Five years ago or so, not long after they first hit the market, I picked up a Chromebook – the Acer c720. I did it mostly out of curiosity, as the new (at the time) Chromebook concept centered around the lightweight Chrome operating system from Google, packaged in a small and lightweight machine. In some quarters it was being pitched as a less expensive alternative to the Macbook Air.

Of course, the reason that ChromeOS is so lightweight is that most of the heavy lifting is done in the “cloud” via Google’s servers – Gmail for mail, Google Docs for office-type apps, etc.  Very little computing is actually done on the device itself. For all intents and purposes, ChromeOS is mostly just a glorified version of the Chrome browser.

I played around with it a bit, but it never saw regular use. This was around the time I started to become increasingly wary of Google’s scanning of their users’ content, and the Acer C720 ended up in storage.

I can’t quite remember how, but several weeks ago I stumbled upon GalliumOS. It’s a Linux-based operating system optimized to run quickly and well on Chromebooks (which are generally powered by pretty modest hardware). With Chrome taking its name from the element chromium, GalliumOS follows suit and skips across the periodic table of the elements to get its name.

One of the ideas behind GalliumOS was enabling users to escape the prying eyes of Google while still being able to have a useful device. So I did a little geek reading on how to install it, dug out my Chromebook, and gave it a go. And I can confirm that GalliumOS runs really well on the Acer C720.

It was a little complicated, but not overly difficult, to install. One just has to follow the instructions on the GalliumOS site, which includes using the command line. (Part of the installation on the C720 involved removing the back cover, and then removing a “read-only screw” from the motherboard).

One caveat is that you need to be able to put the Chromebook into Developer Mode (a series of key presses) in order to install GalliumOS. If you pick up (or already own) a used Chromebook, there’s a good chance it was part of a school system or other organization, where it was likely locked down by a system administrator. Such administrators nearly always disable Developer Mode, so it will need to have been unregistered and unlocked by that administrator before GalliumOS could be installed.

But if you have a new or unlocked used Chromebook, and would like to turn it into a nice, small, responsive, lightweight laptop for travel (while offering freedom from the Google-plex), you should definitely check out GalliumOS. Or if you live in the vicinity and would like me to give you a hand, just say the word.