CloudReady: Installing on Chromebooks (in Dev mode) - DennisLfromGA/CBC-Projects GitHub Wiki

The below instructions are for the Acer C710 (parrot) but may be adapted to other Chromebooks.

NOTE: Chromebooks require the use of Developer mode since the CloudReady image is not recognized as a legit/signed Chrome OS image, therefore you have to boot it as an external OS.

To enable Developer mode you first have to put your Chromebook into recovery mode, when powered down:

  • Press and hold down the Esc and Refresh keys and then tap the Power button.

Then press Ctrl+D at the recovery screen, please see this site for more detail -

I would highly recommend you skip/ignore the part to 'Enable Bonus Debugging Features' in the above article, it's more trouble than it's worth. Besides, each of the Debugging Features can be implemented individually after set up.

Note that each time you power up now you will get the 'scary boot screen', you can wait ~30 seconds or press Ctrl+D to log in immediately.

One thing that article does not mention is that you need to enable usb booting to boot an external OS like Neverware CloudReady. You do that by accessing a shell session as follows:

  • Sign-in to the Guest account
  • Press Ctrl+Alt+T
  • Enter: shell
  • Enter: sudo crossystem dev_boot_usb=1
  • Enter: exit (twice)

Please refer to the page below for more details:

Now that you have enabled Developer mode and have enabled booting an external OS you can proceed to install & set up Neverware CloudReady.
As a precaution, I would first make a Chrome OS recovery stick for your device in case things go awry or you want to return to Chrome OS and verified boot mode.

If you haven't yet, grab the Free Home Edition of CloudReady (64-bit) from here: (link).
Next, follow the steps to create a recovery image with CloudReady shown here:

Now, what the Neverware site does not tell you is how to proceed on a Chromebook -

  • Make sure you are powered down then insert the CloudReady recovery stick.
  • Boot into recovery mode again: press and hold down the Esc and Refresh keys and then tap the Power button.
  • Power up and let it boot into the Developer mode 'scary boot screen'
  • Now, instead of pressing Ctrl+D press Ctrl+U and it should boot the external OS: CloudReady

It may take a few minutes but it should present you with the initial set up and sign-in screens.

  • Go ahead and do that connecting to your wifi network, etc. but instead of signing in with your gmail account sign-in to the Guest account.
  • Once there click on the clock in the taskbar menu and when that pops up select 'Install CloudReady'.

Once that's done successfully it will just shut off. Power on, press Ctrl+D at the scary boot screen and now CloudReady will bring you to the initial setup and sign-in screens again - this time it's booting from local storage.

That's it - told you it's a bit of a hassle. ;-)

Have fun, ~Denny

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