Prerequisites

Okay, I'm not going to go into everything, so if you want to try this at home, you have to have some items in place beforehand.

A Chromebook That Can Run Linux

The header says it all. I'm doing this on a Pixelbook. If you want to give it a shot, you'll need to be on a Chromebook that supports Google's distro of Linux.

SnapD is Already Installed

To be completely honest, I don't even remember when I did this on my Pixelbook and any headaches I've ran into when it came to setting this up. If you need some help with this, hop on over to Chrome Unboxed.

Acknowledgement that I'm Not a Linux Pro

This is a big one. I dabble. Do I fully know what I'm doing. No. I am persistent and good at doing Google searches, though.

Resources

Here are the resources that I used throughout my endeavors trying to get this set up.

• Chrome Unboxed's Great Tutorial on Install Snap in ChromeOS
• Ubuntu Installation Instructions for Authy
• Using xhost to Fix Display Warnings
• Create a Simple Bash Script
• Make a Bash Script Executable

Install Authy or Your Snap App

Not much to do here. Just go to snapcraft.io/install/authy/ubuntu and follow the instructions or to wherever your instructions are posted.

TroubleShoot ChromeOS Not Wanting to Open a Display

Yeah, so all was good with the install. It worked, but that wasn't that big of a deal. I go to type "authy" (no quotes) in the terminal and I get a funky warning about how GTK+ won't open my display. I do a bit of searching in the Google-verse and find out that Linux on ChromeOS doesn't like to give up permission for apps to use the display. In other words, it doesn't do this automatically.

I do a bit more searching and I find out a little bit about the "xhost" command. Apparently this is the command that you can use to tell Linux that your apps can have access to your display. I find out that if you execute the "xhost +" (no quotes) command by itself it will free up your display. This is described here: www.reddit.com/r/chromeos/comments/9acnsd/question_certain_linux_apps_unable_to_launch_due/. If you do a bit more searching you may find that there are better ways to run this command other than using the "+" attribute, but I'll leave that up to you to dig around.

So now if you type "xhost +" (no quotes) on one line; hit return; type "authy" on another line; and hit return, Authy for Linux will launch!

Okay, that's great and all, but a bit clunky. I may like to run Linux apps on my Pixelbook, but I want it to be convenient to run them!

So this lead me down a path of searching that involved getting a nice, little icon to show up in the ChromeOS app tray.

The template that I used for doing this can be found here: www.reddit.com/r/Crostini/comments/8qqlmf/how_to_add_a_firefox_icon_to_the_shelf_to_make_it/

Here's the content of the plain text file that you need to create:

[Desktop Entry] Name=Firefox

Comment=Browse the World Wide Web

Icon=/opt/firefox/browser/chrome/icons/default/default128.png

Exec=/opt/firefox/firefox %u

Type=Application Categories=Network;WebBrowser;

You should swap out the Firefox stuff above with the information that is relevant for your Snap application. Just as a heads up, for me on my Pixelbook, my snaps are referenced from "/snap/bin/[snap app]" (without quotes). So you would use this for the Exec attribure above.

Once all is good, you need to make sure to save this plain text file as "[name of application].desktop" without quotes. You need to make sure the file is stored in ~/.local/share/applications. For my fellow Linux newbs out there, the "~" means your user folder, so for me that's /home/joshharder.

When you do this, the icon will show up in the ChromeOS tray.

BONUS: Two Commands for the Price of ONe

So what if you're a bit lazy like me and you don't want to have to open terminal and run that "xhost +" command every time you restart your Chromebook? You might think, "Maybe I can issue two commands at the same time for the Exec attribute in the .desktop file". Unfortunately you cannot do this directly in the .desktop file. It wants only one command. So, the workaround is to use a bash script.

A bash script is a simple text file with a command on each line. Here's the format:

#!/bin/bash

first_command_here

second_command_here

So, I did the following:

#!/bin/bash

xhost +

/snap/bin/[put the name of your snap app her]

Next you need to make your bash script executable, which you can do be following the wonderful instructions here: www.andrewcbancroft.com/blog/musings/make-bash-script-executable/.

Now that it's executable, you need to go back to the .desktop file and swap out the attribute for the Exec line to point to your freshly created bash script. There, now when you click on the icon for your Snap app you'll be running two commands.