How to set up Krita on a Chromebook
Krita is an open-source, digital painting and drawing app for Linux, and other platforms. If you’re an artist and need a good painting app for your Chromebook, you’ll want to install Krita.
In this guide, we’ll show you how you can install the Krita application on your Chromebook or Chrome desktop computer. However, before we begin, ensure your Chrome OS device supports Linux virtualization.
How to enable Linux support on a Chromebook
In order to use Krita on your Chromebook for digital painting and drawing, you must enable Linux support on Chrome OS. Thankfully, setting up Linux support on a Chromebook is easy. To start, click on the clock in the Chrome OS dash.
After selecting the clock, look inside for the gear icon, and click on it with the mouse. When you select this button, it’ll open up the Chrome OS settings area. From here, find the “Advanced” section, and click on it with the mouse.
Upon selecting the “Advanced” section in the Chrome OS settings, you’ll see more advanced OS settings revealed. From here, locate the “Developers” area. Then, look through the settings for the “Linux development environment” section, and select the “Turn on” button to enable Linux support.
When you select the “Turn on” button, Chrome OS will download a Debian LXC container to your Chromebook. This download process will be quick, and when it is complete, a terminal app will open.
In this terminal app, find “penguin” and select it with the mouse. When you select the “penguin” button, it’ll load up the Chrome OS Debian container and give you command-line access.
Inside the terminal, use the apt update command to check for updates to the Debian container. Checking for updates shouldn’t take that long to complete.
sudo apt update
Now that you’ve checked for updates, you can install them using the apt install command. This command should only take a few seconds to complete (sometimes longer though.)
sudo apt upgrade -y
Once the Debian container is up to date on your Chromebook, you’re free to use it to install Linux programs. Enjoy.
How to install Krita – Debian package
The easiest way to get Krita working on your Chromebook is to install it via the Debian software sources included within the container. To start the installation, open up a terminal window. You can do this by opening up the Chrome OS app menu, and clicking on the “Terminal” app.
After loading up the terminal, select “penguin,” to access the command-line interface. Then, you can install the Krita app on your Chromebook by using the following apt install command to set up the “krita” package.
sudo apt install krita
Once the package is installed using the Chrome OS terminal, you’ll be able to launch the Krita digital painting app via the “Linux apps” folder in the Chrome OS app menu.
How to install Krita – Flatpak
Installing the Krita application as a Debian package certainly is quicker than other options, however, the Debian release isn’t always as up-to-date. If you’d like a more up-to-date version of Krita, you should install the Flatpak release of the app.
To start the installation, open up the Chrome OS terminal. You can launch the terminal by searching for “Terminal” in the Chrome OS app menu. Once the terminal is open, click on “penguin” to access the terminal interface.
Inside the terminal interface, use the apt install command to set up the “flatpak” package. This package is required to use Flatpak programs like Krita.
sudo apt install flatpak
After setting up the Flatpak package on your Chrome OS Linux container, you’ll need to add the Flathub app store. This store makes it possible to install programs like Krita on your Chromebook.
flatpak --user remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
When you’ve enabled the Flathub repository, you can install the Krita program on your Chromebook using the flatpak install command.
flatpak install flathub org.kde.krita
How to install Krita – AppImage
Running Krita on Chrome OS is best done via the Debian release or the Flatpak version. However, it is also possible to use Krita as an AppImage. To start, open up the Chrome OS terminal, and select “penguin.”
After selecting “penguin,” use the wget download command to grab the Krita app from the internet.
wget https://download.kde.org/stable/krita/5.1.1/krita-5.1.1-x86_64.appimage
You’ll now need to update the permissions for the Krita app so that it is executable. Use the chmod command below.
chmod +x krita-5.1.1-x86_64.appimage
Finally, start up the Krita app on your Chromebook through the terminal with the following command.
./krita-5.1.1-x86_64.appimage
