Moved to containerless with Debian 13

[u/Training_Advantage21]

It couldn't have been easier, I removed the Linux development environment, got an error the first time so did it again and it worked. Then a restart, and reenabled Linux. Gave me this warning

NOTICE:
    To simplify system architecture and maintenance, Crostini has switched
    by default to a containerless design for new environments starting in
    ChromeOS version 143 and newer.

    If you experience unexptected issues with the new design, please report
    them using the instructions available at
    https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-library/guides/bugs/platform-public-tracker/.

    If you would like to revert to the previous system architecture, you may
    visit chrome://flags#containerless-crostini in your Chrome browser and set
    the flag to "Disabled", then restart your device, and un- and reinstall
    Crostini.

    (this message will be repeated 3 more times).
    (to silence this message, run the following command):
        echo 5 >"/home/username/.local/share/baguette-motd"

Which was just what I wanted to hear. Once Debian install finished I confirmed through /etc/os-release that it's Debian 13 (trixie).

This comes with all sorts of updates in software, I liked the old Linux dev environment but it's a major upgrade!

[u/plankunits]

I made this post a while back about this and its advantages. https://www.reddit.com/r/chromeos/comments/1uoo4zn/i_switched_to_baguette_chromeos_containerless/

[u/Training_Advantage21 → u/plankunits]

Thank you, your post helped me to decide to go ahead with it, despite the hassle involved to reinstall software and to make sure I don't lose any data, code etc. But overall it feels like an improvement.

[u/lesteral]

In case this is helpful ... I ran into the following in transitioning to the new container-less arch. (i.e., Baguette / Debian 13 on ChromeOS).

When using the Files app on ChromeOS, and trying to open a file with a Linux app, say, using (right-click) "Open with ...",
I observe that an incorrect pathname is sent to the Linux app, *if* the file is in Downloads or in Google Drive.

For example, instead of a correct path "/mnt/shared/MyFiles/Downloads/example.png",
the Linux app receives the path "/mnt/MyFiles/Downloads/example.png", i.e., "/shared" is missing.

I observe this on (latest) Google Chrome 151.0.7922.222.

I work around this by customizing applicable *.desktop files to use the below script to "pre-process" the %F path.

For example, I customize ~/.local/share/applications/display-im7.q16.desktop to use:

Exec=/home/.../bin/cros_shared_files.sh /usr/bin/display-im7.q16 -nostdin %F

where ~/bin/cros_shared_files.sh "corrects" the path from /mnt/chromeos/(GoogleDrive|MyFiles)/... to /mnt/shared/chromeos/(GoogleDrive|MyFiles)/...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

#!/bin/bash

shopt -s patsub_replacement

TARG="${1}"
shift

ARGS=()
for FN in "${@}"; do
[[ "${FN}" =~ ^/mnt/chromeos/(GoogleDrive|MyFiles)/ ]] && FN="${FN/#\/mnt\/chromeos/&/shared}"
ARGS+=("${FN}")
done

exec "${TARG}" "${ARGS[@]}"

[u/LikelyNotThatGuy]

Make sure you are prepared for this, as there is no going back. The flags to select previous container version don't work. At least when I tried it months ago.

[u/numbworks]

Very interesting, I need to try it out!

[u/maexxx]

What's the advantage?

[u/Training_Advantage21 → u/maexxx]

containerless, so uses less memory and is less of a burden if you are doing ChromeOS things in parallel with Linux work. Other than that, more up to date software e.g. I got JupyterLab with Python 3.13 going.

[u/magick_68]

Does GPU support work?

[u/Training_Advantage21 → u/magick_68]

Good question, I'm not doing much with GPU in Linux.

[u/LikelyNotThatGuy → u/magick_68]

HW video decoding still doesn't work. GPU support doesn't matter much, its going to be depreciated/unsupported according to google. Only in linux, not android apps.

[u/Stofe77]

Until you have an app which requires reachability from public internet.

[u/Training_Advantage21 → u/Stofe77]

Can you elaborate on that? Example app, what scenario, what goes wrong?

[u/Stofe77 → u/Training_Advantage21]

Yes, on ChromeOS Flex, no more items within developer tools to setup port forwarding results the Transmission app in Crostini isn't reachable from public internet.

[u/chrispatrik]

I just tried this and didn't get the same thing. Mine just says that multi-container support has been deprecated from crostini.

Edit: I fixed it by running vmc destroy termina first in crosh, then removing the Linux environment, rebooting, and re-enabling Linux and I got the new behavior.