Chrome OS Flex is a NIGHTMARE 

Wanna see the text version of this video?? techhut.tv/chrome-os-flex-is-a-nightmare/

Weird Flex but okay.

I would say that e-waste is the real nightmare here and that Flex, with its limitations and drawbacks, is at least a potential solution. For the sake of the planet, we need to change the mindset that says we should just throw away perfectly good hardware because it no longer gets updates. I realize that Flex is only a drop in the bucket, but anything that keeps older hardware out of landfills gets my vote.

It just woks for our office and university users. Running on old MacBook Airs and old HP Laptops. For those of you expert Linux, stick to Linux on your old hardware. I personally don’t care about any OS, I use Windows, Linux, MacOS, and Chrome OS. They are just tools. Use the one that best meets your needs.

I installed ChromeOS Flex on my old Acer Aspire V5 122p with AMD A6 1,00ghz and 6GB of ram with 128gb ssd and it runs perfectly, I can do everything I need to do and the system is simply perfect. They just need to add the playstore

I feel like this video didn't really go over Chrome OS Flex. It seems to be more about Chrome OS having issues installing Linux and running programs that are extremely resource heavy that would have a hard time running anyway.

I confess. Until COVID hit, I was an "anti-Chromebook" person. Then I saw how many schools bought them in droves, how easy it was for kids of any age to figure out how to use them, and how long batteries last with them. I won't say that made be a believer but it pushed me to pick up a $35 Lenovo Chromebook ($59 after shipping and tax). I only has a low-end Celeron, 4GB RAM, and a 16GB SSD. I was shocked at how "fast" the OS ran and how easy it was to bring up web pages and apps. I won't say I'm a Chromebook loyalist but I see the benefits it offers. I learned of FLEX a few weeks ago and pulled it down from their site. I have a 15 year old, Toshiba laptop with 4GB of RAM and a small 230GB HDD. I took the FLEX install in less than 15 minutes and was fully as functional as the Lenovo but with more drive space and actually "snappier" in its feel. The model is a Satellite M305-S4907. It was designed for Windows Vista and was slow at best, even when new. FLEX makes it very useable and it is now back in my pool of normal computers (I have several laptops and 2 desktops). All-in-all, I say they've got a good idea. For word processing, spreadsheets, and anything that's web-based (including streaming video), it's well worth the time and effort to install.

Installed Flex on my HP laptop from 2016 without any issues. It works like a charm and it's far more intuitive and user friendly than most Linux distributions I've tried.

I put Flex on my daughter's $150 mini desktop and it works just as good as Xubuntu 22.04 maybe even a little better. RU-vid video playback is certainly better, and basically that's the most demanding thing she does with it anyway. I think if you keep your expectations reasonable it's a decent OS. The main selling point for me is that I don't have to really do anything as far as maintenance.

I wish flex was in the pi, it could have been the flagship platform

When used as intended (on chromebooks and mainly for web-browsing), Chrome OS is actually a pretty great system.

Chrome OS has the most polish and smooth web fonts out of the box that I have ever seen an any Linux distro over there, hands down!

I installed stable version for my 72 years old dad on a old cheap 2016 HP notebook. He just do browsing and print, scan and copie fotos from his iphone to usb-stick and all of this just works great.

ChromeOS Flex is a Linux. And if I'm not mistaken, the world's first Linux for PCs developed and supported with security updates by a well-known software mega-company...

I'm a long-time Linux user (Debian and Fedora with Xfce after my distro hopping stopped). A few months ago I decided to install ChromeOS Flex on a Lenovo Thinkpad T420s. I've enjoyed using it to browse the web and play simple web-based games while relaxing in the evening. Initially the Linux Development Environment would not load, but after changing some BIOS settings it worked just fine. However, I've only used terminal applications like Htop, Midnight Commander, Neovim, Newsboat, Lynx, and Music on Console. So for my use case (Grandpa Coder) Chrome OS Flex is fine, but I would not ask it to replace my Linux machines. Cheers from Wisconsin!

ChromeOS is working great in my Lenovo Flex 5 laptop. Thanks to Google no more trying inconsistent Linux distros.

As always writing a comment to support the channel

Well TechHut, I just appreciate you taking the time to test and review new and different OSs all the time. Thanks.

I forcefully installed chrome os on one of my laptops a few years ago and the app selection of android + Linux is actually really great. I even installed Firefox on it

The only actual use case I can think for this are those crappy $100 Windows laptops. The ones where you should have picked up a Chomebook anyways. With that I do look forward to them increasing hardware compatibility and fine tuning all the features. Could be a great option in the future, but now it's a MAJOR hit or miss.

i was considering this as an option for a really old laptop. but so far it looks like linux mint is a more realistic choice.

It could have been great if this Operating System is compatible with the Raspberry Pi. I seen some videos that Modified Chrome OS on raspberry pi were slick as an ubuntu mate like speed.

You might have to enable GPU acceleration for Crostini in Chrome flags, that might fix most of your issues.

Used brunch to install Chrome OS on a surface pro 3, no issues apart from the screen not auto rotating

The caveat at 12:35 excuses nearly every sin TechHut brings up in this video for me. Many of the hardware compatibility issues he brings up are unsurprising because the ChromeOS Devs haven't had prior interest for including particular linux drivers in their forked kernel of Linux. I have been on Linux as my daily driver at home long enough to remember encountering issues like he describes being common, and I currently have to work around the ALC4080 USB Audio Driver issue today. I'm no apologist fanboy for Google or the ChromeOS team. As TechHut points out at 7:00, it may be "better to throw a linux distro on it" although I would add "depending on your use case". When making a low-support box from legacy hardware for a relative who more or less needs a web browser, I think even this early version could be bet for that use case. The two things I take away from this video are: 1. ChromeOS Flex is in early development and will probably get better over time. 2. Just because you can do something (like run professional grade video editing software on ChromeOS Flex with inferior drivers), doesn't mean that you should.

6:16 looks like one of those scenes from sitcoms where inventions do really well but fail unexpectedly, terribly, but amusingly.

Sounds like the perfect OS for 40yo parents that have no idea how to operate a PC even tho you've explained it to them 13x already.

My Dell Studio from 2009 runs Flex incredibly well. It's great for RU-vid, Netflix and other streaming stuff. If it wasn't for flex, the laptop would be gathering dust in my cupboard. I'm a fan 👍

8:34. Oh man, that's a really cool effect right there :D. That could be a very cool trend for video makers on RU-vid. That's so funky 😂😂😂😂

Woah this looks very tempting. I'm kind of a Firefox fanboy thought and I like KDE and I use tons of apps so I don't really feel like actually getting it But for it's intended use (schools, non tech enthusiasts that can't use Linux) it seems extremely promising! My WiFi drivers don't come with Linux out of the box and I need to install them manually, so i think this will be the case in ChromeOS too. Is the process the same on ChromeOS?

Running chrome os flex on Lenovo L490. I was having issues on the same machine on windows and Fedora with losing connection to a new yamaha mixer. I decided to give flex a chance just because the mixer wasn't connecting anyway. That was the day that I realized that chrome os flex could be really great! Since that day that mixer has not disconnected one time, and I went from returning it to Yamaha to now using it all day everyday without issues.

Would love to see Arch+Plasma on that miniPC I'm really interested in CS:GO (1080p, low details) FPS, however, ETA Prime don't include that in their videos :'(

Chrome OS is a weird system, but Linus Torvalds spoke that one is the future of Linux's desktop.

12:25 ah yes, finally, i can turn a chromebook into a chromebook

Just installed this on a 12 year old VIAO laptop my parents had in their basement on Sunday: Works 100% great, so there's that.

I compared MX Linux 32Bit and Chrome OS Flex on a Lenovo R61 from 2008. Chrome was snappier and more fun browsing and streaming. But still I would prefer a proper Linux just because of Googles data collection ambitions.

Sounds like Google need to get their drivers sorted out.

I find it really useful to extend the life of and old computer. ChromeOS Flex is light and easy to use. Gave back life to and old Mac Mini that wasn't getting software updates anymore.

I had it running on my Lenovo Ideapad 5 with AMD Ryzen 4700u processor. dam that thing was quick. Quick to boot. Quick to open web pages and scroll through RU-vid video's frame by frame etc. Octane 2.00 benchmark of over 56,000 was very impressive. My sons Ryzen 7 pc with 16Gb of ram gets 64,000 on Octane 2.0 ! But ...... I needed the laptop to run software defined radio using SDR++ and I got nowhere trying to get that to work. The drivers / API for the SDR card wouldn't install either and screwed up the Linux environment. So I did try Fedora 36 but that is too new to get working. Back to Elementary OS for me (as that just works)

Honestly, chrome os flex may make sense for business and mid to large organisations due to administration ease. But as you say, for low spec machines there are better linux distros (porteus, slax and so on). And a private user with standard laptop is better off with a standard linux distro and use chrome browser.

I have a question, is it possible to run the chrome OS on a VM either in a linux or windows OS ? I would like to see you cover this topic in one of your videos, cheers

I've installed Flex on a 10 year old mac book air that's not officially supported and everything worked except for the web cam. This is better than when I tried fedora on it because then the wifi didn't work. I also installed it on my razer 13" and everything works. Although the officially supported list is just a few hundred laptops, it works with a lot more that are not officially tested.

you just saved me some time I was about to download it to try on my old EEEPC... but I think I'll leave my Linux distro alone. I'll wait for Chrome OS to be a bit more mature before tryin it.

elementary OS with a Chrome browser and web apps work better than they do in ChromeOS because you’re running them off a Linux desktop. They’re more well integrated. Like ChromeOS, EOS is immutable desktop where nearly everything runs in containers. Web apps run contained in a browser and flatpak apps are essentially containerised applications. They’re both secure and stable and they do what you expect from them.

This video is not about ChromrOS flex, it is like buying a tractor and comparing it to a car.

I installed ChromeOS withPlaystore (brunch framework) on Lenovo X1 5th Gen and apple Macmini 2014 model, and it works smooth as original Chromebook on both machines.

kdenlive problem is easily solvable by editing app launcher commands. solution is disabling hardware encoding and using software instead. there is a video about that o youtube.

I recently tried installing chrome OS flex onto 3 cheap mini PCs With two of them (both are ones that came with Windows 10 Pro pre-installed), it installed just fine, the only issue i noticed was the WiFi didn’t work, but that wasn’t too surprising (im not sure if the sound worked) With the other one (which came with Windows 10 Home Pre-installed), the computer would reboot in a weird way almost as soon as i clicked install, so I wasn’t able to install it

Early in the video you mentioned that ChromeOS Flex is just a version of ChromeOS that gives one the ability to install it on other hardware. Does that then mean that all real Chromeboxes are automatically ChromeOS Flex certified? The reason that I ask is that I would like to try out ChromeOS Flex; but, I don't have any boxes that are on the certified list and not themselves Chromeboxes. (I hope that makes sense.) Thanks.

That GIMP menu bug seems to be a general (X)Wayland thing, I have the same issue on Gnome. Hopefully that'll be fixed with GIMP 3

Works flawlessly on HP250G3.

A really good video explaining the pros & cons of Chrome OS flex. But ya, even I would rather recommend installing Linux Mint on a old PC/ Laptop to bring it back to life.

Cisco Anyconnect and an RDP client such as Remmina are my bare minimum requirements for a remote work PC and both sadly do not work on Chrome OS. Anyconnect is available but does not work for my VPN type. But please note I did not try to install any Linux apps.

I'm older in my 50's. Been working on computers since 82 when I learned how to make HANGMAN swear by hitting Ctrl Break, editing the BASIC and typing RUN - or was it CLOAD? PET Computers, ATARI Computers ... WGF these days. ANYWAY: So I know what I'm talking about. My girlfriend however doesn't know much about computers. She bought a slow useless thing without checking with me only about five years ago. It was so slow it was almost dead then. Linux was not for her, so she just put up with it. In the meantime, she updated her TV to huge and Android. Now she understands Android, uses her phone and TV without a problem, and after yesterday's install of Chrome OS Flex on her gutless newer than anything I have laptop, she's happier than ever. We're only talking emails, RU-vid, and documents to type, print and read. It's no use to me, but for her, it's added something extra to her life that she didn't have; a WORKING laptop linked with her Android TV and Phone.

min 11:30 I think that Spligate didn't work work because it uses Vulkan, if I remember correctly to get Vulkan working on ChromeOS you have to install an experimental driver that allows the virtual machine to make Vulkan calls to the graphic card. OpenGL games such as minecraft should work fine tho

I am running it on a T530 think pad and it has no bugs , it works a good as a Chromebook. I had used linux mint on it and it was buggy. fyi...

12:24 The reason so many of the devices on the compatibility list are already Chrome OS devices is that Chrome OS Flex is a way to keep using a lot of models of Chromebooks after their end of life for support on the main Chrome OS distribution. This is a huge deal. Unlike most machines Chromebooks otherwise work well past their OS support period.

Every so often I deal with users that own Chromebooks, so I thought Chrome OS Flex would turn out to be a useful tool for me so I could install it on an old computer and play around with it and see how it works to the extent that I can assist users who use Chromebooks, i.e. how to take screenshots, upload files to a cloud storage service, etc. I was hopeful until I tried installing it on an old 2011 MacBook Pro that was running Ubuntu (now I am on Fedora Linux thanks to Tech Hut's videos) at the time - I couldn't get it to install due to the dual GPU nature of the laptop (it has a discrete and integrated GPU). This left me with trying out all sorts of virtualization tools (Boxes, Virtualbox, QEMU) and I wasn't able to get any to work, in the end I had to download a trial version of a Mac VM tool to create a Chrome OS Flex VM. Although I played around with the Chrome OS Flex VM for the trial period of the VM software, I can understand that it's not meant for people who are tech saavy.

Just installed chrome OS flex on my Lenovo ThinkPad X230 and it runs like an absolute dream. Thank you Google because now I don’t have to bother with all these garbage, unreliable Linux distributions.

Google ruined neverwear's cloudready, with there's you could install Linux software, whereas Chrome Flex arbitrarily chooses which computer allows the Linux extension.

It´s getting better... I see a big future for Chrome OS Flex.

I have a dell optiplex 3050 wich linux distro is the best to revive that boy

Another alternative would be to just install Android x86 🤷‍♂

I installed this on my outdated Chromebook. All it did was install the original end of life ChromeOS. I installed Arch Linux instead and now it's perfect. 😎

I have a Chromebook but I only use it for Google and word processors. The Play Store gets very buggy sometimes and loads applications a little slower. I haven't used Linux on it for year but maybe there's less bugs now.

currently running Chrome Flex on a 2008 vintage Dell Vostro with an Intel Core2 Duo and 4 Gb of RAM. Overall works good, only mnor issue i notice is that i dont think i can change the system to recognize a newer up to date usb wifi adapter and am stuck with the original much older internal wifi adapter. Maybe someone could point me in the right direction?

Tried it on a live USB and was taken aback that the right mouse button is permanently disabled on all touchpads. Why not let people choose instead of dictating that we use touchpads their way? My laptop can actually run windows 10 okay (after I disable the update service and other unused services) but it's largely been gathering dust since I bought it. Was impressed with the ease of connecting to my hidden wifi network after messing around with some Linux distros on USB sticks.

Wow. Flex is not a nightmare. You are far from the typical user, my friend. It runs fine on my two old Windows notebooks.

htop runs under the virtualized linux not on chromeos flex, also run the os on the stable channel I didn’t hear you mention which channel ure using. The installation is weird it took me an hour on an old laptop and 3 tries. I think it’s a good OS for very old hardware it runs better than fedora

so... i installed latest flex on an acer 5532 (athlon 64 dualcore 2.2ghz 2GB ddr2 some 120 gb sata ssd) and wifi works. all ports work. web browsing is only hindered by the cpu specs. the screen will flicker on and off if not aat full brightness...

I installed it on an old Samsung laptop that wouldn't even play youtube videos properly anymore, and it's working great as a device for playing media and web browsing.

Can U teach us how to download apps from the terminal

Did you try using nice command in Linux to stop the audio stuttering ?

Maybe a nightmare for you but not for everyone else, i did a fresh install on my uncle's 10 year old laptop and he has been enjoying it.

It is not a nightmare. And if it is good or not is a point of view. For example my 72 years old dad is someone who just surf in browser, print, scan with epson and copy files from iphone to external harddrive. He has now my low budget Notebook from 2016. 2 weeks ago I installed him ChromeOS Flex because this notebook is not supported and very slow in windows 11. So he can use this nb 10 more years if he wants... And everything works great with chrome os flex, he is happy with that ! So congrats to microsoft's high requirements for windows 11. You now have one user less in the market share. HAHAH!

I don't mean for any of the following sound offensive because I was hoping to see more resource comparison like how much ram it takes to load the browser with several tabs and some webgl. Also I put a like and comment on the video because it was in some ways helpful so I am trying to show appreciation for your work.

Flex is a nice effort, but a lightweight distro of linux might be more flexible anyway. What bugs me... I have an old Pixel LS 2015 (i7, 16Gb ram, some level of SSD) hich is an older, un supported chromebook and it doesn't function correctly with Flex (after changin the bios etc)

I think the goal of the Chrome OS Flex is to reuse those old computers and refrain from turning them into waste instead convert them into a functioning one atleast for school or work purposes. And for an average user, Chrome OS Flex is way better option than Linux. And if you are running good computers, why would you really convert it to this OS?

I installed ChromeOs Flex on a old iMac mid 2007. It works, but I can't install Linux environment: when I try to, it just stops telling me it can't boot the virtual machine and the installation doesn't start. Anyone does know if it is possible to fix this?

A chrome OS uses a lot of RAM. I'm shook. 😂😂😂😂 Great video buddy I've been thinking about trying this OS on an older laptop. Might just stick to Linux.

for the t450 what did you select in the list?

yes I have crap hardware intel core m 5y10c broadwell with tdp of 6.5w at full load & 4gb I use lubuntu 16.04 main use is browsing and like to keep several tabs open for research purposes,currently using edge stable because ff doesn't work with a vpn addon is there anything better?

Don't know about Linode, but the MOST important thing to check is that a hosting provider has is DDoS protection. If they ain't got that, then don't bother.

I attempted to install Chrome OS Flex yesterday, but, despite following all of Google's links, I couldn't even get the installer file downloaded on my 11-year old Lenovo 11e laptop. I ran through the entire process as laid out by Google and wound up looking for the installer file in my Downloads folder and the Sandisk flash drive I had plugged into my USB port and....nothing. No file was download at all. And all that after checking the list and finding my Lenovo 11e is one of the many "certified" devices approved by Google for Chrome OS Flex.

Hi, I've tried Chrome OS and Chrome OS Flex already. and this is what I genuinely think. To me, Chrome OS and Chrome OS flex are identical; the primary distinction is that while Chrome OS has the Play Store, Chrome OS flex does not. For older devices and those with 4GB or less of RAM, Chrome Flex is, in my opinion, noticeably faster. I tested it on a Lenovo IdeaPad 1 with a 4GB RAM and an N4020 CPU. The Play Store and Android apps use system resources (RAM, cache, etc.) in the background to function properly under standard Chrome OS. That, in my opinion, is the primary reason why Flex is faster. With regular Chrome OS, I only have 2.2GB of RAM available at idle; with Flex, I have 3.2GB. (out of 4gb ram) Additionally, I saw that the CPU in Flex was constantly on the low stable side, but with Chrome OS, there were more CPU spikes. Thus, if you like Android, install Chrome OS; however, if, like me, you have a slow laptop and want it to run as quickly as possible, utilize the Chrome OS Flex.

Had the same none boot issue with an Atom CPU mini laptop the Samsung N150 plus. Ended up using the Cloudready chromeOS wasn't any good so I gave up on ChromeOS

As stability, comparability, and feature parity improve, (apk support for example) this experience will improve. It is still very early on with this.

I've installed in in my Dell Inspiron 11 3162 and after installation it got stuck in Dell logo upon boot. How to resolve this?

Im from Malaysia. Why i dont see any way to download chrome os flex ISO images anywhere ? How to download it and install ?

have u tried it on an old android tablet like android gt-n8000... :D?

I hope Fucsia OS will stay open source

I tried to install on 2 old PC, the Dell Inspiron laptop and Zotac Zbox, both only boot to the logo and halt can't even complete loading the installer, wonder what made it so hard to run, Linux on the other hand worked much better rarely complain.

The only thing I can see a Chromebook being good for is a replacement for an android tablet; if you get one with a touchscreen and it folds, or the keyboard is detachable. Mainly because the screen is much larger for most cheaper Chromebooks compared to most android tablets (10-11in vs 13in) Tends to work better for Krita as well real estate wise as Krita is cramped on a 10.1 in tablet even with a 2K display.

The problem is that google is installing the Linux in an VM instead of side/container. We loose so much power and possiblies of this.

Oh man, you didn't try Stadia for gaming. I would love to see if the performance on Chrome OS Flex

I think if you're looking for good linux support and universal driver solutions then it's pretty obviously the wrong product! Who ever said it was for that? There's a very robust compatibility list on their website and they make it pretty clear in the documentation that it is for web browsing, email, and light office work. I've got an officially supported, crusty, education line Lenovo and the install process was a million times more painless than any linux distro I've messed around with, it can look at websites without hiccups and the battery doesn't drop like a stone like it did with Windows 10. Why do reviewers expect stupid things from bizarre use cases of vanilla products?

Put that into developer mode and set up the proper drivers for your hardware

If you want some non restricted, try FydeOS

I installed it on an older Lenovo laptop and it works great.

From how I understand you, I'd say that OS Flex has done to Google's operating system is change it to a Apple Clone. So! Google has done to it self, the very thing I've been avoiding for as long as I've used computers. (40+decades) That is Touch & Go, Press & Play computing. If I wanted that, I'd of bought an Apple system in 1985. Instead of the MS DOS system with it's greater FLEXibility.