How to Install Android Marshmallow on a Laptop or PC

Android x86 - Installation

1. Download Android-x86 from Sourceforge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/android-x86/)

This will take a while for some, so I recommend doing it first.

The official downloads link to Sourceforge unfortunately

2. Format your USB drive to FAT32 

Tutorial: http://www.wikihow.com/Format-a-Flash-Drive

3. Download UNetbootin. (http://unetbootin.github.io/)

Looks straight out of the 90's!

4. Search partition on the start menu and open "Create and format hard drive partitions"

5. Right click the drive you want to put Android Marshmallow onto and click Shrink Volume...

6. Choose the size of the drive in MB. 64000 MB is about 64 GB, just add 3 zeros after the amount of gigabytes you want available. Now click Shrink.

7. You've now created a hard drive partition! Now time to download GParted. (http://gparted.org/download.php)

The name may be different, but it ends in .iso

8. Run UNetbootin. Choose Disk image, click the three dots and navigate to the .iso you downloaded titled gparted-live-0.xx.x.x.i686.iso. Choose your USB drive and click OK.

If a pop-up appears, press yes.

9. Enter your boot menu. (If you are not sure how, read below)

1. Restart the computer.
2. Repeatedly press F12 until a menu displaying devices appears
3. Use the arrow keys to move up and down, and select the device you want to boot into.
4. Press the Enter key.

Suggested Guide: HOW TO ACCESS THE BOOT MENU

10. Use your arrow keys to navigate the menus from now on. Select your flash drive with the arrow keys and press enter to click it.

Enter/Return is to click and the arrow keys navigate the menus

The name of the flash drive corresponds to the flash drive manufacturer

Boot menu on a Lenovo laptop rather than a desktop PC

11. After seeing some text, this menu should appear. Hit enter when GParted Live is selected. If anything else pops up, keep pressing enter until you see a window open.

12. GParted should pop-up in a window.

I had to go to the GParted menu, Devices, and select the drive I wanted to install Android on.
You should probably not have to do this.

On your unallocated partition, right click and then press new.

Make sure the file system is ext4, and then press Add.

Now press Apply to make the change.

Press Apply once again, remove the USB, then reboot. 

13. Run UNetbootin. Choose Disk image, click the three dots and navigate to the .iso file you downloaded titled android-x86-6.0-20151202.iso. Choose your USB drive and click OK.

Android should be ready to boot after this!

14. Once again, go into the boot menu and select the flash drive. UEFI if possible.

Boot menu on a Lenovo laptop rather than a desktop PC

The name of the flash drive corresponds to the flash drive manufacturer.

15.  The Android-x86 menu will appear!

Select Installation with your arrow keys and press enter

First choose the ext4 partition

Press Do not format. If you don't, you could mess it up.

Choose Yes

Choose Yes

Choose Yes

VERY IMPORTANT: Choose NO

Choose Yes

Allow it to write, this could take a minute

Remove the USB drive and reboot

16. Congratulations! You have installed Android alongside Windows!

You can choose which system you want to boot into with your arrow keys and enter!

Set it up!

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How To Install Chromium OS

How To Install Chromium OS:

Required: Windows (for this guide), a formatted 4GB+ USB drive, and a hard drive you're comfortable formatting during the process.

1. Visit http://arnoldthebat.co.uk

2. Download the latest compatible image of Chromium OS

Make sure to chose a special build if you have a laptop with a Synaptics trackpad (Most commonly Lenovo laptops) and not the specialty build for a Rasperry Pi 2.

3. Extract the zip file and move the chromiumos_image.img  to a folder you can easily find

4. Download Win32 Disk Imager and install it. Run the program once it's installation is completed.

If you have a Mac, use ApplePi-Baker (Tutorial)

5. Click on the folder icon and find your chromiumos_image.img file in the folder you placed it in.

6. Choose the drive letter of your flash drive and press write.

7. Reboot and press the key that corolates to your boot menu. Try Esc, F11, F12, whatever lets you choose a boot device.

8. Select your Wi-Fi network and do NOT PRESS ANYTHING ELSE. (If you do just reboot)

Side note: If your trackpad does not work, use tab to move through the options and the arrow keys to navigate the wifi selector

9. Press Ctrl + Alt + F2 (Press Fn+Esc if it doesn't work and then try again)

10. A terminal interface will appear. Type chronos for the username and password as the password. Anytime it says enter the password or username, these will be them.

11. Type sudo su (for super user)

12. Enter your password again. (password)

13. Type curl -L http://www.brash.ca/flash.sh | bash

14. Type restart ui

From here you can use Chromium OS from the flash drive. Continue if you want to install it on your computer. If you continue, your hard drive will be wiped and Chromium OS will be installed.

15. Press Ctrl + Alt + F2 once again

16. Type sudo su (for super user)

17. Type chromeos-install --dst/dev/sda 

18. Let this run until it's complete. Ignore the GPT errors or warnings, it isn't important.

19. Type shutdown -r now (this will reboot the computer)

20. Remove the USB drive before the computer boots and it will boot straight to Chromium OS!

Leave a comment if you have an issue!

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