key to rebind audio hotkeys in keyboard settings.
• For keyboard backlight i use a custom trigger CTRL+TAB with my pixel-keyboard-brightness from my bin-scripts repository.
• Display backlight keys can be bound to a custom action using xdotool. Install xdotool with apt-get and bind xdotool key --clearmodifies XF86MonBrightnessUp and xdotool key --clearmodifies XF86MonBrightnessDown to the designated keys within keyboard settings. I have a script for this in my bin-scripts repository as well.

Known issues

• Chromebooks forget about Dev mode when completely out of battery. This is very annoying. See here for details.

Dual boot with Chrome OS

So now we have Ubuntu. Chrome OS is still there and functional. You can boot it from the boot screen with CTRL+D.

Install Chromebrew into Chrome OS

Chromebrew is a package manager for Chrome OS which allows to easily install various tools into your Chrome OS environment. It installs directly into Chrome OS, no chroot what so ever.

wget -q -O - https://raw.github.com/skycocker/chromebrew/master/install.sh | bash

This gives you a decent start for working with Chrome OS on the command line, including Git support.

Then try it out and install vim.

crew install vim

Yay!

Install Chrome Dev editor (works on both Ubuntu and Chrome OS)

Chrome Dev Editor is a Chrome App which works offline and provides you a Graphical Text editor. It supports Git directly (but do no use that) as it works great together with commandline Git. I use the Monokai color theme there as this is the theme i usually have in Sublime Text too.

Use Kernel 4.1

I recommend running the Pixel with Linux Kernel 4.1 as it brings lots of changes and improvements for the Intel Platform. I have a Kernel patches tree and configuration for the Chromebook Pixel in my Kernel patches repository.

Extra packages

I also have a ppa for the Pixel on Ubuntu. This adds some extra functionality and tools i use of the time. Most of it requires Kernel 4.1 though.

My result/ recommendation

For me the Chromebook Pixel is working great with Linux. I am using it as main laptop for development when i am at home and travelling. Below you find a list of the best and worst items which are relevant to me.

Pro's

• Great QWERTY keyboard which has all be buttons at the right place and in the correct size to type quickly and fluidly.
• Great, large touchpad.
• Solid aluminium case, which maches the whole thing pretty much indestructable.
• Linux support is good (using my custom Kernel).
• Brilliant HiDPI 4:3 screen.
• Fan is off when not doing very much / no noise!
• Mini display port connector to attach external HiDPI display.
• Good 720p UVC camera.
• Reasonable CPU performance (14367.41 BogoMIPS).

Con's

• Gets rather hot (+loud fan) when CPU and GPU is loaded.
• Moderate battery live (5 to 6 hours at best).
• No secure boot / have to keep Chrome OS in dev mode.
• Very small SSD, need to use extra SDCard to be useful.
• Only has USB2 / no USB3.
• Keyboard is missing some keys, requires extra Kernal patches to get POS1, END, PAGE-UP/DOWN.
• Need to keep Chrome OS on the SSD to be able to recover from complete power loss. See here for reasons.

Additional things

• Check if we can improve battery life with Kernel 4.2 and by setting pcie_aspm=force i915.enable_fbc=1 i915.enable_rc6=7 Kernel parameters. Also check i915.enable_psr=1 parameter.

To sum this up, the Chromebook Pixel is the platform of choice and can only be recommended if you are willing to work around the issues to get Linux on it and all. Usually in other similar 13" Ultrabooks the list of problems is a lot longer. The Pixel is almost flawless, now if it had a 512GB SSD and a customizeable EFI BIOS .. well dreams.

-- Simon Eisenmann