Anki on chromeboook

[JIM]

I have just downloaded anki through the linux developer environment on the google chromebook and when I go to login to sync my cards from my account I get these two messages

I really want to use the desktop version of anki because the play store version is just rubbish if there is a fix to this i would really appreciate the help
Thank you!

[Nici]

Try turning on legacy time zone handling under Tools > Preferences > Scheduling

That should fix the first error at least

[dae]

The Anki version you are using is old. To be able to sync it, you’ll need to turn that option on with another computer, or your mobile device.

[JIM]

Thank you guy’s it worked!
Do you you guys have any good anki addon recommendations that will make my anki look better (i’m on version 2.1.8) Thank you guys again for the help .

[hengiesel]

My first recommendation would be to update to a current version. You’ve installed it on Linux, so I assume you used a version that was provided by the Linux package manager. Instead you could download the Anki version for Linux directly from apps.ankiweb.net.

[Nici]

Yeah definitely Update @JIM (theres so many useful new features)

Additionally I recommend that you do some of your own CSS for your cards. As an example here’s my Japanese deck I’ve been working on to look more modern:

I made sure to color match the right-wrong colors with the button addon I use

You can really change anything you want with CSS, imo its worth learning ;‍)

[dae]

If it’s an arm Chromebook, they may not easily be able to update, as there is no packaged build for arm.

[JIM]

Hi there thanks for the suggestion, however when I try updating (through the terminal which is the only way I how to update because i am using a linux development environment) it says all my packages are updated and this is the only way I know how to update it. If there is another way to update it please let me know and i will try it. Thank you again for the suggestion

[BlackBeans]

I did not know what “Linux Development Environment” was, so I googled it (of course), and found this page. It starts with

Linux is a feature that lets you develop software using your Chromebook.

Which is very strange. Later on, I see apt related commands, so I suppose the package manager is Debian’s apt. However, I searched on wikipedia too, and found that Chrome OS is based on Gentoo, whose package manager is emerge…

The conclusion of all of this is that I did not understood how exactly do you install packages? Do you use apt? Do you use emerge? Do you know what repositories you are using anyways?

However, in the case you are using the apt command, it is most likely that you are using either Debian or Ubuntu repositories, neither of which is know for being on the bleeding edge side. This means that you may want to install Anki an other way. I see at least three possible ways (I would recommend trying them in the given order)

1. Download the binary, then simply execute it.
   • Advantages:
     • easy
     • requires at most 3 minutes (depending on you internet speed)
   • Disadvantages:
     • no auto-update feature
     • no wrapping, meaning you have to manually seek for the binary and execute it, or place it by yourself in a directory in PATH, or however you launch other applications normally
     • only works if there is a pre-built version of Anki for your architecture
2. Install via pip
   • Advantages:
     • easy
     • does some wrapping
     • update is much easier
     • should not be too long
   • Disadvantages:
     • requires pip, but it should be packaged, no matter what package manager you are using
     • still requires a bit of handcrafted wrapping, depending on how you launch your applications
3. Install a concurrent package manager, then install Anki via it
   • Advantages:
     • does all wrapping
     • update is automatic
     • might be helpful if you encounter the same issues with other packages (besides Anki I mean)
     • there are a lot of concurrent package manager, so you can chose the one that fits you best
   • Disadvantages:
     • considerably longer to setup the first time
     • there are a lot of concurrent package manager, so Anki is probably not packaged for all of them, you’ll have to look for one that has Anki
     • might not be completely integrated with the rest of the Chromebook
     • requires a concurrent package manager, which is of course heavier than just installing Anki.

Some package manager that are distro-agnostic are

• Snapcraft, which does package the very last version of Anki (atm, 2.1.49)
• Flatpak, which does package the latest stable version of Anki (atm, 2.1.48) and which explicitely supports Chrome OS, and therefore Chromebooks (meaning the integration is likely to be better, although maybe others are well integrated too, idk)
• Nix, which does package the very last version of Anki (atm, 2.1.49) (warning: the latest version is packaged under the name anki-bin. anki is an older version) and which explicitely supports Chrome OS. nix is considerably harder to use that snap or flatpak, but has more features (an entire OS is built around).