[danilovesky]

Following palawan recommendations (http://www.mydellmini.com/forum/goog...tml#post194131) I tried the Hexxeh Lime version of ChromiumOS today (Chromium OS builds by Hexxeh). It booted fine and the wireless drivers worked out of the box! And all the indicators (network, battery, keyboard layout, clock, caps lock) were present without patches! However after installing it on the internal SSD I found few drawbacks:
- trackpad gestured do not work (tap for left-click, two-finger-tap for right-click, two-finger drag for scrolling, etc.)
- boot time has significantly increased compared to my previous Dell ChromiumOS May13 installation (~40sec vs 8-9sec).
- the netbook froze a couple of times in my two-hour session and I had to reboot.

After discovering all these problems of Hexxeh Lime version I decided to try a fresh Dell ChromiumOS distribution from 3 Jan 2012 (Index of /files/cto). It did not go smoothly, but the final result was much better - fast boot, trackpad gestures, working wifi and rock solid (so far). Let me share my experience and provide a step-by-step guide on how to get through the installation process. The problematic stages are denoted with "***" prefix.

1) Download the compressed image file:

wget http://linux.dell.com/files/cto/ChromiumOS_x86_Jan3_2012.img.gz

2) Extract the image file:

gunzip ChromiumOS_x86_Jan3_2012.img.gz

3) Flash the obtained on USB memory stick (replace X as appropriate):

dd if=ChromiumOS_x86_Jan3_2012.img of=/dev/sdX bs=4M

4) Boot Dell Mini 9 from the USB memory stick.
This will take few minutes. At some point you will need to select the interface language, keyboard layout and the network configuration.

***5) Login into ChromiumOS.
Here is the first problem - WiFi does not work during the first boot. Most likely this is because the wireless drivers are still not properly included in the distribution. Can it be due to licensing problems?

Anyway, to login you need the Internet connection. In the readme file they say you can So, login using a local account called "dell" with a password "dell1234" but I did not succeed. this first-time boot go online through an Ethernet cable or, if like me you are too lazy to run around looking for a network cable, then connect you mobile by a USB cable and use its "tethering" feature - the Ethernet over USB works fine.

***6) Install the wireless network drivers.
To do this go into terminal (by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T) and run a shell there (by typing "shell" after the "crosh>" prompt) and run the wifi installation script as follows:

sudo /etc/install_wl.sh

When a root password is requested type "dell1234".
The WiFi should be working now!

***7) Install the ChromiumOS on the internal SSD.
The readme file suggests to run "install" command from the "crosh>" prompt. Unfortunately it does not work - after copying few files the script dies with the following message (whatever this means):
"Error: kernel verification blob not found in stateful partition"

To resolve this (according to Google) you need to pass "--skip_vblock" option to the installation script. However, the "install" command of "crosh" does not accept any parameters except the name of destination device. To overcome this go into proper shell (by typing "shell" in "crosh>" prompt) and run the following command:

/usr/sbin/chromeos-install --skip_vblock

The installation process goes through now!

8) Power the netbook off, remove the USB stick and boot into ChromiumOS.
Frankly speaking I skipped step 6 during the installation and had to do it after reboot. I think it should not be necessary if you have already done it, but who knows...

I also highly recommend to install these packages built for ChromOS by Todd Vierling (http://www.duh.org/chromiumos/pkgs/):
* Midnight Commander
* VNC and RDesktop clients
* rsync client
* TCP/UDP utilities
* nano and vim test editors
* Zip, RAR and 7z archivers
* lynx browser (not sure if somebody needs this)
* old good Doom game

[The PIG Smith]

Thank you!
I DL the Jan03 build and followed your instructions!
All is working well!

[flywiththewind]

Thanks so much! This is very helpful

[PaulRyan]

Hi All! I'm back for more ChromeOS goodness. I'm running currently the May 2011 Dell version, but I'm looking to move to the latest Jan 2012 version. However I don't want to lose all my accounts/settings/etc. I've already configured.

Can anyone give me a rundown on what I need to do to copy over all the settings after reimaging my SSD with the new version? Has anyone done this already? Or is that just totally a bad idea because it'd be error prone?

Thanks!

[danilovesky]

PaulRyan, could you be a bit more specific what accounts/settings you want to move from one installation to another?

If you mean a Google account which you use to login into your ChromiumOS and the settings of your browser, than they are already "stored" on Google servers. As soon as you login into ChromiumOS for the first time all your browser settings and extensions will be restored.

If by accounts you mean logins and passwords on different web-sites and forums, e.g. this one, than you can (partially) preserve this information - allow Google to synchronise everything, including your password (if I am not mistaken these settings are in Preferences->Personal stuff->Advanced sync preferences).

[PaulRyan]

Originally Posted by danilovesky

PaulRyan, could you be a bit more specific what accounts/settings you want to move from one installation to another?

If you mean a Google account which you use to login into your ChromiumOS and the settings of your browser, than they are already "stored" on Google servers. As soon as you login into ChromiumOS for the first time all your browser settings and extensions will be restored.

I'm more concerned about the login configuration and settings like WLAN. I don't suppose all these are synced by Google in the cloud? If they are, wow, that's cool. I suppose to get personal files back like those in the Downloads directory the best way to move them over is via something like DropBox.

By the way, could you share your role here? Are you a "mere user" like myself, or do you work for Dell in some capacity?

Thanks!

[danilovesky]

Originally Posted by PaulRyan

I'm more concerned about the login configuration and settings like WLAN. I don't suppose all these are synced by Google in the cloud? If they are, wow, that's cool. I suppose to get personal files back like those in the Downloads directory the best way to move them over is via something like DropBox.

By the way, could you share your role here? Are you a "mere user" like myself, or do you work for Dell in some capacity?

Thanks!

Hi PaulRyan,

I am afraid you will have to re-do the network configuration - this is not stored on Google. You also will have to type your credentials the first time you login into a freshly installed ChromiumOS. After that your browser settings (the front-end of the OS) will we restored (including the passwords if you have synced them). But now files you saved on locally (e.g. in Downloads directory) will be restored - you will need to take care of these, e.g. copy them on an SD card or, if you trust the cloud, into Dropbox or GoggleDocs (yes, you can put ordinary files there too).

I am just a forum member, no connection to Dell except using few of their (unfortunately discontinued) products (Mini9 and Streak5)

[KINetics]

Thanks for the writeup. Everything worked well, except I couldn't figure out how to create a bootable usb drive with the image using the terminal commands above using OSX.

Had to resort to using the Mac Builder application here.

Everything else worked brilliantly. Cheers.

[Kaaviar]

Hi people,

First of all I'd like to apologize for my english, I'm french and I just hope to be understandable.

I achieved Chrome OS installation Jan3 2012 version thanks to another tutorial (which followed exactly the same steps than this one) and everythings works great but the WIFI.

It seems that my Mini 9 doesn't see every WIFI network (my main is missing but I can see my second one and those from neighbours). So I tried to manually enter my SSID with password but I've got some general error : Connexion failed (my translation).

There could be so many reasons it can't work I don't know where to start... Could it be related to the protection method of my WIFI network (WPA)?

Thanks a lot for your help, I don't want to reinstall Windows XP which is in my humble opinion far too heavy for my Mini 9.

[judyp]

Finally decided to do the Chrome OS installation Jan3 2012 build on my mini 9. Got the wifi and sound working great. I like it. Thanks a lot for all the help!