The Frustration Free Guide to Getting Started with Chromebooks

Why use a Chromebook?

You are using the internet? You are working with web based or cloud applications? You are owner of an android smart phone?

So a chromebook could be a good solution for you! Here is why: one of the main features of a chromebook is that the OS is centered around the Chrome browser, this means hitting Ctrl-N will open a new tab in a new window – regardless where you “are” currently. Ctrl-T will open a new tab, and so on.

Getting started

Need to know: chromeOs ist multi user. But the first user at system initialization doing the login in is the “owner” with special rights (e.g. “powerwash”). So if it’s your own chromebook make sure that’s you!

Give it a go:

Open the lid and chrome should start up asking for your google-account etc.

Follow the instructions and you are done with the basic setup.

Activating android:

On my chromebooks I had to activate Android Playstore in the settings. Make sure play store is activated!

Doing a right mouse click:

Right mouse click is essential for adding apps to the Shelf (the task bar down there). You could do it by doing a long click but the most convenient way is to press and hold Alt and then doing to click/tap on the touchpad (Alt-click)

Installing Android Apps

Simpe fire up the play store and install whatever you want. Most apps work great on chromebooks! They will automatically show up in the launcher together with chrome-Apps. Hint: Android apps are running on a chromebook in kind of a “subsystem”. So after your chromebook has started (a few seconds), the android subsystem startup will take additionally several seconds until you can use your android apps.

Quick starting apps

Select the launcher (bullet in lower left edge), expand it and do a right click (see above!) on the App you want to add to your shelf. That’s it (and simply do a right click on the icon in the shelf to get the option to remove it)

Configuring the desktop area

You can choose nice wallpapers by doing a right click on the desktop but currently there is (afaik) no way to add Apps to the desktop area! I tried to use android-launchers to circumvent this but with no satisfying result. Therefore enjoy your clean and neat desktop!

Files

There is a “files” app with integrated access to Google drive. Your files are located in “my files”. You can add subfolders on this level. “Downloads” has a special functionality: this is the folder with shared access to android apps on your device! The other folders (not in the tree of “Downloads” are invisible to your android apps. Start e.g. “total commander” to inspect the android file structure: there appears the a “Download” folder which is identical to “Downloads”. Keep this in mind when you want to access files via android apps.

Example: xodo PDF reader

Xodo is (currently) a great pdf reader for android. Install it and you can even set it as default for viewing PDFs from the chrome file explorer. But – as being said – keep in mind that “Download(s)” is where ChromeOS and Android share files.

Help!!! Where are the F-keys?

There are no “function-keys” on chromebooks and you don’t need them: it takes few time to get acquainted to the direct control keys in the top row of the keyboard: enjoy the simplicity of activating full screen mode, change brightness and (Yes – there is that feature!) the possibility to do fast screen shots.

But things are more complicated with those keys!

Every key has in combination with Ctrl, Alt, Shift, Ctrl-Shift (… and other combinations) different meaning. I strongly recommend to get a list of chromeOS keyboard shortcuts somewhere from the internet and learn the most relevant for you by heart.

Where is the (d…) delete-key

There is no dedicated delete-key, simply use Alt-Backspace.

Special Functions and Capabilities

CIFS-Mounts

Being a source of frustration and time waste with former versions of ChromeOS, CIFS-Mounts (aka windows-shares or SMB-mounts) are now working quite stable on chromeOS. Go to the settings and do the mount there.

Updates!

Think of an other very popular (or better: wide spread) operating system: like upgrades there? Like hours of waiting, hoping that no data is lost, frustration about things working not the same as before and losing time, time, time?

ChromeOS is different: you will like upgrades! Most of the upgrades are of security nature. But they are downloaded and prepared in background. Simply restart your chromebook when being told and explore and enjoy the new features (the system being ready again in seconds!). My experience is that every upgrade makes chromeOS a little better, adds nice features and is done in sceonds.

Ransomware and viruses?

My opinion: forget them. Those are problems of “the others”. Simply when exposing your data to a well known popular OS it might be at risk (not directly by the OS but by the mean people out there).

Really??

NO, wait: you should be careful when installing chrome-extensions, and also (although well curated) the play store may come up with unwanted surprises. But basically there is no difference to your android smart phone.

Chromebooks are useless without internet connection?

Close to truth, but not really true: it’s the same as with your android phone. You need the right apps. Here some recommendations:

• locus maps works great with openandromaps on chromebooks providing detailed offline maps
• Andropen-Office provides an offline office-suite similar to libreoffice. It works great on chromebooks (but not perfect!)
• Xodo-PDF-reader: works!
• Kindle
• VLC media player even can access your network via build in SMB-functionality!

and much more. 

Final verdict

My main go when choosing an operating system is usually a flavour of linux. But when your aim is to be productive and not fiddling around with recalcitrant, time consuming and unsafe infrastructure and your main use cases are focused on mobility, stability and common tasks and internet usage (from websites to video and so on), Chromebooks are a great choice!