Keith Graham

I installed Linux Mint on my $7.50 Chromebook C720/C740. The machine has 2 gigs of ram and 16 gigs of SSD. It has an Intel CPU so I can installed things intended for a PC.
I started by backing up the Chrome installation.
I downloaded Linux Mint (the smallest one) and burned the ISO to a thumb drive. I tried several utilities to do this, but the problem wasn’t in the software. I was using a 2GB drive that was actually a little smaller than the ISO required. As soon as I tried a larger thumb drive it worked.
I put the Chromebook into developer mode and then rebooted off the thumb drive.
I thought that I was going to get a dual boot, but the install fooled me and reformatted the disk.
Linux installed smoothly.
I kind of like Linux. The Linux windows system is different, but everything is findable. I had some issues with the Chromebook touch pad buttons being reversed, but the built in utilities let me change it. The last time I installed Linux, about 25 years ago, I really disliked it. It has come quite a long way in usability. and is quite friendly.
I installed WINE which is a program for Linux that lets you run Windows programs. I installed Notepad++ using Wine. This is the first thing that I do when I set up a new windows computer. It worked well. Linux is very slick.
I think that I will install some other operating system on the other Chromebook that I got in this deal. I would like to install Android, but the search results all cover how to install Android apps on a Chromebook. Chrome seemed pretty much useless so I have to do something. The other thing that I might try is installing Window XP. I think that might be fun.