Running on ChromeOS

ChromeOS is an operating system initially released on 2011. By default, ChromeOS supports a Chrome web browser as the primary frontend for users to interact with—thereby giving access to websites and web applications. In 2016, support for running Android applications was added. In 2018, a virtual machine based on Debian Linux was added, making it easier to run any application which could run in a Linux environment.1

Enable Developer Mode and Linux Environment

This guide follows the ChromeOS Linux Setup Documentation

  1. Open “Settings” > “Advanced” > “Developers” > “Turn on” Linux Development Environment
  2. Restart your Chromebook
  3. Open “Terminal” and “Pin” it to your shelf

Install Development Environment

Open the Terminal and run the apt install command as follows:

sudo apt install git python3 python3-dev python3-venv

Install VS Code

Follow the VS Code Linux recommendations.

  1. Download the .deb package from the website
  2. Move the package into the Linux environment using the “Files” program
  3. Open the Terminal and install with:
sudo apt install ./<file>.deb

Footnotes

1

ChromeOS itself is a Linux environment, and you can access its “crosh” shell using ctrl + alt + t. Since it’s a Linux-based environment underneath, there is an alternative way to access the internals with a program called crouton. crouton makes it possible to install Ubuntu or Debian, or install a complete Linux desktop. However, we consider this approach to be more advanced than is necessary for the other material here.