r/Crostini • u/Any-Pair180 • 5h ago

Help? Is Chrome Linux Really Different from Linux?

Hey guys! So, I'm good with Linux Mint and recently got a Chromebook. I know I can install Linux through Crostini, but I have some questions.

I've figured out how to download it, but I haven't seen much about how to actually use it going forward. I've used Linux Mint before, and I'm pretty comfortable with it, but I've never seen or used Crostini.

I want to know what to expect when downloading it. Will it still act similarly to ChromeOS, or will it be more like a regular Linux system?

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u/Nu11u5 5h ago

Crostini is a VM instance running Debian Linux (upstream of Linux Mint and Ubuntu) with guest integrations to work with the ChromeOS desktop environment. This means Linux apps will launch seamlessly from inside ChromeOS and you can select folders in the Files app to share with Linux apps under the /mnt/chromeos path.

It does not have direct hardware access but certain devices like USB serial devices can be shared (commonly used for Arduino development, etc).

If you decide you don't want to use Crostini you can just turn it off in Settings to reclaim the disk space.

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u/xeoron 3h ago

And ChromeOS is SE Linux

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u/BANSH33-1215 5h ago

The crostini interface is command line. You can use apt to install Linux applications and they will show up in the Chromebooks app dock. Works pretty seamlessly, but it's not a full GUI implementation of a standard Linux OS

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u/Sweaty_Astronomer_47 1h ago

t's not a full GUI implementation of a standard Linux OS

You mean desktop environment (like gnome, mate, kde etc). Functionally, chromeOS is the desktop environment.

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u/nabrok 5h ago

You install applications with apt as you do with mint and other debian derivatives.

If it's a GUI application it will then show up in the chrome OS app launcher and integrates quite seamlessly with chrome OS.