How to use Tails on a Cheap Chrome book

How to use tails on a cheap Chrome book for anonymous PC usage, could be something only James Bond fans can appreciate.

Basically this means that you plug in a USB device and work on your tasks once the USB is plugged out, no one will notice that you used the PC.

Given the portable nature of these devices, once could find it more convenient to use than using a laptop.

By design Chrome book are light, secure and dynamic devices that can do all a laptop can do and more, with the difference being using chrome as an operating system.

Chromebooks in addition and it work perfectly with Tails given that Wi-Fi works on boot, no debugging needed.

How to use tails on a cheap Chrome book

This makes Chromebooks perfect throwaway devices for Tails, in addition to using them as they are.

Since Tails is running off the USB nothing incriminating should end up on the hard drive, as shutting it down should wipe everything off the USB drive.

More so closing the laptop turns it off, this is greater for paranoid users who want all there incriminating data is gone

IMPORTANT:
1. Before proceeding to the next step ensure that you have backup everything you need from your Chromebooks.

2. This method works for nearly all Chromebooks but double check your model base before diving in.

How to set up tails on a cheap Chrome book

You must set up dev mode on the chromebook which is done by;

1. Hold the Esc + refresh+ power to launch the recovery screen.
2. Press ctrl+D to turn on developer mode and press enter at the prompt, to reboot and configure dev mode, this may take some time so be patient.
3. Turn on the laptop as you normally do, however don’t log in or set up an account, rather select “Enable Debugging Features”, to set a root password of your choice, once done you will be back to the previous screen.
4. Once on the “login/setup” screen, press ctrl+alt+refresh to launch the developer terminal.
5. You will see a black terminal screen it’ll ask you to log in. Enter “root” at the “localhost login” prompt, and then use the root password you just set up at the “password” prompt. This should give you a prompt that looks like this:

localhost ~#

6) Enter these four commands (hit enter after each command, it will shut down after the last command):

crossystem dev_boot_usb=1

crossystem dev_boot_legacy=1

crossystem dev_boot_altfw=1

shutdown -h now

7) Insert your Tails drive into the USB slot, then turn the chromebook on. Once it turns on and you see the “OS verification is OFF” message, press ctrl+L to boot to the USB drive (note: it’ll appear that nothing happens when you press ctrl+L, it just takes a bit, like 10-15 seconds)

You should see Tails going through it’s startup process, just wait for that and hit “Start Tails” as normal (it takes around 10 seconds) and you’re done.

Final remarks

After setup, all you’ll need to do is step 7 on each subsequent boot. As long as the Tails USB drive is inserted, press ctrl+L will boot to the USB drive.

If you try to boot from USB, but ctrl+L results in a “beep” sound instead of loading Tails, go back to step 4 and proceed from there.