[Soli]

But now I think more about it I think I can see why you say it is tricker. The Ubuntu Live stick was designed by its creators for that purpose of USB booting in mind, but the ChromeOS live stick, well, it doesn't really exist now, does it? at least not provided by google. The saved firmware image expects itself to be running from the internal 16GB SSD, so it would have to be custom built i suppose. I some point I had read a thread on here that discussed doing this and i had but don't know where I saw it. I might take you up on your offer to PM you about it at some point, but for right now I'm just going to mull it over.

Thanks for your help

to boot/run ChromeOS from USB, you need to have a working install on the internal SSD, then use a specific set of commands to transfer it to a same-sized (or larger) USB stick.

I believe you can run chromixium from an USB stick.
So, a chromeos clone for non chromeboxes, on a real chromebox.

So install libreelec, but choose autoboot from usb in MrCBs script. Whenever you need to run chromeos, you just insert the chromixium usb stick and reboot.

you mean ChromiumOS, which is the open-source basis for ChromeOS. Chomixium is a Ubuntu-based distro designed to look/feel like ChromeOS (hence the 'mix'; part), but aren't at all similar under the hood.

Actually neither, but thanks for pointing that out. I once tried chromixium, so I know what is is but obviously had a brain meltdown What I meant was Cloudready. Despite the name, it's more or less ChromeOS for non ChromeOS devices. Brilliant.