Installing Sublime Text Editor on a Chromebook

Install the GPG key:wget -qO - https://download.sublimetext.com/sublimehq-pub.gpg | sudo apt-key add -

Ensure apt is set up to work with https sources:sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https

Select the stable channel to use: echo "deb https://download.sublimetext.com/ apt/stable/" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sublime-text.list

Update apt sources and install Sublime Text sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install sublime-text

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Installing Java and Eclipse IDE on a Chromebook

Install the prerequesites … java and wget
apt install default-jdk default-jre wget

Download the Eclipse IDE source code
sudo wget http://mirror.math.princeton.edu/pub/eclipse//technology/epp/downloads/release/2018-12/R/eclipse-java-2018-12-R-linux-gtk-x86_64.tar.gz

Once downloaded, extract to the /opt/ dir
tar xzf eclipse-java-2018-12-R-linux-gtk-x86_64.tar.gz -C /opt/

To start the Eclipse IDE run:
/opt/eclipse/eclipse

Installing Calibre on a Chromebook / ebook management on a chromebook

Installing Calibre on a Chromebook is a simple, one-step process!

With Linux enabled on your Chromebook, open up a teminal window, and copy/paste the following:

sudo wget -nv -O- https://download.calibre-ebook.com/linux-installer.sh | sudo sh /dev/stdin

Calibre will install, and when the installation is finished, go ahead and run Calibre!

Sideloading APKs on a Chromebook without being in dev mode.

The Chrome web browser app store has an app called ARC Welder, which allows you to run Android apps if you’re on Chrome OS, or using the Chrome web browser.

ARC in ARC Welder is short for “App Runtime for Chrome”. So with this, you can run APK files.

To install, simply go to the chrome store link above, and choose “Add to Chrome”. The first installation was small and quick (~48mb), but then it will need to download additional files for the “App Runtime for Chrome”. This additional file shows up in my chrome extensions as being ~575mb in size.

Once everything is installed, you’ll see the ARC Welder icon in your app drawer. Click on it, and you’ll be prompted to add your apk, choose the defaults, and you’re off! I only had an APK for Dragon Quest III, which it installed and ran with no issues whatsoever. It even added the DQIII icon to my app drawer.

The one caveat to ARC Welder is that you can only side-load one app at a time. So if I chose to test out another APK, DQIII would be removed, and replaced with the new app.

Installing Flatpaks on a Chromebook

To install the Flatpak system package. Run this command in terminal:

sudo apt-get install flatpak

Next, add the Flathub repository (there is only a space between ‘flathub’ and the URL, not a new line):

sudo flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

Finally, you have to restart your Chromebook. Now you can download any app found on Flathub. Most of these apps are available through the Software Center or as a .deb file, but there are a few exclusives.

Flatpaks are only installable through the terminal on a Chromebook. Every app on Flathub has command line instructions at the bottom of the page. For example, this is the command to install the Slack desktop app:

flatpak install flathub com.slack.Slack
However, you have to add “sudo” to the beginning, or it will fail in terminal. So what you actually have to run is this:

sudo flatpak install flathub com.slack.Slack

After everything is downloaded and installed, the app should appear in the Chrome OS app drawer.

Installing Gnome Software Center on a Chromebook

To install the Gnome Software Center, open up a terminal window, and type the following command:
sudo apt-get install gnome-software gnome-packagekit

When the Terminal asks if you want to continue, press the ‘Y’ key on your keyboard, then ‘Enter’ again. This command installs two packages – the software center, and the tool that allows the software center to communicate with the Debian system.

Once it’s done downloading and installing everything, you should see a ‘Software’ app in the app drawer. Click on it to open the Gnome Software Center. If the Gnome Software Center App is empty or blank, you may have to restart your Chromebook ~10 times to get it to fully load… at least that’s an issue I initially ran into.

Installing Libre Office on a Chromebook

Libre Office 5
Simply type the below in terminal:
sudo apt-get install libreoffice

Libre Office 6
1. Download the latest version from https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download/ . Best to download to a temporary folder, so everything can be deleted easily after installation.
2. tar zxvf LibreOffice_$version_Linux_x86-deb.tar.gz (replace your version number with version you downloaded. For example, I downloaded LibreOffice_6.1.4_Linux_x86-64_deb.tar.gz so I would type in “tar zxvf LibreOffice_6.1.4_Linux_x86-64_deb.tar.gz”)
3. Go to the untar’d folder directory: cd LibreOffice_$version_Linux_x86-deb/ (Going with the previous example, I would put in “cd LibreOffice_6.1.4_Linux_x86-64_deb/”)
4. Now go to the DEBS folder. cd DEBS/
5. And now run the installation sudo dpkg -i *.deb

And if you need java, then just “sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jre”

Alternative for LibreOffice 6
1. Add stretch backports to your sources.list file
echo "deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian stretch-backports main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list
2. Run sudo apt-get update
3. Install libreoffice 6 from the stretch backports
sudo apt-get -t stretch-backports install libreoffice

4. For some reason the shortcut icons created won’t run the LibreOffice6 apps, but if you launch them from terminal, they work fine.

Launchers
Writer: /usr/bin/libreoffice –writer
Calc: /usr/bin/libreoffice –calc
Draw: /usr/bin/libreoffice –draw
Impress: /usr/bin/libreoffice –impress
Math: /usr/bin/libreoffice –math

Steam Errors and Fixes

Steam Errors and Fixes

Crostini users may run into some Steam errors along the way — here are some common errors, their fixes, and a brief explanation of what’s going on.

Steam for Linux Errors:

Error: Unable to determine CPU Frequency. Try defining CPU_MHZ.
Fix: export CPU_MHZ= Example: 1.5GHz owners would enter: export CPU_MHZ=1500.000
Explanation: Error occurs when clock calibration fails on boot and cpu MHz output of /proc/cpuinfo is 0.000. This can be confirmed by dmesg | grep -i tsc. Steam doesn’t like when the /proc/cpuinfo MHZ output is 0.000 and errors out but fortunately allows us to, instead, define the CPU_MHZ value. Seems this lack of cpu MHz output in /proc/cpuinfo is due to a race condition. At this time it is unknown if there is a way to force the clock calibration to try again, this would be ideal as it would correct the 0.000 cpu MHz output in /proc/cpuinfo and truly fix the issue rather than working around it by defining a superficial CPU_MHZ value just to make Steam happy.

Error: Assertion Failed: Could not open connection to X
Error: Assertion Failed: failed to initialize update status ui, or create initial window
Fix: sudo ln -s /opt/google/cros-containers/bin/sommelier.elf /usr/bin/; systemctl --user restart sommelier*service --all; export DISPLAY=:0
Explanation: Errors occur when sommelier services have failed which stops X from working. The services sometimes fail due to the sommelier.elf symlink not being created yet so making sure the symlink is set is always the first step before restarting the services. Credit to u/bzub for documenting the issue here.

Error: find: ‘/home//.steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime’: No such file or directory error
Fix: mkdir ~/.steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime
Explanation: Error occurs when the steam-runtime directory doesn’t exist in the Steam default location so you can simply create one.