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Make your own CR-48! ChromeOS Netbook.

Since Google decided to not send me a ChromeOS CR-48 notebook, I had to make my own!(I still REALLY want a CR-48)

The Hardware
I picked up a super cheap Acer Aspire One over at Fry's.
Model: D255E
Processor: 1.66GHz dual core Atom
Memory: 1GB (upgraded to 2GB for $23 from amazon)

All together the hardware came in at just under $200.

The OS
I downloaded the latest build of hexxeh's Chromium OS called Flow from http://chromeos.hexxeh.net.

I then installed in on a 4GB thumb drive so I could verify that all the hardware was compatible, and it was!!

Instructions for installing the OS on a thumb drive can be found on the main page http://chromeos.hexxeh.net (Linux, Windows, and Mac)

After all the hardware was verified working, it was time to install the OS on the internal drive!

  • Press Ctrl+Alt+T to switch to the command prompt
  • Type shell to go into the shell.
  • Type  /usr/sbin/chromeos-install and press Enter.
  • Enter the Root password facepunch
  • Follow any prompts
  • Unplug the thumb drive and reboot!

That's it, it will now reboot into ChromeOS (and damn quickly)!

How is everything going a couple days later?
Everything is going great! At this point the only thing that doesn't seem to work is binding the Caps Lock key to be the ChromeOS "Search" key, but that is not a huge deal.I would like to swap out the standard 7200rpm HDD that I have in there with a much smaller and faster SSD. Since ChromeOS doesn't need much space, there is no need for a 100GB spinning hard drive. This thing already boots in like 30 seconds, but why not make it a little faster :)

UPDATE I swapped out the 100GB 7200RPM HDD for a 16GB SSD! Amazing! Boot times have gone from 26 seconds down to 16 seconds!!!