Any luck with Chromebooks?

[Ikarian]

So I'm thinking about going out and buying a cheap laptop I can use for pen testing. I've been using my work laptop, and I'm concerned about doing anything questionable with a giant work logo on the lid of my machine. Plus, I don't relish the idea of bringing my laptop to a security convention, when the first rule of such gatherings is to avoid exposing any hardware that you don't want to get hacked.

So, dollar for dollar, it seems like the Chromebooks that have just come out are a decent alternative to a flimsy netbook. I have seen a couple isolated hits on Google about successfully installing BT on one, but there are no returns for a search on Chromebook in these forums, so I thought I'd ask here. I'm reasonably sure I can get BT5 installed without incident (though I notice that there is a Chromebook with an Intel proc, and one with a Samsung proc; jury's still out on the latter), but as for things like getting the integrated wireless card to do promiscuous mode/injection, various driver compatibility, I just wanted to ask around before I dropped the cash on one. As much as I like the idea of not having to pay a premium for a Windows OS on a new laptop, I'm not sold on ChromeOS yet, so hopefully someone has made the early adoption already and can tell us how it is. Thanks!

[Whippleschnitz]

This is my first post here so take this advice knowing that. I had been thinking of doing the same thing as you. I was looking for a small, lightweight and inexpensive laptop to use as a pen test platform. After my research the answer seems to be no. There is an Ubuntu version that has been ported to work with the Chromebooks called Chrubuntu or something similar but I haven't seen anyone get Backtrack working on a the Chromebooks. The Chrome OS uses a custom boot loader and GRUB does not work right. While it seems likely that you could install Chrubuntu and add packages you need but that would be like compiling your own distribution. I am not interested in doing that.

What I ended up doing instead is buying a model similar to the Chromebooks but with a Windows license for only $100 more than the Chromebook and I have a much more useful piece of hardware. Windows 8 is a nightmare but I have been able to use Backtrack 5r3 in a virtual machine. That leads me to my next point. It seems that VirtualBox does not support USB 3.0 and as such I haven't been able to use my USB wifi adapter. The Alfa adapter works on the pc and can be used by the virtual machine but only sees an Ethernet connection and no wireless adapters. Again, this appears to be a problem with VirtualBox not recognizing USB 3.0. I am going to be trying VMware to see if it works better. I hope this helps your decision making.