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I'm trying to learn, with the ultimate goal of running a significant amount of my digital life through Linux. Right now I know nothing. My deck is a Dell Chromebook 13.

After enabling developer mode, I downloaded Crouton from github.com/dnschneid/crouton.

Then I opened the shell and did the following: sudo sh ~/Downloads/crouton -e -t -xfce

This appeared to work. I was prompted to create a password and encryption key, and then to create username and password for Ubuntu. Good.

When I do lsb_release -a I see I have Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS (xenial).

I'm using Shotts's book The Linux Command Line to figure out what I'm doing. Everything seems good until I start poking around directories and find only the following in /boot:

When I do ls -l: "total 0"

When I do ls -a: ". .."

Shotts indicates there should be quite a bit more there. I apologize for my lack of knowledge. I'm just trying to get a light, workable version of Linux dual-booted on my deck so I can teach myself a bit. Any advice, keeping in mind my ignorance, would be grand.

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  • Try ls /boot/* and see if files are listed. In order to boot Ubuntu in the first place there must be files there. Additionally my first go around I also tried encryption but that didn't last and I reinstalled soon without it. Encryption comes with overhead on your part to administer and puts overhead on the machine. May 22, 2017 at 20:27
  • When I do ls /boot/* I see the following: "ls: cannot access /boot/*: No such file or directory." Should I wipe everything and then go back into developer mode, or is there a simpler way to start clean? Would you recommend I do everything the same but simply omit the -e option, or can you suggest a lighter, faster, more stable distribution? Thanks.
    – palaver
    May 22, 2017 at 20:38
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    @palaver I'm not familiar with developer mode nor the -e option. Most of us simply download the Ubuntu 16.04 Live USB/DVD and boot with it to "Try Ubuntu" first and after success to "Install Ubuntu". With this method you can still choose to encrypt or not encrypt data. Again I found not encrypting data kept life simple. May 22, 2017 at 20:50
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    Crouton stands for ChRomium Os Universal chrooT envirONment and I'm not sure we even support that on this site.... May 22, 2017 at 20:55
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    @palaver At this stage any opinions I render would be pure speculation which is a disservice to both of us. I suggest logging into Google support forums for specific advise on running Debian/Ubuntu within Chromium OS. May 22, 2017 at 20:59

1 Answer 1

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Well. Google support wasn't very helpful, as they basically just say "if you're using developer mode, you're on your own." Reddit (/r/Crouton) produced a reasonable answer:

When running in Crouton, the instance isn't a VM, it's sharing the kernel with ChromeOS...it does not do a traditional boot.

This from PaintDrinkingPete. I don't know what a VM is exactly, but dual booting would complicate the whole idea of boot directories, wouldn't it? Good enough for me, for now.

If you're here too, PDP, cheers mate.

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