FydeOS Installation Multiboot with Linux (Ubuntu) & Windows on Dynabook R734/K Laptop

FydeOS is an operating system that is based on the most spoken lighweight, modern, and cloud-first ChromeOS. Thinking how ChromeOS advertised as being lighweight yet modern, is a no brainer for me to try FydeOS by multibooting it with the installed Linux (Ubuntu) and Windows on my old Dynabook R734/K laptop.

Licosha — Debian-based, Ubuntu-based, next maybe Android-x86-based, my journey on distro-hopping on the GNU Not Unix/Linux operating system world. But for today is special, because it’s my new experience when trying a ChromeOS-based OS on my Dynabook R734/K laptop, that is FydeOS.

Just like most of OS-mania know, that ChromeOS baked up by the search engine giant Google, branded as a lightweight, modern, cloud-first operating system. But what holds me so long in trying ChromeOS is actually the “cloud-first” part, I thought ChromeOS was really just “browser-as-OS” that it doesn’t have interesting features besides of that (example why Windows win because it’s massive games & apps, or how Linux distros win because of customizability and effectiveness).

But from FydeOS I learnt that ChromeOS-based OS could be as rich as a Linux distro, as fun as an Android-x86, and it’s productivities could be as great as Windows.

Steps Installing FydeOS – multiboot with Linux (Ubuntu) and Windows

Settings menu network FydeOS Dynabook R734/K

My environment & tools:

FydeOS version: FydeOS for PC v. 15.0.
installed OS: Ubuntu 22 and Windows 11.
media booting method: Ventoy.
device: Toshiba Dynabook R734/K.

Installing FydeOS to our PC

Download the appropriate FydeOS OS image file from it’s official link: fydeos.io/download/. For Dynabook R734/K, it would be “FydeOS fo PC” with the first choice: “PC with legacy (circa 2010 – 2017) Intel Core (3rd Gen – 7th Gen),…”. Don’t forget to extract the archive to get the OS .img image file.
Prepare the FydeOS installation media. Here I am using Ventoy to make the FydeOS OS image file bootable.
[Recommended] Prepare new empty partition on our laptop’s hard drive where the FydeOS will be installed. For example we can use built-in tool on Windows “Disk Info” to easily split and make a new partiton on our hard drive. Usually the partition for a Linux distro should have a size around ±40 GB or more recommended. Give the new partition a proper label like “FydeOS” or something like that so we can easily distinguish it.
It’s a good idea to disconnect all external devices especially storage devices before hand to ease the installation process (avoiding formatting/erasing mistakes).
Enter Dynabook R734/K “Boot Menu” (BIOS menu): Restart laptop, then when the power LED turned on (but the screen not turned on yet), repeatedly press the F12 key until it entered the boot menu/BIOS menu.
Now we are in the BIOS Boot Menu. If we haven’t plugged in the FydeOS installation/bootable media (e.g. USB storage stick), now is the time.
The installation/bootable media drive should be detected in the Boot Menu list, we can just select it to directly boot into it (In my case here, to the Ventoy boot menu). It the media is not detected, try to restart the laptop to BIOS boot menu again, sometimes it needs a few restarts to BIOS boot menu until an installation/bootable media can be deteced (maybe caused by slow media device, e.g. using a slow/cheap USB stick).
Now in Ventoy boot menu, just choose/select the FydeOS image file to boot into the OS live media environment.
On the FydeOS OS live media boot menu, select FydeOS Image A first to see if our PC can boot with it. Alternatively, select FydeOS Image B if the earlier didn’t work.
Now we are inside the FydeOS live image environment. First, follow the FydeOS setup wizard like choosing language & keyboard, connecting to network (necessary, we will need it later), etc.
Next on the account creation part of the setup wizard, we could just switch to “Use local account” first on the bottom menu because we are just still in the FydeOS live image environment (not the real FydeOS installed on our PC yet).
After the setup wizard has been finished, next we are about to install the FydeOS to our PC hard drive. Expand the FydeOS app drawer and launch the “Store” app.
Click the “Installer” app and click “Add to FydeOS” to install the FydeOS Installer app.
After it has been installed, open the “Installer” app. Because I want to multiboot FydeOS with another already installed OS on the hard drive, so choose “Multi-boot installation”.
On the “Select OS partition section”:
- On the “Disk” input, select the hard drive we want to install the FydeOS to. I only have one hard drive on my PC (so it will be the first and main also), so it will be /dev/sda.
- On the “Partition” input, select the partition on the hard drive where FydeOS will be installed to. Beforehand, I have prepared an empty partition with 32 GB size here, it is the 5^th partiton on the hard drive which is /dev/sda5.
On the “Select EFI partition” section, typically this should be the first partition of our PC main hard drive. So for me, just like the details I mentioned before about my PC hard drive, it should be /dev/sda on the “Disk” input and /dev/sda1 on the “Partition” input.
Next we will be presented how the FydeOS boot will be handled. Here I am choosed the recommended one, “Install and configure rEFInd for me”, to add and automatically configured rEFIind boot manager to our PC. Click “Install” button at the bottom to begin installing FydeOS to our PC hard drive.

Adding FydeOS to GRUB bootloader menu

Apparently after FydeOS has been finished installed and I rebooted my PC, the rEFInd boot manager did not appear, but it is still using the GRUB bootloader of the installed Ubuntu. So, here I just tried to manually add the FydeOS entry to the GRUB bootloader instead:

My environment & tools:

os used: Ubuntu 22.
app used: Grub Customizer.

Steps:

Open Grub Customizer app.
Tap the “Paper plus” icon to add new entry.
On the “Name” text input, give it a proper name like “FydeOS”. On the “Type” select input, select “Other”.
Next on the “Boot sequence” textarea input, here I copied the FydeOS GRUB configuration I got from the EFI partition located on /boot/efi/EFI/fydeos/grub.cfg, we may need root (su/sudo) access to read/browse to this file. Click “OK” button at the bottom to confirm it.
Click “Save” at the top menu to save the changed GRUB configuration.
Next time we boot our PC, there should be FydeOS entry on the GRUB bootloader menu. Select the FydeOS entry, it will expand the FydeOS entry list. Just like before, try “FydeOS multi-boot A” first to see if it can boot our PC, either try “FydeOS multi-boot B” if the earlier is not work.

FydeOS installation multiboot with Linux (Ubuntu) and Windows on my Dynabook R734/K laptop, video on Youtube.

FydeOS quick review on my Toshiba Dynabook R734/K laptop

App store essentials FydeOS Dynabook R734/K

My environment:

FydeOS version: FydeOS for PC v. 15.
device: Toshiba Dynabook R734/K.

Just like I said earlier how I was underestimated ChromeOS as just a “browser-as-os”, my judgement of ChromeOS changed 180° after I tried FydeOS, the ChromeOS-based OS on my Dynabook R734/K laptop.

Neat user interface / looks. The first imression of FydeOS is how its a lightweight, beautiful, and very practical operating system. Unlike Windows, I love how uncluttered the user Interface of FydeOS.

Chromium browser. Just like how a ChromeOS should be, the Chromium browser is obviously the main character here that will launch instantly without loading when we click the icon from the dock or app drawer, taking us to the familiar Chrome browser interface. Chromium browser is the power of FydeOS that is updated automatically in the background to make sure we always have the latest web technology.

Android subsystem. But this is the most exciting one of FydeOS, the Android subsystem. Android subsystem is the built-in feature in FydeOS that can be activated in mere few clicks, allowing us to install and run Android apps and games directly with native performance if our device hardware.

Also we don’t need to download the Android apps/games apk manually to install them on the FydeOS, as it is also has Open GAPPS enabler feature to install the Google Play Store in a few clicks. With Google Play Store natively installed, access to millions of Android apps/games are available to be installed directly to the FydeOS.

Linux subsystem. Other than installing and running Android apps & games, FydeOS also makes it easy for us to delve into a Linux subsystem with the built-in Linux subsystem which again, can be activated easily in matters of clicks.

Useful links: