Google has long offered its own operating system for laptops, called Chrome OS. This operating system is a kind of export of Android for portable systems. It is characterized by not requiring very powerful hardware to operate, which is why computers equipped with this software are economical.
Chrome OS focuses mainly on training and flexible work, among other things. The strength is that it allows you to work in the cloud and therefore share documents and work simultaneously between colleagues. A variant is precisely ChromeOS Flex, a lightweight version to give a second life to different systems.
What is ChromeOS Flex?
It is a lightweight distribution-based operating system Gentoo Linux. It must be said that the kernel is Gento Linux, but Google has integrated a graphical interface based on the Google Chrome browser. It allows this operating system to support, mainly, web applications.
Flex can be installed on virtually any computer, provided the minimum system requirements are met. The truth is that meeting these requirements is very simple, since they are:
- Processor: Must be Intel or AMD X86 64-bit after 2010
- RAM memory : It must be at least 4 GB
- Storage: It will have a capacity of at least 16 GB
- Printing: Any model after 2010
- USB key: We need a USB flash drive of at least 8 GB to create an operating system installer
Although ChromeOS Flex, in theory, gives a second life to any system, Google exposes some caveats. The company only guarantees the correct operation of certified models, and unexpected problems may arise in non-certified systems. Additionally, they do not guarantee performance, functionality and stability on non-certified systems.
Translated, you can install ChromeOS Flex on any computer, although there are still some issues with its functionality or performance. Generally speaking, you shouldn’t have any problems, since it’s based on a Linux distribution.
Where can you download
This operating system is not hidden at all, so to speak. The official website only allows us to download the business version, so to speak. To access the free option we need to go to the ChromeOS Flex help page and search for it.
To simplify the process, you have to click here. Once you access it, you have to go down almost to the end, where you will find a section that says “Download from Google”. Then you will see that there is a piece of text highlighted in blue and you have to click on it to download it.
The installation is not really simple, since to add it to a USB memory you need to download a specific Chrome extension, which is the “Chromebook Recovery Tool”. Now you need to follow these steps:
- We open the extension and start the process.
- We click on “Select a model from the list”.
- We click on “Select a manufacturer” and in the drop-down menu we will go down until we find the option “Google ChromeOS Flex”.
- In “Select a product” we will only find the ChromeOS Flex option.
- We select the memory in which we want to integrate the operating system installer and then.
- This is now an automatic process that won’t tell us anything until it’s complete.
It is important that before you start, you check that the memory is empty. Otherwise, copy all the data, because all the data stored on the USB stick will be erased.
Alternatives to ChromeOS Flex
Perhaps the most striking requirement is that the PC must have 4 GB of RAM. This leaves out many older systems that may have less system memory. Fortunately, there are many Linux-based operating systems that can come in handy. Some of them would be:
- Linux Lite: Version based on Ubutu LTS and with an XFCE desktop interface somewhat reminiscent of Windows XP. The advantage of this operating system is that it requires less than 1 GB of RAM and only 8 GB of storage. You can download it from here.
- Small Linux kernel: This version of Linux is actually based on a modified and heavily stripped down Linux kernel. It has a minimalistic desktop interface based on a combination of BusyBox and FLTK. To run this operating system, we only need 28 MB of RAM, so it can run on almost any computer you can imagine. You can download it from the official website.
- ZorinOS Lite: Once again we have a Linux distribution with a user interface reminiscent of Windows. It is quite attractive and comfortable to use and can be a great option for older systems with limited capabilities. It only requires 512 MB of RAM and 8 GB of space. You can find the download site here.