Switching complete workload from Windows 11 to Chrome OS Flex during 4 weeks !
July 2022, Google announced Chrome OS Flex. It is basically Chrome OS that you can install on any laptop. I initially wanted to test it quickly and finally decided to try to completely switch my entire workload during 4 weeks. Here is my story.
I’m an IT professional, spending 8 hours per day (at least) in front of a computer. I do standard things such as emails, PowerPoint presentation, … but I’m also doing programming and more advanced things leveraging Docker containers, WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux), VS Code, … in short, I need much more than just a Chrome browser.
Installation
Shall you want to test or install Chrome OS Flex, my recommended approach would be to use the “Chromebook Recovery Utility”. It is a Chrome extension that you just need to add to your Chrome browser and will allow you to flash a USB key.
Once installed, simply launch the extension. You will then need to click “Select a model from the list” and eventually select “Google Chrome OS Flex” / “Chrome OS Flex”:
Insert your USB key and follow the steps, and will take 10 to 15 minutes roughly and you will get a bootable USB key that you can use to test (yes you will be able to test it without installing it) or install Chrome OS Flex. Simply boot from the USB key and follow the procedure, it is super straight forward.
Dual boot
You may consider using dual boot to keep your existing operating system in place and run Chrome OS Flex in parallel. It is a bit tricky and you could end up running into conflict with Secure Boot / Bitlocker. Since my challenge was to run 100% of my workload on Chrome OS Flex, i decided not to bother with that.
Nevertheless, here a link you should consider if you want dual boot: https://shakeuptech.com/dual-boot-chrome-os-and-windows-10-11/
Installing Apps
Chrome OS comes with a Chrome browser and that’s pretty much it… It is meant to be that way.
In my case I needed much more than that (again, I’m an IT pro using various tools and applications). Here is the list of applications I am using on a daily basis:
- Microsoft Outlook: Running Microsoft Outlook on Chrome OS Flex
- Microsoft Teams: Running Microsoft Teams on Chrome OS Flex
- Microsoft PowerPoint & Excel: Coming soon
- Microsoft Visual Studio Code: Coming soon
- Microsoft OneDrive: Coming soon
- Spotify: Coming soon
- 1Password: Coming soon
- Postman: Coming soon
- Docker: Coming soon
- Tortoise Git: Coming soon
- VPN Connection: Coming soon
It took me a few hours to get everything smoothly running, but I managed to setup a fully working environment on Chrome OS Flex !
Starting today, I will publish on a regular basis a new Medium story that will illustrate how I ended up getting each applications up and running on Chrome OS Flex. To stay tuned, simply follow me or subscribe.
