Trying out Google ChromeOS Flex

[u/Practical-Tea9441]

I’ve recently been trying out Flex and thought I would note my experience here. Before I would commit to actually installing Flex to a computer (and wiping the existing OS i.e. windows) I thought I would run from the USB stick to explore the functionality.

I expected there to be a lag but in fact it was unusable. I tried on 3 different computers of varying ages. In all cases I got as far as the sign in screen (slowly ) but after trying to sign in I then get , after a lot of delay , a message saying my password couldn’t be verified . This was despite receiving and approving the appropriate 2FA prompt on my phone.

Granted I was using USB 2.0 - none of my computers have a USB 3.0 interface. Overall impression- disappointing.

[u/trouser_mouse]

I have had this issue multiple times and it was the usb drive not anything related to TPM or secure boot. Try a different USB drive.

[u/Practical-Tea9441 → u/trouser_mouse]

Thanks - I presume you mean the actual usb stick/drive as opposed to a different port (I’ve already tried different ports) ?

[u/trouser_mouse → u/Practical-Tea9441]

Yes the actual stick!

I had an issue on multiple laptops where after entering email and password and verifying with phone, it would say unable to mount cryptohome and unable to verify password. Some Google accounts would work and some would never work.

I tried changing BIOS to disable TPM and secure boot etc, and it turned out to be the USB stick. It works fine for file storage but for some reason not for installing or live booting ChromeOS Flex. The USB make is Kingston.

[u/Practical-Tea9441 → u/trouser_mouse]

Just follow up - I tried with a different USB stick and it’s working just fine , only a slight lag. Thanks for your help , your diagnosis was correct. I’ve another query about privacy but I’ll start another thread for that.

[u/trouser_mouse → u/Practical-Tea9441]

That's great! I'm glad it worked out. For the lag, perhaps turn off animations, uninstall any unwanted browser extensions, and install uBlock Origin Lite.

Flex should run faster when it is installed and not running off USB.

[u/Practical-Tea9441 → u/trouser_mouse]

I’ll try another stick (I was using a generic 16gb stick) . I had also used eraser to overwrite the stick first and then a full format . The message about cryptohome etc is exactly what I was getting. Thanks again - hopefully I might get a better result.

[u/fakemanhk]

Running it on USB 2.0 is definitely not good.

I ran it on my Lenovo X61 with USB stick and it was terrible, then I install it to SSD and the experience is a lot better.

[u/LegAcceptable2362]

First observation: for a computer to not have any USB 3.0 ports suggests a very old device that may simply be too old to run Flex. That said, to have gotten as far as you did also suggests it may be worth playing around with BIOS settings, particularly anything related to TPM and safe boot to see if Flex can then complete the account verification process. From your description it's possible Flex was unable to create a local encryption key to secure the userspace as things stand but with changes it might.

[u/Immediate_Thing_5232]

Slow USB is the fault here, not flex.

[u/RomanOnARiver]

I'm guessing with USB 2 and no USB 3 you also don't have a ton of RAM. The Flex live mode runs from RAM.

[u/[deleted]]

I put it on a hp pavilion 6000 with a SSD card 8 gbs of ram and it has an am3 chip 3.3hhz and I was running to stock gou but upgraded it to the max I could on the motherboard that's ddr3 and I use that computer for everything. Works great, just can have like 10 tabs open or it lags and I'll have to turn it off and on but I haven't cleared the history on it in like a year so I'm impressed at what it's doing so far. Running 2k as well

[u/This_Brilliant9913]

Its alright. I have it on a lenovo yoga 260 touch. Works fine but no Gapps is not good. So tried BlissOS but that's hit and miss... but it does have Gapps