Good news for owners of the Acer Chromebook R 13: The Dev Channel version of Chrome OS 72 brings Project Crostini support to the 2-in-1 device, according to Reddit. It may have taken a while for Crostini to arrive because the R 13 is powered by a MediaTek ARM processor. By comparison, many of the more readily available Intel-powered Chromebooks gained Linux app support with the Stable Version of Chrome OS 69.
If you want to switch to the Dev Channel to try this, just remember that you may encounter bugs and issues since this isn’t the final Chrome OS 72 software that will eventually make its way to the Stable Channel. And if you decide the Dev Channel isn’t for you, it’s easy to revert back to the current Stable software. However, your device will likely be Powerwashed so any local data would be deleted in that case.
Not scared enough yet to try the Dev Channel? That’s your choice of course, but early reports are that Crostini support is quite buggy for the moment, so it may make sense to wait; the Dev Channel software usually gets an upgrade every week or so. You can keep track of the version changes at this official site for Chrome OS; just do a search for the R 13.
Once the wrinkles are worked out, you’ll have full access to a Linux terminal and can download Linux apps from the repository of your choice and install them right from the Chrome OS Files app.
There is one more caveat though: You’ll need those Linux apps to be compatible with the ARM processor inside the Acer Chromebook R 13. Most are compatible with x86 chips made by Intel and AMD, so the app selection is limited unless you want to build the packages for ARM yourself.
