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How to get audacity for Chromebook?

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Chromebooks are great devices for someone who uses Google services and often just needs to access the internet. They’re cheap but good devices that are often useful in deployment in educational fields like schools and colleges. However, they’re not very powerful, meaning you won’t be able to do much other than run Chrome. 

When it comes to installing apps, you do it via the Google Play Store. That said, since Audacity isn’t supported officially for ChromeOS, we’re going to install it via Linux. 

Also read: Top 7 games to play on Chromebook at school


How to enable Linux on your Chromebook?

Installing third-party apps is just one of the many features you can get on your Chromebook if you enable Linux. Here’s what you need to do.

Step 1: Click the Chromebook time and status bar in the bottom-right and then click the settings gear icon.

Step 2: In your Chromebook settings under Advanced, click Developers. You’ll see the option to enable a Linux environment. Click the Turn on button. 

Step 3: Now you’ll be taken through a setup process that involves setting up a new username as well as a disk size for your Linux machine. Click Next to continue.

Step 4: Type a username and select the Linux storage size and click Next.

Once you’re done, you’ll see a new folder in your Chromebook’s app drawer called Linux Apps. This should have a terminal to begin with and this terminal is how we’ll install Audacity. 


Installing Audacity on Chromebooks

Once the terminal is installed on your Chromebook, you can use Linux’s apt-get command to install Audacity as you would on a regular Linux system.

Step 1: The first thing you’re going to do is open the terminal and run the following command. 

sudo apt-get install audacity

Step 2: Once the command has been executed successfully, you still need to enable mic access for Audacity. For that, head over to your Chromebook settings and under Advanced, click Developers. Click Linux development environment to proceed. 

Step 3: Make sure that the Allow Linux to use the microphone toggle is enabled. 

Step 4: You’ll be asked to shut down your Linux environment. Click the Shut down button to proceed.

After that, you can run Audacity on your Chromebook without any problems. 

Also read: How to unzip files on Chromebook?

Yadullah Abidi

Yadullah Abidi

Yadullah is a Computer Science graduate who writes/edits/shoots/codes all things cybersecurity, gaming, and tech hardware. When he's not, he streams himself racing virtual cars. He's been writing and reporting on tech and cybersecurity with websites like Candid.Technology and MakeUseOf since 2018. You can contact him here: yadullahabidi@pm.me.

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