How To Run Chrome OS Flex On Your Old PC or MacBook
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- Опубликовано: 10 окт 2024
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We’ve been pretty excited about the announcement of Chrome OS Flex and what it could mean for scores of aging laptops - Windows and Mac OS included. Though we have a lot of content planned around this new OS from Google, we also realize that we’ve not put up a clear guide on how to actually get this up and running on your own device. With the USB method, you can test drive Chrome OS Flex without breaking anything on your computer and make the decision if it’s the right move for you or not. So why not give it a go?
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Chrome OS Flex is amazing. I had an old Dell Inspiron N5110 that i bought in 2013 but stopped using in 2015 due to its low RAM (4GB). Just installed Flex on it and it runs fine. In fact my only issue is the HD resolution looks funny after years of using 1080P and 4K screens. As a teacher in Africa where the cost of computers and IT infrastructure is out of reach for many schools i already see very good prospects with this new development as old low spec computers in the wild which can be acquired for cheap can now be used for general education purposes and for introducing learners to IT.
Wow I was quite surprised that it supports legacy boot mode! that helps a ton for use on old devices!
Hi sir, has Chrome OS Flex improved the battery life on your laptop at all?
I had the same laptop. But after installing chrome OS flex, touchpad not working and WiFi as well.
I bought hp windows laptop with 4gb ram on 2015. Its still working fine except up arrow key✌️
Linux more better.
A possible word of warning. I've seen in another youtube video tutorial on installing Flex that you need to be careful when installing Chrome OS Flex on a computer with multiple drives. Flex will not only erase and rewrite the C: drive, but also any other attached drive. So if you have two internal drives, or an attached storage device, etc, the installation process overwrites the all.
Thanks for the advice
Thank goodness I saw your comment before fully installing it on my mini PC
Yikes! Even if the external drives are not mounted or powered up?
I would think that if they aren't powered up or mounted, in other words, if your machine doesn't see them, then you'd be okay. But I'm no expert.
Well for me it did something different, installed to a secondary drive and left my C drive alone. But still booted to windows so i had to go into bios to boot order to the other drive.
Awesome to see this! Really will give so many people life to their initially retired PC/Macbook!
I flashed it onto my Thinkpad E14 Gen 3 and I'm surprised how good it works. All the peripherals work, even my Audient EVO 4 external audio interface works. I'm literally blown away to be honest. And Linux works too and I'm using it to do my open source development. Overall very satisfied.
What about the files we have inside the laptop will it be erased?
Then what's the use of it i want just to change my os not loose all my precious data
@Kitchen In The Dungeon thanks for the suggestion man appreciate it
Tested on a very old Core2Duo with 4GB of ram, works perfectly. In an old chromebook without support (currently running Linux) works fine but, the 2GB of ram are little short. On an atom refuses to boot. On a Turionx64 hangs in the second boot stage, I think.
been following neverware since 2017 and really realy hoping for playstore support, it will be a killer feature
If you like experimenting you can also do this with most Linux operating systems. Just put it on a USB stick and try a test run without changing anything on your hard drive.
هل انت متأكد انه لا يحذف شيء
@@شيروقدور As long as you don’t go through the install process in the install application, it’ll be fine.
If you do more videos on Chrome OS Flex I would be interested to see you try it out on an old chromebook that has reached it's EOL. I have such a device (a 2015 Chromebook Pixel), and it still works great, so it's very frustrating to no longer be getting security updates (especially as it was a flagship Google device). Perhaps Flex can fix that?
I think it doesn't work on old Chrome devices
Lol! That sucks about your old Chromebook pixel. We've come full circle now 😂. Updating an old Chromebook with Chromebook software.
Flex doesn't work with ChromeOS devices, when they reach the expiration date on the list, that's about it. Lol
@@stthinking9978 I think brunch does though
@@2richants yeah, but not everyone works with brunch properly so it's a stretch for sure
I'm using CloudReady now on my main custom PC with 1440p monitor. I love the experience of it and fractional scaling is amazing! I already plan on getting a newer PC (considering Chromebox AIO CTL or Chromebox ASUS) with UHD Touch Screen and using Google Chrome OS on it as the only Operating System. The Linux part will be all I need for techy stuff.
I have Chrome OS Flex running on my 1 year old Lenovo Ideapad 5 (AMD Ryzen 7).
So it's not just old laptops that can run it.
In a benchmark test, this laptop is about 7% faster than the current top dog Chromebook Asus CX9 !
So it's a very quick OS.
Octane Benchmark of over 56000 IS impressive.
One oddity I did find was that on this laptop, it's a pain to get the USB image to successfully boot.
But after spending an evening I did find that running from the USB image seems to corrupt it.
I had to re-flash the image onto the Pen drive for it to boot up without locking up on the Ideapad 5.
The installed OS is very stable though, so I can't help but think people may be put off as it may not boot up into Chrome OS on a Pen Drive and give up.
Something must be written back onto the Pen Drive on boot up that corrupts the image and, may result in it not working on multiple machines.
re flashing the image onto the pen drive seems to cure it.
I was seriously thinking about buying the Asus CX9 but Googles timing was brilliant and now allows me to run one of the fastest Chrome OS installs i've ever seen.
6 second boot up from powering on to the log in screen (including the bios screen for a couple of seconds) is amazing.
I originally bought the Ideapad 5 last year to run Cloudready OS but it's an older kernel than Chrome OS Flex so it doesn't boot.
I was just going to bide my time until more recent versions of Cloudready come out but now Chrome OS Flex is released in a development build and has a newer Kernel, I have my wish.
Love it and finally have the laptop I wanted. none of this bloated windows 10 crap.
It is only faster because it is literally a web browser
@@SpeedGamerJ and a trimmed down Gentoo Linux base
Why destroy a useable one year old system. Overall chrome is trash.
@@NOTLeavingLV Depends upon what a user wants to do.
My laptop came with Windows 10.
I have a MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional) in Windows and the more I learnt about the innards of Windows, the less I want to use it.
Tried Windows 11 for a laugh and then went back to Elementary OS and stayed until Chrome OS works on this Laptop.
Everyone has a different use case
@@BillyNoMates1974 what chrome OS can do? If it can gaming for sure i will use it
I have an archaic HP Pavilion dv6 laptop that I had Linux Mint XFCE on and thought I would see how Flex OS would run on it. I was surprised at how well it ran on the USB drive and installed it over Linux Mint. Other than the lack of Android apps, it works really well.
I'm using this OS on a 2005 Sony laptop, it's not the smoothest, but I can't complain!! 😁👍
I'm a long time subscriber of the channel. I'm grateful for your willingness to share your talents with the world. I've been using Flex on an early 2008 MacBook and it is a way better experience for 2022 than I could get out of Mac OS 10.7.5. What I would like to see is a tutorial on is how to partition the hard drive and set up Flex in a dual boot scenario. I made an attempt to do it on the little macbook, but wound up wiping Mac OS off of it... no big deal because I have a time machine backup, but I would like to know how to successfully create that dual boot setup. Thanks in advance or any input you or anyone may have :)
I don't believe it is possible at this time to have a dual boot if they're basing it off of cloud-ready
From the comment above about multiple drives, it doesn't look like it could be installed on a bootable partition without wiping all the partitions.
@@peteraretin7802 in my attempts to create a dual boot system I successfully created a hard drive partition. The little mac has a 128 gb solid state. I partitioned 20 something gbs and named it "Flex". And yes, installing Flex did wipe the hard drive... BUT something unexpected happened... It seemed to only wipe the Mac OS side of the partition. I'm assuming this because when I check how much storage the computer has in the Flex settings it is showing something like 96 gbs. So that smaller partition is seemingly lost in nowhere land. Now I'm curious if I wipe Flex and put 10.7.5 back on the machine... then partition the HD in half... put 10.7.5 on both partitions... then try to install Flex, if it might possibly work. One thing I don't know is if it's even possible for me to install 10.7.5 on two partitions of the same computer. I'm open to suggestions about any of this. I'm gonna give it a try. I'll post an update on here if you or anyone is interested.
@@stanmccorkle Of course you can. Clone a bootable partition onto another partition.
@@peteraretin7802 ok cool! Thanks for the vote of confidence. I'm gonna try it! But I'm just a regular dude... not some computer wiz kid. If there's a youtube tutorial that you or anyone knows about that can walk me through it, I'd welcome the assistance.
I have one that beats all others here....so I have a 15 year old Dell Precision M4300 here. It's so old, that Chrome OS Flex running off of the USB thumb drive could not catch a Wi-Fi connection. Therefore, I could not try the Test Run option nor did I install Flex onto the HDD. However, the USB thumb drive did boot up veeeeery slowly. This tells me that installing Flex onto the HDD fully is a good idea. First, we need to retrieve photos. The Windows OS is botched, so we need to extract the photos externally. But after that, I plan on replying here in my own comment with an update on Chrome OS Flex on a 15 year old machine.
Who can beat that? Let's GO, FAM!
I'm interested to hear how it all goes! Look forward to your update.
Looking forward to seeing your update! I'm definitely gonna install chrome os flex on some of my old laptops.. Possibly turn them into a desktop and give them to some relatives who need them
I wanna know man. pls give update soon
looking forward to your review on the MacBook I have a 2011 MacBook Pro that I never use and am considering doing this.
I've got the same laptop, did you ever get round to it?
locked in. trying this when i get home. got 2 windows hp streaming laptops i got for my kids a while back that have been in storage. will try it out on those.
interesting download and USB drive creation process.... never knew you could go pass 100% download completion and enter into negative time left lol. once i got pass all of that, it installed fine. the only thing missing is the playstore. once they add that, this thing is PERFECT
Great video as usual! Any luck installing this on a desktop type machine?
I installed it on an old Dell Inspiron One all-in-one computer with a wireless keyboard and mouse. It has an aftermarket ssd and 8 gig of memory, an AMD processor and Windows 7. It installed no problem and runs as fast as my Asus 434 chromebook. Only problem is while the keyboard is Bluetooth and works fine the Dells internal Bluetooth is not recognized. Makes signing on a pain.
This is so epic. I’m so glad they saw the value in buying CloudReady and what they were doing.
Would this work for desktop too?
I've got an old lenovo-ideapad-120s-11iap-8005 which only has 4GB Ram and 16gb SSD so I've installed Chrome OS Flex onto it to try to extend it's usefulness. It seems to work smoothly at the moment. I'll update you once I've used it for a while
Do you think they will add the Google Play Store to Chrome OS Flex eventually???
If they release a version for personal use
Macbook pro to chrome OS! can't wait to see that
Hey! Me again. Got it installed on an old high end custom built laptop and all looks well.
At this point I see one problem that may crop up for some people - key mapping - as Chromebooks have some strange keys. The first I have bumped into is the SEARCH key issue. The physical location is such that it replaces the SHIFT LOCK key. That key on my old laptop is a double action key (one press makes contact, the next press breaks contact). On my REAL ChromeBook it seems like that key is momentary contact (normally open when not pressed). I will have to experiment more, but it looks like this could be very cumbersome to work around.
Wahoo! I actually like Chrome OS Flex better than my real ChromeBook OS because it turns out that key mapping is not a problem - it is a feature - the CAPS LOCK key works like it always did before the install. Now I don't have to deal with the clunky [search button]+[ALT] that Google has saddled us with on a real ChromeBook.
Tried installing this on an old PC. It worked whilst trying it out from the usb but it gave me a white screen with the chrome logo after installing it to my HDD unfortunately
thanks for the awsome video as always - did u got playstore running ?
Amazing video! Congrats. I try install this OS on a old Mac and the webcam don’t work. Someone else did experience this?
2:00 Unfortunately not on Linux! While I was on Linux I tried to make a ChromeOS Flex bootable usb using the Chromebook Recovery Tool, but it just doesn't work on Linux. Google officially states that the recovery tool currently does not support flashing from Linux. So if you are on Linux a 100% working solution is 1. install virtualbox 2. Set up a Windows 10 Virtual Machine 3. Install Chrome on Windows 10 4. Use the Chromebook Recovery tool to make a ChromeOS Flex bootable USB.
I know this is inconvenient but the only workaround that works at least for me!
You can copy the Image directly to an USB Stick with dd: www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/svcjai/comment/hxhaa1r/
dd is the method that the chromeos recovery tool uses
Live testing and trials? Damn, guys! 👍👍👍
Awesome! Works well on an old HP laptop of mine, but couldn't get it to boot after install on an old Asus. Will have to see if I can troubleshoot it, since there's no good reason for it not to when Cloud ready booted up just fine, and the live USB disc worked well.
chrome os flex is great as well for me I used my old mac book air 2011 with 64 gig work very well and fast all my drivers works as well which is awesome
Works great on my red HP laptop from Walmart. I boot off of a USB 3 thumb-drive and it's fast.
Simply amazing stuff! Bravo Google!
will an sd card be able to dowload the iso file
Is it okay to install from a different computer and then put it in the computer you want to use like you did? Wasn't sure if the other computer would be affected somehow
Does Flex works on Nvidia GPU? I tried it last time and I'm stuck on Chrome logo but there's sounds
You didn’t link to the explainer in the description like you said you would.
I have been using cloudready since start of pandemic basically. And I love it! Sadly, I couldn't create usb on chrome for chrome os... And when finally I got it, sadly - flex can't play audio... RUclips and RUclips music reports a issue and just doesn't work. Even though- cloudready works flawlessly... Maybe a bit more of time is needed.
I temporarily installed chromeOS Flex on a mid 2007 macbook. It worked but I'm an Apple nerd so i went back to macos
Have this running perfectly in live USB mode on a old junk work laptop that doesn't even have a hard drive. I see that I can check for updates from the GUI. Wonder what will happen when the first update is released and I try to update the os in live USB mode?
Also unrelated somewhat...but dahlia os looks pretty great. It looks so modern. Hope chrome os takes a few cues in regards to themes and rounded edges even though they already look somewhat similar. Anyway the os had some nice touches.
My 11 year old ThinkPad still flies with Kubuntu so I really can't see myself replacing it with Flex, especially since Chrome can't access the DVD drive. I don't use it very often but occasionally a local musician brings in a CD to play. I still boot up my Flex USB drive now and then but...
Pretty neat. Have to try on my son's older laptop. Slow on Win10. Hopefully faster on Chrome
What would be a good setup for web development on Chrome OS Flex?
Can you maybe make a video with running an IDE and maybe nodeJS, git?
Wow! WinDoze assigned ELEVEN drive letters to my USB stick - I hate WinDoze :( But I am now ready to try ChromeBook out on an 11 year old high end laptop.
Old PC and MacBook proceeds to show a Acer nitro 5
As a non tech savvy user, most videos I've seen indicate a USB drive needs to be used. I haven't one, but can a hard disk be used instead? Going to try and ressurrect my mum's old laptop, which is a 2015 Dell Inspiron. Thanks in advance.
Will Chrome OS Flex work on an old Gateway desktop PC from 2006? I have one.
I would like to know if Chrome OS Flex is still in Beta. Would love to install this on an old laptop, just not sure if or when a stable version of flex will be available
I downloaded the Chromebook Recovery Utility on to the old laptop I plan on converting. Should I delete the extension before attempting the conversion?
My 2017 MacBook Air doesn't detect any wireless networks when setting up Chrome OS. What should I do to fix the connection problems? I cannot set up Chrome OS without some sort of connection to the internet.
Please help me out
What is minimum Windows and Mac OS versions to use to migrate to Chrome OS?
How to have access to android apps
My MBP 2012 late isn't supported :( Hopefully in the future.
Hey....thanks for the info on chrome os flex....can it work on a 2nd gen ipad ?
I got this working on 4 GB 2011 MacBook Air. It’s cool, but I’m not sure it’s any faster than running Mac OS and JUST running the browser. Are there any benchmarks out there to compare? At first I compared to MacOS running desktop apps, but should really compare to MacOS just running Chrome to be better comparison. Perhaps running Flex from USB slowed it down, but since I didn’t notice a significant speed increase it seems to me using this machine as a “browser only” device and having the optionality of using something from the heavy OS (just in case) makes me think I won’t do the full install. Any benchmarks that show my impressions are not correct?
Could Flex be used to continue running my Acer Chromebook Tab 10, the first Chromebook tablet ever made (2018)? It is due to lose support for updates after 2023.
Just installed Cloudready on an old Toshiba laptop about a week or two before Chrome OS flex became available. Excited to give it a try, as well.
I put Chrome OS Flex on my HP Elitebook 8460p and it ran great, I got the Acer 516 GE to replace it because of the lack of linux/android app support.
Is it possible to flash this to an old Chromebook that's past eol? I got an old Thinkpad stuck on os 76. Would love to update to the most secure updated version.
Mm my refurbished laptop runs fast on windows 10 but Windows ten sucks. Too many updates and problems and missing things on it
Gonna try this OS
Thank you for the video. I am now running Chrome Flex via the thumb drive on a 2013 Sony VAIO laptop. Extremely pleased with the results. I do have a question: After initially booting from the thumb drive I am no longer shown the choice to install onto my hard drive. It simply boots from the thumb drive now without giving me the choice. How do I choose to install it to the hard drive at this point? Thank you tons
I tried on some 6th gen intel laptops. ChromeOS Flex, like cloudready has problems with some Broadcom wifi Cards
Hello! I enjoyed the video. Do you know why it doesn't work when you install it with CloudReady? It's frustrating whether my laptop model doesn't support it.
I have a hp pavilion notebook i5 4GB RAM brought in 2015 is it worth upgrading to Chrome OS for faster experience?
Great video 👍
I have been running cloud-ready chromium OS for 2 years as my daily driver, on a 27-inch iMac "2012" 13.2 runs perfectly almost. I tried to Chrome OS Flex it is not stable on my machine but it may be due to the age of my machine.
my screen stuck at Chrome page...any idea
+1
It turns it into a chrome book, that’s why I stick with I pads and chrome books because they will always work and won’t slow like PCs . I have an HP laptop with windows 10 and that thing is so slow it’s not even worth trying to use . There is a iPad 2 from 2012 in my house and it’s snappy and can view website effortlessly.
For the long term, seems google targeting pc/laptop that can not upgraded to win 11. So google start flex as a mean to collect information about hardware & usage. So after while its just getting better in compatibility. After time I think linux environment and android apps will come eventually to flex
Will flex work on an old out of date Chrome Book?
Can this improve my battery life if I install this?
can you load on your ,acbook or windows without loosing the current os instaled
Chrome OS is great, I installed it on a mid 2011 iMac with 4GB of ram and a 500GB HDD and it runs blazing fast (except booting which takes about 40 seconds)
Can I install just the regular chrome OS this same way
Thanks for the video! I am running into an issue on my mid 2010 macbook pro when trying this process. It can't seem to find any wireless networks and when I enter the SSID and password it still does not find it. Any tips the fix this?
I really want to know can you use Adobe programs on chrome os
Can this be installed to Chromebook? My Acer Chromebook come to the end of support,so can i continue to upgrade Chrome OS Flex?
I just installed it on my 16GB sandisk flashdrive which is usb 2.0 and running on a Dell Inspiron Model 5348 and it works flawlessly. The only reason I'm not fully installing it is because you have to wipe out the whole harddrive. I made a 16 GB partition, but it said it will wipe the whole harddrive. Bummer! O well. It works great otherwise.
Thank You, how come other videos tell you to download these first == linux mint IOS ==== rufs === brunch framework === chrome recovery image == commands == can you explain
Once I put chrome os flex in my usb drive, with 'Success! Your recovery media is ready' message, it creates a lot of partitions of my usb drive, what would be the reason?
Im able to run chrome flex off the usb drive on my old macbook air 11. But it wont complete installation on the internal drive. What am i missing?
thanks :)
Hey! I've been trying to do this the past few days on my old Macbook Pro but when the Recovery Tool is nearly done Writing to the USB, I get this error message - Unknown error: Failed to read image..Try again. Any thoughts? Would really, really appreciate it.
I think I'll stay with FydeOS for the time being. I just found out that Chrome OS Flex doesn't have Play Store support.
for now
Any luck with a Chuwi tablet?
Installer wouldn't boot & per "known issues" it may be related to my SanDisk USB drive.
I also tried Cloudready. Boots fine but doesn't support touch, sound and screen flip.
I always wonder what is the state of Chrome OS now
Is it a finished product? cause all these years it sounds like a beta software with Google trying to add new features all the time...
Is it stable now? Do android apps run good now?
It would be good if you can make a detailed video explaining the state Chrome OS in 2022
I have a doubt. If we install a chrome os flex on a good gaming pc after stable release how the a gaming performance would be? Will that perfrom normal or sluggish?
? You won't be playing your Windows games, that's for sure.
Hey there, can u please say how to set up Linux development environment on chrome OS flux. I'm getting 'error' while doing this.
Does doing this get rid of any files you have?
what is the minimum specs of the laptop or device your imaging need to have to run chrome os...or where can i find it. Like can i reimage an old nook +hd tablet?
will the final version of Flex OS include android capability/Play store ?
I have a imac 27 inch with HDD and SSD inside it... but Chrome Flex automatically installs on my HDD... Offcourse I want it on my SSD! How can I fix this? Or is there a fast option to buy a fast USB 2.0 and run Chrome OS Flex from USB... is that as fast as running on a SSD drive? iMac late 2015 only has USB 2.0 ports so.. What is the fastest possible way to do?
How do I install in PC ( not laptop) without Wifi? It doesn't see wired connection and asks only for wifi during setup , thus not giving me an option to continue past connection option?
I need some help, when I get to the screen to connect to a Wifi network (6:49) my laptop restarts. Do you know how I can solve that?
Thanks for this super helpful video. However I am at a dead end. After installing the Chrome OS Flex, it is not able to populate available Wi-Fi networks. I have tried manually entering SSID and Password but doesn’t work. Therefore I cannot move ahead with setting up or conducting any operation. I’ve checked that the Wifi chipset in my HP laptop is not in the unsupported list mentioned by Google. Please suggest a workaround or other ways I can tackle this issue. Will be of great help!
My old HP Envy17 Notebook during installation at the very start said no network just would not find Network to connect wifi , but plugged in ethernet cable worked fine . How can I remedy this ? I want it to connect to wifi My old Acer worked like a charm both wifi & Ethernet connection . Please help . Thanks
Hi, I install chrome os flex on my Surface laptop 1, and the problem is the keyboard is not worked. Could you please help? Thank you so much
I did it on my surface pro and the touch screen doesn't work any more. Why?
Does trackpad gestures work to switch between virtual desktops on chrome os flex? As i understand it that didnt work when it was old CloudReady
NEED HELP! Hey! I just downloaded chrome OS flex and it isn't showing me wifi networks to connect with hence it isn't operational. I'm stuck. PLEASE HELP.
What if there is gpu in pc? Does that gonna make my resolution weird because of the absence of proper drivers...👀👀👀