If you know how, you can enable Linux on your Chromebook and turn a computer that was probably relatively cheap and basic into a serious laptop with access to hundreds of applications and all the power you need to make it an all-purpose computer.
And yet underneath all that, there's Linux to be found. The interface most users experience is a desktop that can run Chrome browser apps and the Chrome browser itself. Linux is used as a backend technology for an environment based on the open source Chromium OS, which Google then transforms into Chrome OS. Google Chromebooks run on Linux, but normally the Linux they run isn't particularly accessible to the user.