Expanding Chrome OS into full system

vwlouk · n00b Joined: 26 Aug 2015 Posts: 2 Location: Virginia, USA

I have been away from the forums for a while; if this is the wrong section for this type of question, then please feel free to move it. I recently ordered the Core i3, 4 GB version of the Acer C720 Chromebook and want to do a full install of Gentoo. Most of the tutorials, guides, and forum entries indicate that Chrome OS has to be removed or dual booted with in order to install a new system but the author of this article article: http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-secret-origins-of-googles-chrome-os/ states that Chrome OS is based on Gentoo.

If Chrome OS already uses portage and a Gentoo file structure, then why can't the full portage tree be rsync'd and emerged into a full Gentoo system? Nobody has asked this question, and there are no guides suggesting this idea, so it is probably not workable. Could the appropriate tools at least be emerged to install Gentoo from within the Chrome OS? It is probably easier to do from scratch, but I am interested in the feasibility of this idea. Thanks in advance.

-Vern

yoshi314 · l33t Joined: 30 Dec 2004 Posts: 850 Location: PL

I would assume there is no compiler provided with the os, and it's fairly locked down. So you need to hack it and either run a custom os in chroot or toss it out altogether.
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~amd64
shrink your /usr/portage with squashfs+aufs

Roman_Gruber · Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 9:10 pm Post subject:

or maybe boot from an usb-drive and use the usb-drive when that works

The Doctor · Moderator Joined: 27 Jul 2010 Posts: 2678

I doubt you can just revert the ChromeOS. You can do this with Sabayon but it takes at least as long as a normal install and Sabayon is shameless about being Gentoo with only a few custom features with another (compatible) packages manager.

Even if this where possible I doubt it could be done in a reasonable amount of time or with a reasonable amount of effort.
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First things first, but not necessarily in that order.

Apologies if I take a while to respond. I'm currently working on the dematerialization circuit for my blue box.

roki942 · Posted: Wed Oct 07, 2015 12:18 am Post subject:

Doesn't tell how to do what you want but may give you some ideas. http://www.android-x86.org/

vwlouk · n00b Joined: 26 Aug 2015 Posts: 2 Location: Virginia, USA

I appreciate all of the responses. The Chromebook should be here by Columbus Day, and I am looking forward to seeing what is actually accessible from 'developer mode'. It will give me something to do while planning the install. The Haswell chipset runs most desktops without problem, but it would be nice to keep the install as minimal as possible; perhaps LXDE or LXQT. Again, thanks for all of the responses. If there is anything worth mentioning that results from this tinkering, I will post an update.

-Vern