I have had a couple of first-generation Chromebook (CR-48) for a while. I thought these would be pretty good portable computing devices to give to my kids. However, I wasn’t ready to do so unless there was some sort of parental control. As someone who spends a lot of time online, it’s too rough place for kids to roam around. I have known about their support for dev mode, and I decided to figure out which linux flavor would support CR-48.

First search attempt turned out Ubuntu, and since Ubuntu is known for better UI, I decided to give it a try. I also found out there is an excellent parental control guide on Ubuntu as well.

Install Ubuntu on Chromebook (CR-48)

There is no need to re-invent the wheel. Follow instruction here to put Ubuntu 11.04 on Chromebook (CR-48). It worked out like a charm.

Parental Control on Ubuntu

There is a great guide here, and I couldn’t get the Web Content Control to work. However, timekpr is pretty good. You should at least install that.

For filtering content, ProCon Latte Content Filter Firefox Add-on has been working pretty well.

So far, I have been happy with Ubuntu on CR-48. It’s slow and keypad doesn’t work too well, but I think kids are just happy to have their own laptops. :)