Crostini

What hackers pick instead

• QEMUA free emulator and VM tool for running other CPU architectures, Windows and disposable test machines, though emulation is slow, setup is fiddly and older operating systems run poorly.114recommend
• UTMFree open-source app for running Linux and Windows virtual machines on Apple silicon Macs, with near-native speed. Common caveats: Windows slower than in Parallels, and some guests lack graphics acceleration.49recommend
• VirtualBoxFree, cross-platform virtual machine app that runs the same on Linux, Windows and Mac and is easy to set up. Common caveat: graphics, clipboard and guest-integration bugs.34recommend
• LimaFree tool for running Linux virtual machines on Mac and Linux, often used as a Vagrant replacement or for quick throwaway VMs. Caveat: defaults and folder mounting may not suit everyone.31recommend
• VagrantPeople recommend Vagrant for building repeatable, disposable VM environments from a Vagrantfile, with quick up and destroy cycles. Critics say HashiCorp has mostly abandoned it.25recommend

Every quote

The 14 most detailed of 16 comments. Each links to the original.

1. With the addition of Linux/Crostini, there's 3D modeling, CAD, and NLE video editing and compilers

   Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Asus Executive Says MacBook Neo Is 'Shock' to PC Industry”

2. WSL and Crostini achieves this on vastly weaker hardware with great results.

   Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Make macOS consistently bad (unironically)”

3. Crostini is kind of a joke, but I use it to remote into real Linux boxes.

   Mixed · May 2026 · in “Googlebook: Designed for Gemini Intelligence – Coming Fall 2026 – Googlebook”

4. Just use Chromebook via Crostini to remote access a headless Linux box.

   Recommends · May 2026 · in “Googlebook: Designed for Gemini Intelligence – Coming Fall 2026 – Googlebook”

5. crostini is so hopelessly unreliable it felt like it never got out of beta

   Criticizes · May 2026 · in “Googlebook: Designed for Gemini Intelligence – Coming Fall 2026 – Googlebook”

6. Crostini has been WIP for years

   Criticizes · May 2026 · in “I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook, and you can too”

7. I'm going to need a citation on that, especially performance. Doubly so if Crostini is put into the mix.

   Mixed · May 2026 · in “Googlebook: Designed for Gemini Intelligence – Coming Fall 2026 – Googlebook”

8. Crostini is a mixed bag; e.g. IIRC something in their stack breaks ptrace.

   Mixed · Jun 2026

9. it's a VM running inside of ChromeOS, so it's restricted in what it can do

   Mixed · May 2026 · in “I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook, and you can too”

10. Crostini and all the layer-cake isolation is wildly impressive!

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook, and you can too”

11. Relative to native Docker and Crostini

    Mixed · May 2026 · in “I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook, and you can too”

12. full 1P support is a step up

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook, and you can too”

13. practically freezes once you start trying to run serious Linux applications under Crostini

    Criticizes · Sep 2026 · in “Google ending ChromeOS support two years early”

14. Honestly this and Crostini both look like there are too many caveats.

    Criticizes · May 2026 · in “I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook, and you can too”