How do you manually update a Chromebox?

[Rickey Shortt]

Regarding the article today (9/18/19) about the Asus Chromebox 3 being the best you can buy right now, you say "it's not hard to update them yourself after the official support is over". How does one do this? I've never read that anywhere before. I just acquired a new Chromebox 3 at work to replace the original Asus Chromebox which had reached the end of automatic updates. I installed Gallium OS on the old one and am using it mainly to connect a printer to Google Cloud Printing. But I also have an original Asus Chromebox at home. If I can manually update Chrome OS, I will continue to use it as such rather than also installing Linux on it. Surely it is not simply a matter of going to Settings and checking for updates? I do that most of the time anyway because I am too impatient to wait on the auto update when I know there is a new feature coming that I'm interested in. If that is indeed all that is required to keep a Chromebook or Chromebox updated after the Auto Update Policy expires I feel that Google has done a terrible job of making that known. I had always assumed there would be no more updates available from Google after that.

 

[B. Diddy]

I'm not sure what the author was referring to. There's some complex way of installing CloudReady on an outdated Chromebook, but my understanding is that it's not entirely reliable, and you run the risk of bricking the device. The other option would be to install a Linux distro on it, but I've never seen any other way to continue manually installing Chrome OS updates once it's reached end of life.

 

[Rickey Shortt]

That all jibes with what I knew as well. As I mentioned, I recently installed Gallium OS Linux on the original Asus Chromebox at work - mainly to connect a printer to Google Cloud Print. It's working well for that and is a great, much more compact replacement for an old desktop tower that had Windows wiped from it and Linux installed instead or the same purpose. But it was only 32 bit and had been unable to have Chrome updated for quite a while now. It wouldn't even work with Chrome Remote Desktop anymore but all is good now.

 

[B. Diddy]

Sounds like a good setup! Maybe some day when I have time, I'll look into installing a Linux distro on my old 2013 Chromebook Pixel. It's a shame to let such great hardware go to waste.

 

[SJMaye]

I'm not sure what the author was referring to. There's some complex way of installing CloudReady on an outdated Chromebook, but my understanding is that it's not entirely reliable, and you run the risk of bricking the device. The other option would be to install a Linux distro on it, but I've never seen any other way to continue manually installing Chrome OS updates once it's reached end of life.

I know this is an old thread, but I thought I would add my $0.02. I have a Samsung Chromebox Series 3, I followed the instructions in this video to install CloudReady. I did this over a year ago without any issues.this video

The toughest part is disabling the write protection. Most brands have a screw on the motherboard you remove. Simple as that. On the Samsung, however, you have to install a tiny jumper. That said, with these instructions I found it pretty easy.