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Chrome OS has vim preinstalled. I would like to add Emacs in terminal mode. I have not found any leads by searching the internet. My question is:

How I can Install software locally on Chrome OS?

ewm
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  • This being closed as off-topic doesn't change the fact that it is the first result when googling "install emacs on chrome os" in 2019. One blogger describes using the nix package manager to install emacs as a "Linux App" on chromeos: https://jingsi.space/post/2018/12/09/emacs-on-chrome-os/ You could also build it yourself, install (an older version) from the debian repos using `sudo apt install emacs`. – Caleb Jay Feb 20 '19 at 02:13

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ChromeOS is not derived from Ubuntu. I don't think you can install any software on it unless it's a pure web app. BTW, if you wish to have a nice editor to write code try cloud9 (or some other online editors/IDE that gives you powerful options to develop). Here is a short post I've wrote on the options we have today in ChromeOS: http://greenido.wordpress.com/2011/07/04/web-developers-and-the-new-chromebook/

Ido Green
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  • Pleasure. I hope that in the future we could have emacs/vim on the web as well... it's moving in that direction every day. – Ido Green Dec 20 '11 at 13:33
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    Google Fail. An OS without Emacs is no OS at all. :( – Mauvis Ledford Dec 26 '11 at 08:45
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    You could have 'Emacs' in a form of a web app - http://www.ymacs.org ;) – Ido Green May 31 '12 at 13:36
  • ymacs is great but it does not look like it can handle org-mode or other favorite addictive Emacs extensions, yet. I will be on the watch-out to see if there are other mature alternatives. Thanks for the followups. – ewm Sep 06 '12 at 10:43
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@Ido It is not Ubuntu, but I do believe it is derived from Ubuntu. It is definitely Linux, and follows a lot of the Ubuntu/Debian conventions. Supposedly you can install qemacs on a chrome os device with the following steps.

  1. Boot into developer mode.
  2. Get to the console with cntl-alt-f2.
  3. "sudo su -" to become super user.
  4. Run "dev_install", which will install the portage package management tools.
  5. Run "emerge qemacs" to install emacs.

That's the theory, anyway. There appear to be some unresolved bugs with dev_install.

TKH
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  • Thanks for the information about developer mode. dev_install is new to me. I used portage a lot on Gentoo for many years till about 3 years ago when I gave it up mostly due to the compile overhead (I moved to mostly using linux inside virtualbox). Portage breakage also caused me grief to to end. Portage install may be worth trying if Google has a sanitized (ie quality controlled) version of portage. – ewm Jan 07 '13 at 09:21
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ymacs.org looks promising to me

Jaseem
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I think the best way to achieve this is with crouton by installing ubuntu itself in your chromebook without a graphical desktop, so you can run ubuntu/emacs/whatever in a regular google chrome tab.

That is:

  1. turn on developer mode
  2. get crouton : https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton
  3. install ubuntu raring without X (follow the blog instructions)

  4. install emacs

    sudo apt-get install emacs

NB: Give this no-X thing a try, it's much better to swipe between tabs than to switch screens every time you want to use emacs.

aviggiano
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