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Hold the phone: There’s hope that the 2015 Chromebook Pixel will get Project Crostini after all

Yesterday, I shared the bad news that around a half-dozen Chrome OS devices would not gain support for Linux apps in Project Crostini. The most surprising member of that list is the 2015 Chromebook Pixel. Now, it appears that perhaps that Chromebook as well as the Dell Chromebook 13 7310, could still see Linux app support.

Android Police found a Google Groups thread that explains the situation. Here’s the most relevant comment:

[W]e’ve only decided that we’re not going to support linux-3.14 and older. we’ve also only decided that we’re not going to support specific devices that have been listed in the doc. there remains an undecided gap in between into which lulu & samus fall.

For reference, Samus is the internal name for the 2015 Chromebook Pixel, while Lulu is the Dell Chromebook 13. As far as the document that’s pointed out, you can view it here. By they way, I’ve had the doc bookmarked for months because it’s a great overview of the nuts and bolts of how containers work in Project Crostini.

Essentially, there’s no decision yet on these two devices, so it’s still possible that they do see support for Linux apps. If I had to guess — and I said this in a comment earlier today in the original post — my gut says that at least the 2015 Chromebook Pixel will get it. But that’s just a guess. My thought is that there are quite a few owners of that Chromebook and if enough of them speak up in support of adding Crostini, Google could make it happen.

On a related note, I mentioned yesterday that the 2013 Chromebook Pixel is already on a supported kernel for this project so I didn’t include it on the “won’t be supported list.” However, that device — known as Link — runs on an older Ivy Bridge Intel processor so Crostini isn’t coming to that Chromebook. I’ll update the list as a result.

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Kevin C. Tofel

5 thoughts on “Hold the phone: There’s hope that the 2015 Chromebook Pixel will get Project Crostini after all

  1. I hope Lulu does get it. I have a Dell Chromebook 13 8 GB RAM and I5 which works a dream and it would be a shame it didn’t get Linux. This machine has plenty of power behind it. Regardless, of it getting the official support I guess gallium would also be an option.

  2. Having been at the receiving end of it many times, I know this technique all too well:
    1) support for beloved product is unexpectedly and suddenly dropped;
    2) outrage ensues;
    3) facing substantial backlash, company states it misspoke, support is not dropped, but instead the matter is being discussed internally, and no decision has been taken yet;
    4) after many months of silence, the company quietly announces it is dropping support for beloved product. Or, better yet, does not issue any announcement at all.
    It’s one of the golden rules in PR: the public is more accepting of bad news when it is given time to prepare for them.

    1. I think the issue lies really with the fact that Google wants us to see these laptops as consumable goods. In a “throw away” society it seems to be frowned upon when we utilize perfectly good hardware. This goes for phones, which seem to run slower and slower and other devices. All of a sudden your device is not getting updates any longer, though when you purchased it there was great hype around them keeping it up to date for you – which of course changed after the second year, or even the first, now that there is a new flagship. Out of this Gallium and Crouton are born. I can run a rooted alternative on my Android phone. Because I do hang on to the system because it has great form factor or still packs a punch compared to newer, shinier hardware. Sure, it might not smell new and people in coffee shops wonder what that machine is, oh it is already 5 years old…. well my friends it might be older but it does all I throw at it and then some. Libreoffice is just as pretty as Google Docs and I have off line spelling check. Yes, my documents are still stored in the cloud and I do only have 64Gb on board, it is plentiful. Eventually this machine will die too, they all do, but I will cherish it until that time. So cherish that 7310 (what a magnificent keyboard), hold on to the 2013 and 2015 Pixelbook because where the heck will you find screens this fantastic. Batteries can be replaced, plenty of those to go around. Oh, yes I do drool over the newer hardware, but I am careful not to let it drip on my keyboard, knowing that I simply do not have the 1200 dollars to fork over.

  3. Really hoping that the Chromebook Pixel 2015 (samus) will receive Linux app support… I’ve invested so much time and money into this product and would love to be able to use it to its full potential.

    I’m not as much of a fan of the Pixel Slate or Pixelbook either. It would just be perfect if I could get Linux support for my existing device!

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