Ubuntu Linux on Chromebook: Crouton vs ChrUbuntu, or installing over Chrome OS or dual booting.

For the end of the term at the University, I've decided to bring with me my Chromebook (Samsung Series 5). I am on a computer science degree, so I must sometimes act like I am a power user or at least, have access to ssh, plus a X client. Therefore, it seemed obvious that I sometimes needed to have a desktop environment able to run native applications (e.g java), plus the X thing via ssh. Okay, Chrome OS is somehow able to do ssh and some sort of X server-client thing, because it's still a Linux operating system underneath, but it's not brilliant at that. 

Before starting anything, I need to say that I am not responsible for anything that happens to your computer by following what I will say. You are doing everything on your own responsibility. Everything is specifically designed for Samsung Chromebook Series 5. It might apply to other machines, or it might not. Please check the sources carefully before doing anything.

One vs. another.

Just to make everything clear: 

• ChrUbuntu is installed on a removable storage, so it doesn't touch the internal storage or alter it.
• crouton is installed on the internal storage, so it *might* touch the internal storage.

My recommendation is crouton, for a number of reasons I will enumerate in the section designed to it. ChrUbuntu is probably easier to install, and easier to use, but it has some fundamental drawbacks which make it a bit annoying. For crouton, you'll probably need to use the terminal a little bit, but it's really not that much to be afraid of.

However, because ChrUbuntu is installed on a removable storage, all you have to do in order to get rid of it is to format that storage. This is rather easy, and won't affect the existing Chrome OS installation from the internal storage at all. For crouton, there are some commands to run in Chrome OS in order to remove it, because it installed on the internal storage of the Chromebook. This can get risky sometimes, and if something goes wrong, the only way to recover is to get back to the original state of the storage, and that is to wipe everything and set-up as a new Chromebook.

Fortunately, on Samsung Series 5, there is a hardware switch which just turns off developer mode, and so it wipes the internal storage completely. It might be this easy on other Chromebooks also, but I am not sure about this matter. I advise you to search a little more on recovery for your Chromebook before doing anything.

ChrUbuntu.

First off, I tried to install ChrUbuntu. ChrUbuntu is a quite nice thing, it runs, as I have already told, on a USB flash drive or on a SD card, and you basically dual-boot in order to be able to get into Ubuntu. Yes, you need to reboot for that, so you don't have both running on the same time. 

Installation. 

Technically, to get anything working you need to follow everything from (this is the official ChrUbuntu website) (here), except that at point number 4, you MUST replace the command with the one you get from (here), according to your device and according to where you are installing it (USB flash or SD card). That is all.

Note: turning on developer mode will remove everything from the internal storage!

Luckily, it's not a very hard process (even though at first sight is seems so), and it should be easily reversible in most cases. Unfortunately, after a month, my USB drive stopped working (applications were reporting I/O errors when it happened), and after a reboot it failed to boot anymore in ChrUbuntu. I've seen some other people complaining about this, I don't know if it's only the flash drive which has been broken, if it's related to ChrUbuntu, or if something from the operating system got broken. Anyway, Chrome OS was just fine. 

Booting it up.

What I should mention here is how ChrUbuntu is supposed to start. When you first start the Chromebook, you'll get a warning screen with a "scary" face. At this point, you have three options:

• Wait for about 30 seconds and it will beep two times, and boot Chrome OS.
• Hit Ctrl + D -> instantly boot Chrome OS.
• Hit Ctrl + U -> boot Ubuntu.

Nothing that complicated at all. If you hit Ctrl + U and the installation of Ubuntu is not present, than it will beep so that you know that it can't boot.

Good and bad points.

+ Ubuntu runs exactly like on a regular computer.

+ so you can do (almost, look below) anything you would do on any other machine running Ubuntu.

+ the guy who created ChrUbuntu took care of the drivers, everything is working fine (on my machine at least).

+ little or no maintenance to involved, so might be suitable for people not willing to touch the terminal at all.

+ nothing really altered on the internal storage (except when you first turn on developer mode).

- it's only Ubuntu 12.04, not one of the latest versions.

- because it's installed on a USB drive (2.0 is supported only), or on a SD card, it's deadly slow.

- limited to the maximum speed of the medium it's installed on.

- requires a medium of at least 8 GB, about 2 GB will be free after installation.

- has no swap partition, so when you get out RAM...well, Chrome and other applications will eventually crash, or lag being very bad.

Crouton.  

It's a bit more complicated, but the huge advantage is that it runs on top of Chrome OS, and in the same time with Chrome OS. Therefore, it uses the kernel provided by Chrome OS, all the drivers from Chrome OS, and everything else that is provided by Chrome OS, and so everything should be working just fine and it's extremely fast. When I say extremely fast, I mean that it's one of the fastest experiences I've seen to date on a computer running Ubuntu (this is on just 2 GB of RAM and a dual-core Intel Atom processor running at just 1.6GHz!). 

Important here: just don't do the silly thing of installing Xfce instead of Unity. Xfce is just awful. It has the worst interface I've seen, it's not attractive at all, half of the icons are broken etc etc etc. Go for Unity from the beginning. I did the silly thing, and it seems that there are some "traces" from Xfce on my installation of Unity, and it's sometimes annoying, but I can still do whatever I want because I have the terminal available. 

Actually, forget what I said above. Xfce works actually quite well, and it is worth to give it a try. It will be significantly faster than with Unity, but I still think that Unity will give higher productivity. It's really up to you. Please note that you must use "xfce" wherever you see "unity" in this guide, and start it using "sudo startxfce4" after installation.

Installation.

For the installation, follow the first point from ChrUbuntu for your own Chromebook, that is, just to turn on developer mode. I repeat, from (here), follow just the first point!

Then, from (here), download the package provided. 

Afterwards, follow the guide from (here, same as before but at another heading), but for the point 2, type "unity" instead of "xfce". This will install Unity. For point 4), type "sudo startunity", and Unity will start. Everything else is the same.

Note: logging off does not work for me, for some reason. If this is the case for you, to close Unity, just hit Ctrl + Alt + Back to get back to Chrome OS, and then, in the crosh window in which Unity is running, hit Ctrl + C. This is not a very elegant way of closing it, but it should kill it pretty okay.

Starting it up.

Just as with ChrUbuntu, when you power up your Chromebook, you will get the "scary" face warning. But now, you can wait for 30 seconds and Chrome OS will boot automatically, or you can hit Ctrl + D and it will boot Chrome OS at that moment.

When you want to start unity from now on, hit Ctrl + Alt + T. This will open a crosh window on Chrome OS. There, type "shell". Afterwards, type "sudo startunity", just as before, and it should start.

To close it, try to click logoff. If it doesn't work, then go to Chrome OS, and in the crosh window, hit Ctrl + C.

Good points and bad points of this method.

+ it runs on top of Chrome OS, in the same time with it.

+ easily switch between them.

+ everything is guaranteed to work.

+ performance is absolutely astonishing, as everything is optimized for Chrome OS.

+ Unity + my apps apps add up to about 2 GB, leaving around 8 GB of free storage.

+ unified storage, so each OS can easily manage the files.

- it's only Ubuntu 12.04.

- can be a bit too technical for some users.

- in my experience, I had to use the terminal quite a little bit.

- uses internal storage (not excessively much).

- resources are shared, but I could not notice any difference.

Conclusion.

I've seen a lot of people complaining about the Chrome OS not being a complete operating system, about not knowing to do that and that, about being too minimalist and so on. With the possibility of having Linux working on a Chromebook, this completely vanishes. It's definitely not a solution which satisfies anyone, at least not on my machine. I am expecting it to work much better on the Series 5 550, the newer generation of Chromebooks that has the Celeron processor and double the amount of RAM.

However, it transforms the Chromebook into a computer that is capable of handling almost all the tasks a home or a power user would need to perform.


If you have any kind of questions, I will answer them here. I will try to look regularly for this on this particular post. I think that almost anything you would need can be found just by searching on Google, but if you still need help, I am here and I will try to provide it. 

Congratulations to Microsoft for buying Skype. They simply destroyed the compatibility with Linux.

Update: I actually seems to be working now. However, it's not brilliant at all, the quality is unacceptable for any standard, in my opinion. The sound tends to be very unnatural, and it gets stuck for a few times every single second, so you must sometimes guess what the person at the other end is saying. Furthermore, the video gets behind for about 7-10 seconds after just a few minutes of talking. I talked with a lot of  friends from twitter, and they all complain about Skype. I have no idea where Microsoft is heading towards. 

 Who has not heard of Skype? It's probably one of the most known and popular service for voice and video chatting over the web, and it's been a wonderful product a few years ago. The times in which the quality of both sound and video were great have disappeared a long time ago, and all that's left today is a poor service, with quality which is below any acceptable level and disastrous compatibility (given the fact that mobile and Linux usage have significantly increased over the last few years).

Skype's decay has actually started before it getting acquired by Microsoft, but Microsoft only made everything worse. Before the Microsoft story, Skype was somehow working for me. I am using Linux most of the time, because not only I enjoy it the most, but my University courseworks and tasks require me to use Linux for almost every single module I have on my course. So I had to use Skype under Linux, which used to work quite decent, I might say.

However, over the last few months, it's been getting worse and worse, and now it is completely unusable under Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (after being bought by Microsoft, coincidence?) . From the very beginning, video quality was a total mess under Linux, as the colors were completely out of their place and I always had a lot of shadows of different colors going on in the place where my image should have been (my image was still in the background, with all that going on on top of it). But recently, it started to crash frequently, mostly when I was trying to answer a call (calling worked just fine). And it still used to be decent, even like that!

But now, it reached the point when it signs in, and that's virtually all it can do. There are no connections going on at all between me and the other contacts, no matter what device/OS they use. All contacts appear as offline, I appear offline to them, I can't call, they can't call, so it's completely useless, and this has been happening for about a month now.

I gave up any chance that Microsoft will even think about fixing something, the last update they launched has done nothing good (it seems to have broken anything which was working), except bringing compatibility with MSN (which by the way, I heard they are planning to close and use Skype as their main messaging service). I just suppose they are probably trying to close down the compatibility with Linux because their recently-launched Windows 8 seems to be a flop, and Linux seems to be gaining more and more market share (or simply "users", because it doesn't really have market share as it's open source).

Therefore, the only chance of getting a Skype conversation is through Windows, but the situation is not exceptionally good even there, while doing Windows-to-Windows video calls (but this is another story). Microsoft's own software doesn't work good on their own operating system, so there is nothing new here. They simply deserve their Windows 8 to fail so bad that they will be motivated to do much better software, which works exceptionally at least on their own software!

Don't get me wrong, I am not asking for a flawless product from them for Linux. All I want is one which just does its job, on software it used work on.

The best alternative out there: Google hangouts. Unfortunately, its interface is sometimes confusing for some users, but quality and compatibility wise, it is absolutely perfect. Recommended trying.

PGM Nexus is an application which makes you forget of the power button.

PGM Nexus is a great kernel module (or an app, if you prefer it in simple terms), designed for rooted Galaxy Nexus phones which allows you to turn your screen on or off using just swipe gestures. For example, on my Nexus I just swipe from left to right across the screen, and it powers on. If I do the same thing but on the other direction at the bottom of the screen (where the navigation buttons are located), screen just turns of. It takes a bit of time to get used to it, but after you start enjoying it, it'll be the exclusive mode you turn the screen on and off.

If your power button fails and you are afraid of that, this is exactly what you need. I still can't figure out how it actually works (the screen is off, it doesn't use any power but it still recognizes the swipes), but it's a great idea which is well implemented. It's really great, but because of the kernel thing, it will automatically turn off (if set to start on boot) when a kernel is flashed, but selecting that option again seems to stick through reboots afterwards.

Only drawback: it's $3. There's a free version available, but people complain that it completely stops working after a week. So you decide on which way to go. 

Jailbreaking Apple's iOS 5.1.1 proves not to be an easy task, you might run into trouble.

I've owned an iPhone 3G when it came out and after my experience with it, I will be never going to buy any iThing again: waiting for new exploits for jailbreak, waiting for new unlock solutions, for every and each iOS version. On Android it is much more simple, and on Nexus particularly, everything is done using Google's own software (and the unlock, if needed, can be realized through a simple PIN code). But I'm not going to compare these aspects, because it's clear who is the winner here.

The idea is that two days ago I've updated my brother's iPod Touch 4G to the latest iOS version (was running an antique one), promising that I'll jailbreak it again (he run into trouble when he was not allowed to install apps that were designed for newer versions of iOS).

So, I simply updated it without any problems, but afterwards I found myself into a stupid situation. No matter what I was doing, I couldn't jailbreak that iPod. I tried several applications of this kind, knowing they are supposed to work properly and to do untethered jailbreak on iPod Touch 4G. None of them finished their job, Absinthe for example started the jailbreak and seemed to do everything needed, but just after rebooting the iPod, it kept returning an error saying something went wrong. After a couple of reboots while trying to run it in different ways, it started to crash even before starting. I wasn't luckier at all with redsn0w, which sometimes seemed to start doing the jailbreak but crashed at the end (iPod still untouched), while other times it even refused to start the jailbreak. And I tried everything, even in Recovery Mode or in DFU, but with no avail.

The solution came with sn0wbreeze (I really recommend you trying with this one), which basically downloads the iOS version and modifies it, adding everything required for jailbreak (including Cyadia and everything else). By using iTunes (Shift + click on Restore, and selecting the modified iOS), I was able to jailbreak that iPod. Of course, this happened after having to apply something else first because I ran into another problem (failed to restore with an error code), but I fixed that easily with a search on Google.

I'm not here to criticize Apple or the guys who take care of jailbreak solutions, but I'm saying that everything is way too complicated and the only loser here is exactly Apple, because the fact that there are so many jailbreak options (4 at a first sight), translates into the following: there is a high demand for this kind of solutions, and iOS is more vulnerable than ever.

I'm not going to post here any links, but you can easily find everything you need with a search on Google. Good luck if you are trying to jailbreak an iDevice and...be patient. :)

Whatever you do with your Galaxy Nexus, just make sure you don't crack the screen glass; or you'll have to pay a lot.

Last week I succeeded in cracking the screen (glass) on my GSM Galaxy Nexus but I really didn't care very much about that when it happened because I was sure I would be able to repair it at a quite decent price, as I knew how much this job usually costs for iPhones. However, I got quite fast to the reality, and everything I was able to find on the internet indicated a price of $170 for this repair alone. OK, don't get me wrong, I am not stressed about this, because the screen is fully functional and I can use it like it is without any problems, but paying that money for just a screen isn't worth at all!

The problem is the following: the glass, which is basically what we touch when we use the screen, is simply fused to the LCD, so they can't be separated, resulting in something stupid. If you need to replace the glass, you have to replace the entire screen, including the LCD, for which you must pay that price ($170).

Of course that you can only buy the glass from eBay, but it is very har to detach the two parts because the screen is fused at an extremely high temperature to the LCD. And all the repair shops refuse to do it, so you can only do it yourself... but the chances of succeeding are very reduced. I wouldn't even try if the touch is still functional and cracks don't bother me, because if you break the LCD, you just paid around $20 for the glass and you'll have to pay another $170 for the entire screen to get the phone functional again. (and no, CDMA screens won't fit correctly of GSM and otherwise).

So, the entire screen is at least $170 (cheapest price) on the internet. The phone is currently available at $350 in the US, which means that the screen is almost a half of that. Much overpriced, in my opinion. Not to mention that the phone shops asked for at least $270 just for the screen, here, in Romania. Comparing it to other phones, it is still overpriced. The same thing for the Galaxy S2 is $130 (but the quality is also lower, so it's obvious it is cheaper). But the same thing costs only $30 for the iPhone 4S, which means Samsung is definitely overpricing things (a lot) but I can't tell why. Yes, you heard me right, the screen (glass + touch + LCD + whatever else is related to the screen): iPhone 4S - $30 vs Galaxy Nexus - $170.

You probably think I'm furious now...but I am not at all. It could happen to anyone. And I would definitely buy the next Nexus (I love these phones), even if it will still be manufactured by Samsung. The only difference will be that if I go somewhere (I was at a restaurant and I dropped the phone with the face down on a brick walkway), I would definitely keep it in a case to protect it. 

How to listen to Pandora radio from anywhere outside the US.

I used to listen a lot to Pandora radio when I was in the US and I really enjoyed it, so obviously that I wanted it back home. But unfortunately, Pandora is available only in the US, because of the licensing problems which streaming in other countries could create. So, basically, if you are not in America, you can't listen to Pandora radio. But this is the official version...

There is a VPN service called Hotspot Shield which creates something like a tunnel between your computer and a gateway provided by Hotspot Shield (that's some sort of the definition of the VPN), which exists exactly in the US. The idea is that through this VPN, you should get a much safer browsing experience, because everything you do on the internet is sent, securely through that tunnel, in the US, so there is impossible for one to attack you and to try to track your data or something like that. For me it is not clear how the data is handled when it exits in the US, so I wouldn't trust Hotspot Shield when I buy something on the internet for example, but this remains at your own judgement.

By using Hotspot Shield, you should be able to access Pandora from wherever you are. I've been using it not very often for the last 1,5 years, but it always did its job.

Of course that using this also has some disadvantages, and they are mainly related to slow internet speeds (because everything has to go to the US and back) and sometimes slow DNS response. However, it is definitely worth being used for the possibility it introduces to all the internet customers, no matter where they are.

Note: I am not responsible for everything that happens to you by using this service. You use it on your own responsibility.

You can go on their website to learn more or try the product: http://www.hotspotshield.com/.

Send free SMS messages all over the world with e-FreeSMS.com (July 2012).

I've just discovered e-FreeSMS.com, a website which allows you to send free SMS messages to whoever you want, regardless your position or the position of the person you want to text (with two servers to choose from). It's a simple website, of course with lots of ads (it's a free service after all), but the idea is that I've tested it and it works very good, got the messages within 5 seconds (Vodafone Romania).

The website says that you can also make free calls directly from it, but from what I understood, they are available only if calling the US or Canada, regardless your position. More than this, it also allows you to watch local television channels from your own country, but you must have luck to get it working, so it's not really reliable for this (most televisions are streaming on the internet directly from their websites, which are better streams than the ones provided by this website).

e-FreeSMS.com is working properly at the time of posting this article (the end of July 2012). Give it a try, maybe you'll like it.