Hey there! Since Chrome OS has crostini and debian Linux support, I figured I’d try to compile Audacity on it (even if it might, or probably won’t, work). Chrome OS version 73.0.3683.88, Samsung Chromebook Plus v1, and the most recent version of Audacity (2.3.1 I believe?). Would someone be able to help me in figuring out how to compile it? I got as far as unpacking the tar.xz file and installing Git, but I’m lost the rest of the way. Any help would be super appreciated.
Have you successfully got Debian running on your Chromebook?
It’s not debian per se, it’s a VM within Chrome OS that runs off of Debian. So yes, it does work, and it works just like a “true” debian machine would.
Do you mean that Debian is the “Guest” OS and Chrome is the “Host” OS? (Virtual machine - Wikipedia).
Do “aplay” and “arecord” work in Debian? (Ubuntu Manpage: arecord, aplay - command-line sound recorder and player for ALSA soundcard driver)
If they do, then there’s a fighting chance to get this working. If they don’t then it’s probably wasted effort.
How much local disk space space and RAM are available in Debian?
Just so you are aware - Virtual machines usually take some performance hit compared to the underlying OS, and Chromebooks are usually pretty low spec, so even if this does work, the performance of Audacity is likely to be fairly poor. Have you tried installing Audacity from the Debian repository to see how well / badly it runs?
Why are you wanting to build Audacity rather than just installing it from the Debian repository?
I’d be lying if I said I knew how any of this works. Chrome OS has a terminal app in it that runs as a Guest Debian machine. As for disk space and ram I’m not sure how much it allows me to allocate, I haven’t found anywhere where it says but the machine itself is 4GB of ram. How do I install from the Debian repository?
Have you got a full Debian Desktop environment, or is it just a command line?
Which version of Debian?
If you have a full Desktop environment, is it Gnome, KDE, Xfce, or something else?
If you have a full, default installation of Debian (Gnome Desktop), then to install Audacity, run the “Software” application, then click on the Search button (a magnifying glass in the top right corner) and type the name of the application (Audacity) in the search box. Then click the “Install” button.
No, it’s Chrome OS with a debian terminal. The only way to access linux commands, until an app is installed, is through the command line.
Then it is unlikely that you will be able to run Audacity because Audacity requires a graphical environment.
I believe that it is possible to install a full, graphical Desktop version of Linux on a Chromebook, but to do so you have to use “Developer Mode”, which will erase all of your user data from the Chromebook, and risks bricking your device if you go badly wrong. If you want to investigate further, look up “ChrUbuntu” and “Chromium Crouton”.
The terminal itself is a non graphical environment, but I can run graphical linux apps once I can install them. My question is how do I use the terminal to install it, not really if I can or not.
First you would update the local software “catalogue”
sudo apt-get update
Optional, but usually a good idea to update the rest of the Debian software at this point
sudo apt-get upgrade
Then install Audacity
sudo apt-get install audacity
Damn, last time I tried doing it it couldn’t find the actual package. Seems like it’s gonna work this time though 
thank you XD lets see if this works.
it worked! thanks
Does Audacity run?
Let us know how it goes.
So far it at least starts, trying to download some MP3 but for some reason Chrome OS won’t let my files app open in full…
Okay, it runs, it can import files, the only thing missing is audio support for linux isn’t going to be ready for another few weeks. But hey, its a start!