OBS for Chromebook
OBS is the most famous software to stream your screen, here is how to use it on Chromebook and how to configure OBS properly.
Since Linux can be enabled on Chromebook now, it is possible to download and install OBS on your Chromebook so you can record or stream your screen. But if OBS is the most famous streaming software today, it has not been developed to be able to run on Chromebook and you might be disappointed by the result depending on how you use it. Other available tools might have a better result on Chromebook, I have tried some of them and will tell you how to install them later in this article.
How to get OBS for Chromebook
To use OBS on your Chromebook, you need to first enable Linux, and then follow the steps to download and install OBS on Linux so you will be able to use it on your Chromebook.
Enable Linux
To enable Linux on your Chromebook:
- Open the control panel or Settings application
- Go to Advanced → Developers on the left menu
- Turn On the “Linux development environment”
- After following the instructions, Linux will be enabled and a new application will be added to your Chromebook, Terminal. With this application, you will be able to launch Linux command lines.
Linux steps to download OBS
The Linux operating system enabled on your Chromebook is Debian. Here are the steps to install OBS on Debian, there to install OBS on your Chromebook
- Open the Terminal application
- Enter the command
sudo apt-get updateto refresh the packages list - Enter the command
sudo apt-get install obs-studioto install OBS on your Chromebook
Limitations
As Chromebooks are cheap computers they do not have powerful components, but OBS is a powerful and heavy software using a lot of hardware resources. Therefore, running OBS at its full power on your Chromebook will be complicated and you will need to put limitations to be able to run it properly, you might need to lower the resolution to 360p for example.
Depending on your needs, you should use another software than OBS. There are plenty of alternatives on Chromebook to record your screen. But for sure it will be more complicated to stream your screen live on Twitch or YouTube without using OBS.
OBS alternatives for Chromebook
Here are all the OBS alternatives that I tried on my Chromebook, with the pros and cons, choose the one that suits you the best.
Built-in Snipping tool
Chromebooks have a built-in feature to be able to not only screenshot your screen but also record it. As this feature has been developed by Google specifically for Chromebooks, it is the best choice if you want to record a video of your screen. The snipping tool has a lot of cool features and I explained all of them in this article.
The quality of the video recorded with the snipping tool is quite nice. You are also able to record your microphone while recording your screen. But you won’t be able to stream your recordings to a streaming platform like Twitch or YouTube.
Android application
Another way to record your screen is to use an Android application. Indeed, as Chromebooks support most Android applications and you can install them using the Google Play Store, you can download and use recording software made for Android. Android phones are not more powerful than Chromebooks, therefore the Android recording software work also great on Chromebooks.
There are multiple-choice, I would recommend trying different applications, the paid ones will give you more configuration and more features. The most famous application to stream your screen on streaming platforms is Streamlabs, but you will have to use a paid plan to use all the features. Streamlabs is also known to work with OBS, and it’s working great on Chromebooks.
Chrome extension
The OBS alternative for Chromebook is to use a Chrome extension. This way will only give you the possibility to record Chrome while you are browsing the web, but it might be what you are looking for. Google Chrome is working very well on Chromebook and all the available extensions will also do well. Extensions are lightweight and won’t use many resources, as extensions are linked to your Google account you will be able to use them on all the computers to which your Google account is connected.
Author
Maxime Levesque is a technical engineer with more than 5 years of professional experience. He is an expert in computer and phones, mostly on Apple products. Maxime is also the founder of TechBrowser.
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