Tag: Chromebook

5 MUST-HAVE TERMINAL COMMANDS FOR LINUX ON YOUR CHROMEBOOK

We’ve spent a lot of time over the past week exploring what is possible on Chrome OS. Thanks to some updates to the Linux container, we’ve installed Windows 10 and a variety of Linux flavors. I love tinkering with Chrome OS to see how far I can push the maturing ecosystem but today, we’re going to focus on what the Linux container is currently designed to do. That, of course, it to run the Debian framework and allow users to install compatible Linux applications on Chrome OS. Doing so doesn’t require you to be a Linux guru and thank goodness for that. I’m still learning as I go but mastering the Chrome OS Linux terminal doesn’t have to be a terrifying or even daunting.

That said, we’re going to look at five terminal commands every Chromebook user should know if you plan on getting the most out of the Linux container. There are more commands than we could ever cover here and I will follow up frequently with more tutorials on basic and complex commands over the coming weeks. These five, I’ve found, are five that I use very frequently. Some perform simply tasks while others wield much power. I’ll lay them out, in no specific order, and give you a quick example of how to use them.

Sudo

The sudo command originally meant “superuser do” because it ran commands as the root super user without any privilege restrictions. More recent iterations allow users to run commands not only as the unrestricted root user but other, restricted users as well. In a full-blown Linux desktop environment, the sudo command isn’t needed as frequently as it is when you’re living life inside the terminal. For Chrome OS, using sudo more the rule than the exception. Many of the commands we use inside the Chromebook Linux terminal will require root access. Therefore, sudo is appended to the front of whatever command it is you are executing.

For example, when we are checking the Debian repository for package updates, we use the command apt-get update. Many Linux distros do this action via whatever software center they use and the priveliges needed are already in place. Like other operating systems, you will see an update notification and simply click to update. Since the default user in the Chrome OS Linux terminal isn’t technically the super user, you have to run the update command with sudo at the beginning like so:

sudo apt-get update

If you attempt to run a command in the terminal and you receive a message that says “are you root?,” then adding sudo will normally complete the execution. To switch to the root user in the terminal and negate the need for sudo, you can simply run the command sudo su and you will now be using the super user account.

cd

The cd command stands for “change directory” and it does exactly what you would think. In Chrome OS, the default directory for the command line is the Linux folder that’s in your Files App. Sometimes, you will need to access files that are not in the same tree as the Linux folder. Example: You need to add a third-party repository to your sources.list file so that you can download a package not available from Debian Stretch. The cd command is how you point the terminal toward the folder you are wanting to work with at that moment. In the example above, you would enter cd /etc/apt in the terminal. From there, you would be able to open the sources.list file with a text editor. If you are working a number of nested “folder,” you can move up one directory by typing cd .. and hitting enter.

top

Task managers are very handy little creatures and practically every operating system has its own iteration. Outside of the desktop environment, the top command is the quickest way to see what resources are being used by which packages. This command will give you a snapshot of cpu and memory usage along with other useful bits of information such as task ownership, shared memory and more. This is a quick, easy way to identify what packages may be draining your precious system resources.

Legend:

PID: Shows task’s unique process id.

PR: Stands for priority of the task.

SHR: Represents the amount of shared memory used by a task.

VIRT: Total virtual memory used by the task.

USER: User name of owner of task.

%CPU: Represents the CPU usage.

TIME+: CPU Time, the same as ‘TIME’, but reflecting more granularity through hundredths of a second.

SHR: Represents the Shared Memory size (kb) used by a task.

NI: Represents a Nice Value of task. A Negative nice value implies higher priority, and positive Nice value means lower priority.

%MEM: Shows the Memory usage of task.

ls

If you just want to see what files are inside a given directory, look no further than the ls command. Typing this command in the terminal will show you every file and directory inside the current directory. This makes it a lot easier to cd into another folder when you have a large number of files and you aren’t sure which one you need to open. The color of the text output will vary depending on what type of items are in the given folder. In my terminal, Folders/directories are blue and files are white or teal depending on their file type. If you’re trying to run a command and you get a “not found” error, ls is a quick way to see if the file exists in the active directory.

uname

To find out basic system information, the uname command is what you need. If you type uname in the terminal and hit enter, the output should be “Linux” as that’s what’s running in the container. For a bit more detail, you can type uname -a and you will see the OS, Linux kernel version, release date and the native architecture of your container. This information is especially useful if you are running into issues with a program and are seeking help from other users. Kernel information and system architecture play a bit part in package compatibility and it’s good to have it on hand at a moment’s notice.

Bonus command!

With the 4th installment of the Matrix in the works, wouldn’t it be fun to turn your terminal into a Matrix screensaver? You can do just that by installing cmatrix. Just install it with the command sudo apt install cmatrix and then type cmatrix in the terminal and hit enter. Pretty cool, huh? To exit the Matrix, just hit Ctrl+C and you’ll return to the command line prompt. That’s all for today. See you later this week as we dig a little deeper into the Linux terminal for Chrome OS.

CHROMEBOOK TIP TUESDAY: QUICKLY ADJUST YOUR DISPLAY RESOLUTION

As the Chromebook market has evolved, the number of new screen sizes, resolutions, and aspect ratios has only increased. At this point, there are Chrome OS devices anywhere from 10-inches up to 15.6-inches, 720p to 4K, and everything in between. And that’s to say nothing of extended displays and Chromeboxes outputting to a vast variety of external monitors.

With all these variations in place at this point, Chrome OS requires the ability to actively scale the entire interface to work on different displays. Native 1080p looks pretty nice spread across 15.6 diagonal inches, but the same pixels squished into a 13.3-inch screen like the Pixelbook Go makes things quite small on screen.

The remedy to this predicament is display scaling, and Chrome OS has done this well for a few years now. Digging into your settings, you can find your internal display and its current scale percentage, adjusting if need be. Every Chromebook has a 100% mark set for it out of the factory, and it is different for each device. The Pixelbook Go, for instance, is set to a ‘resolution’ of 1536×864. The resolution slider then moves up and down by percentage based on this as the center point. (It’s important to note this isn’t actually changing the screen resolution, only making things on screen look as if the resolution was changing.)

Moving down to 80% gets you to 1920×1080 resolution which is the native resolution of the panel itself. I prefer something around 90% which looks like 1707×960. It gives me a tad more screen real estate while not making reading a strain on my eyes. Your mileage will vary, and that is why there’s a quick and simple way to move up and down this scale to dial in the resolution that works for you. No matter the one you choose, because of resolution scaling, things on screen will stay nice and crisp.

The way to quickly move between all these resolutions is simple and effectively something I use on a daily basis. All you have to do is press CTRL + SHIFT + =/- and you’ll see your screen adjust right in front of your eyes. While there’s no indication of what percent you are at when you do this in either direction, I’d advise just adjusting things until you feel comfortable with them. While 90% works for me, I only got to that point by adjusting it to my comfort level.

Depending on the task and the day, I move through multiple resolutions, so this trick is a real time saver. From time to time, I dig down in the settings (device > displays > display size) to see where I am on the scale, but not very often. If you ever want to just get back to the factor 100%, you can check that out, but there’s really no need. We hope this tip helps you out and makes your Chromebook experience just a bit better. Be sure to keep an eye out for next week’s tip!

THE LATEST LINUX KERNEL IS HEADED TO CHROMEBOOKS IN THE VERY NEAR FUTURE AND THAT’S A BIG DEAL

For those of you who may not be familiar with the subject, Google’s Chrome OS that powers millions of Chromebooks is built on the Linux kernel. I’ll save you the long-winded explanation of what the Linux kernel is and how it works for two reasons. One, it would take all day. Two, I’m not a developer and I would likely confuse myself and you in the process. Apart from numerous Linux distributions and Chrome OS, the Linux kernel is at the heart of the Android operating system as well as various embedded devices and products such as smart TVs and webcams.

As it stands, the latest generation of Chrome OS devices runs on the Linux kernel version of 4.14. While this version is somewhat recent, it is by no means the most current version of the kernel. Back in January, we unearthed evidence that upcoming devices such as the Qualcomm-based Chromebook ‘Cheza’ will actually feature the much newer 4.19 kernel. This update is a big indicator that Google is serious about making Chrome OS a truly competitive operating system that is up to date with the latest and greatest that the open-source community has to offer.

Today, however, we’ve uncovered some information that is exponentially more exciting for the world of Chromebooks. The newest LTS(long-term support) kernel to hit Linux kernel was released just last month and it looks like it’s already headed to Chrome OS. In digging around the repository, I found the addition of the 5.4 Linux kernel but as I poked around, the plot thickened.

First, the aforementioned Snapdragon Chromebook ‘Cheza’ has now been moved to the much newer 5.4 Linux kernel before the previous 4.19 version ever saw the light of day. Taking a closer look at recent commits, I found that the Tiger Lake-based board we’ve been tracking has also been updated to the 5.4 Linux kernel. That means we could be looking at a variety of Chrome devices coming in the latter part of 2020 that features the newest version of the Linux kernel.

THE BIGGER PICTURE

From a consumer standpoint, this all may seem exceptionally nerdy and I’m sure a lot of Chromebook users couldn’t care less which version of the Linux kernel their devices are using. However, from a market perspective, this is extremely exciting news. In the past, Chromebooks have always felt as if they were the second-class citizens of the computing world. Features found in Windows and Mac devices have slowly trickled down to Chrome OS but it has always felt like the development cycle was months, if not years behind. The fact that Google and its developers are looking to get the latest possible software and features into their OS means they are concretely committed to the success of Chrome OS in the consumer market as well as EDU and enterprise.

We’ll be taking a closer look at the latest Linux kernel version and breaking down what’s new and improved and what that could look like for Chrome OS in the coming months. I suspect that it won’t be long before all new Chromebooks are built on the new kernel and parity with other operating systems won’t be far behind. Stay tuned. 2020 is going to be a stellar year from Chrome OS and we’ll be right in the mix.

Chrome OS will soon show when your Chromebook will reach End of Life

In recent months, we’ve all become more aware of the fact that every Chromebook has a built-in expiration date after which it will no longer receive updates. Likely in an effort to increase transparency, Google is now making information about your Chromebook’s End of Life date easily viewable within Chrome OS.

Every Chromebook has been promised roughly six and a half years of Chrome OS updates — give or take for devices that are closely based on older models — with Google recently extending those dates by another year for over 100 devices.

Up to this point, checking your device’s update expiry date was a bit of a hassle, which required you to find your specific Chromebook in the massive list of every ever Chromebook released and its associated End of Life date. Now, as reported by XDA-Developers, Google has developed a much easier solution, coming with Chrome OS 80.

In recent builds of Chrome OS Canary, a new option has appeared in the Settings app under “About Chrome OS.” Click over to the recently added “Additional details” page, and you’ll find a new section labeled “Update schedule” that lists your Chromebook’s End of Life date, like so.

The “Learn more” link leads to a page teaching you what you should do next when faced with the dreaded “Final Software Update” pop-up on your Chromebook, which is, of course, buy a new one.

While this doesn’t do much to solve the issue of Chromebooks losing updates far earlier than most Windows and macOS computers, it’s at least a nice gesture on Google’s part to make the information more accessible. Hopefully this will help those with older Chromebooks have more notice and be able to buy a new Chromebook before their device reaches End of Life.

This built-in way of checking your Chromebook’s End of Life date is currently only available in pre-release versions of Chrome OS 80, which is scheduled to release sometime in February.

An upcoming Chromebook may support Ambient EQ

Taking a note from the recently released Pixel 4, it appears that a future Chromebook may include support for Ambient EQ. This capability would help relieve eye strain when working under various lighting conditions through the use of automatic white balance adjustments.

Multiple commits in Chromium Gerrit—a tool used for code review—point towards the functionality being added to Chrome OS. These commits include details for adding a flag to display/hide the Ambient EQ UI, testing if the current device supports Ambient EQ, and adding a UI control for Ambient EQ.

Ambient EQ is implemented in a fashion similar to that of auto-brightness. An ambient light color sensor collects information about your surroundings, then modifies the screen temperature to allow for better viewing.

This marks the first time such a feature would become available in Chromebooks. Currently, Chromebook hardware lacks the required color sensor a device would need in order to perform this function — we’d need to see the launch of a new model in order for this to become a reality.

Besides the Pixel 4, this functionality has also been used on the Google Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max. If these commits are to be believed, it looks like Chromebooks are next.

How to remap your Chromebook’s keyboard

Chromebooks are pretty different from traditional laptops in a lot of ways — and not just because of their software.

The most obvious physical difference? Chromebooks feature keyboards with a variety of Chrome-OS-specific functions, which means they don’t have standard keys like F1 or even Caps Lock. Depending on your style of working, that could be a welcome change or a massive pain.

If you aren’t thrilled with that arrangement, though, don’t despair. You can actually remap a fair number of your Chromebook’s keys and dramatically change how you use your device.

To get started, simply head into the Keyboard section of your Chromebook’s settings:

Click the clock in the lower right corner of the screen.

Tap the gear-shaped icon in the panel that appears.

Scroll down to the Device subhead and click the “Keyboard” option.

There, you’ll see a list of keys you can customize:

The Launcher key (sometimes also called the Search key)

The Ctrl key

The Alt key

The Escape key

The Backspace key

The Assistant key (on Pixelbooks only)

Each key can be remapped to handle any of the following functions:

Launcher (the Chrome OS app drawer and search prompt)

Ctrl

Alt

Caps Lock

Escape

Backspace

Assistant (on devices where Google Assistant is available)

To remap any key, just click the box alongside it and select whatever function you’d like it to have. You might want to change the Launcher key back to a Caps Lock, for instance. Or if you like having the Launcher key in its default role but still miss Caps Lock, you might want to assign the Caps Lock function to your Escape key or Assistant key.

If you have any Chromebook other than the Pixelbook (which, as mentioned before, has a dedicated Google Assistant key) and want easier access to Assistant, you might consider assigning the Escape key or even the Launcher key to handle that function.

There’s one more keyboard remapping option worth noting: Beneath that list of customizable keys, you’ll see a setting called “Treat top-row keys as function keys.” If you activate the toggle alongside that, the specialty keys on the top row of your Chromebook’s keyboard — the commands for going back, reloading a page, maximizing a window, and so on — will be transformed into standard F1-style function keys. You’ll still be able to access their specialty functions in that scenario, but only if you first hold down the Launcher key and then press them.