Chrome OS is surely not as feature-packed as Windows 10, but one can’t deny that it breathes a new life into old machines. In fact, I would go as far as to say that, if you are a general user then you should use Chrome OS over Windows 10 for its amazing performance and battery life. And with the Play Store support, you can now actually run Android apps on your PC. How cool is that? So in this article, we bring you a detailed guide on how to install Chrome OS on PC with Play Store support. The best part is that you will continue to receive updates directly from Google. In addition, you can also access Linux GUI apps on your PC so that is an added advantage. With all that said, let’s now go ahead and learn how to install Chrome OS on PC with Google Play Store support.
Install Chrome OS on PC with Play Store Support in 2020
Before we start our tutorial, let’s get the requirements and downloads out of the way. Once you meet all the requirements and download the relevant files, the setup will go smoothly.
Requirements
- UEFI boot support in the BIOS
- Intel-based CPU and GPU (AMD CPUs are untested, hence have a low chance of working– more information below)
- A USB flash drive with at least 16GB of storage space
Downloads
1. First off, download the Linux Mint Cinnamon image. Depending on your PC architecture, you can choose either 64-bit or 32-bit build.
2. Next, download Rufus so that we can flash Linux Mint Cinnamon on the USB drive.
3. After that, download the official Chrome OS recovery image from here. Open the website and search for “rammus”. Now, click on the latest recovery image (right now it’s 80, but it may change in the future). Rammus is the recommended image for devices with 4th-gen Intel CPU and newer. However, if you have a 3rd-gen Intel CPU or older then download the latest image for “samus”. And if you have an AMD CPU then you can give a try by downloading the latest image for “grunt”.
4. Now, download the most important file: Brunch. It’s a framework built by a developer named sebanc so huge thanks to him for making this project possible. The framework creates a generic Chrome OS image from the official recovery image so it can be installed on any Windows PC. To download the file, look for the latest stable build and then click on “Assets”. Now, download the “tar.gz” file.
5. Finally, download the “install.sh” script which magically installs Chrome OS without manually typing the commands. The script has been written by Kedar Nimbalkar. To download it, press Ctrl + S and save the file.
Now that we are done with downloads, let’s get into the steps, shall we?
Install Chrome OS on PC with Play Store Support
Before moving to installation steps, I want to give a quick rundown as to how we will install Chrome OS on PC with Play Store support. First off, we will boot Linux Mint on our Windows computer, and from there, we can install Chrome OS on our PC. Keep in mind, this process will completely wipe your hard drive including personal files and folders. So create backup before you proceed. With that out of the way, let’s move to the steps.
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Flash and Manage Files
1. Connect your USB flash drive and open Rufus. Next, click on the “Select” button and choose the Linux Mint Cinnamon image. Now, just click on “Start”. You will get a few prompts so click on “Yes” and “OK” to continue the flashing process.
2. After Rufus is done with flashing, close it. Now, create a folder named “Chrome OS” on your desktop. Move the “install.sh” file to the “Chrome OS” folder.
3. Next, right-click on the Brunch file and choose “Extract to Brunch…”. All the files will be extracted in a folder on the desktop.
4. Now, move all the extracted Brunch files to the same “Chrome OS” folder on the desktop.
5. Similarly, extract the official Chrome OS recovery image and you will get a folder on the desktop. Open it and rename the file to rammus_recovery.bin. If you have downloaded another image then rename it accordingly.
6. Finally, move the “rammus_recovery.bin” file to the “Chrome OS” folder. By the end, you should have these 6 files inside the “Chrome OS” folder.
7. Now, move the “Chrome OS” folder to the USB drive on which you just flashed Linux Mint Cinnamon.
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Boot into Linux Mint Cinnamon
1. Plug the USB flash drive to the PC on which you want to install Chrome OS. If you are installing Chrome OS on the same PC then keep it plugged in.
2. Next, restart your PC and press the boot key continuously to boot into the BIOS. If you don’t know the boot key of your PC then you can find it from the below table.
3. Once you have entered the BIOS, move to the “Boot” tab, and select “UEFI” from the Boot List Option.
4. After that, move to the “Security” tab and disable “Secure Boot”. Keep in mind, every BIOS has its own interface so the menu placement might differ from one PC to another. Nevertheless, look for “UEFI” and “Secure Boot” under Security, Boot, or System Configuration tabs and makes the changes accordingly.
5. Finally, move to the “Exit” tab and choose “Exit Save Changes“. Immediately, after that, start pressing the boot key again. You will be asked to choose your boot device. Select the “USB drive” and hit enter.
6. You will boot straight into Linux Mint Cinnamon. If you are prompted with a splash screen, choose the default option: “Start Linux Mint“.
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Install Chrome OS on PC
1. Now that you have booted into Linux Mint, click on the network icon at the bottom-right corner and connect to WiFi or Ethernet. The Chrome OS installer will need an active internet connection to download some libraries and dependencies.
2. After that, open the “Home” folder on the desktop and move to the “File System” tab.
3. Here, click on the search button and type “Chrome OS” to find the folder that we moved earlier.
4. Now, open it and right-click anywhere on the folder to open the Terminal. Here, type sudo sh install.sh and hit enter. It will start downloading some libraries and dependencies.
5. After a while, it will ask if you want to continue with the installation. Keep in mind, this will completely wipe your whole hard drive. To proceed with the installation, type yes and hit enter. It will now start installing Chrome OS on your PC.
6. After the installation is done, open on the start menu of Linux Mint located at the bottom-left corner and click on the “Turn off” button. Here, choose “Shut Down” to turn off your PC.
7. Now, remove the USB flash drive and then turn on your Windows PC. This time, your PC will boot straight into full-fledged Chrome OS.
Note: Before logging your Google account, keep in mind, you are officially not allowed to run Chrome OS with Play Store support on non-certified machines. In some ways or the other, you might be violating Google’s terms and conditions. So, I would recommend you to sign in with a secondary Google account so that your primary account remains safe.
8. Now, you can run Android apps straight from the Play Store on your PC, how awesome is that? Not to mention, the Android framework is based on Android 9 so you are quite updated too. Furthermore, you will continue to receive updates directly from Google.
9. Apart from that, you can also set up Linux on your Windows-turned-Chrome OS machine. You can find the best Linux apps for Chrome OS from the linked article.
Install Chrome OS on PC and Enjoy Android and Linux Apps
So that is how you can install Chrome OS on PC and get all the perks including Google Play Store and Linux support. I tested Chrome OS on my decently-specced Windows laptop (Intel i5) and it was simply flying without any hiccup. The performance difference was amazing, to say the least. To learn more about the advantage of Chromebooks over Windows laptops, you can go through our in-depth article. And in case, you have made your mind to stick with Chrome OS then make sure to take advantage of Linux apps. It’s pretty good and works like a charm. Also, if you miss Windows apps then you can use Wine to run Windows apps on Chrome OS. Anyway, that is all from us. If you are facing any problem while installing Chrome OS on your PC then comment down below and let us know. We will surely try to help you out.
from Beebom https://beebom.com/how-install-chrome-os-on-pc/
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