UngodlyAudreyđłď¸ââ§ď¸Built-in software âdeath datesâ are sending thousands of schoolsâ Chromebooks to the recycling bin
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Reviving Chromebooks with Ubuntu: Autonomous Servers, Planned Obsolescence, and Permacomputing
A tutorial and slight manifesto on reviving end-of-life Chromebooks. How to make them into autonomous servers, and why we need to rethink computing in the age of climate collapse.
Thatâs what they should be doing, but it isnât what theyâre going to do, unfortunately.
Kimathi Bradford, a 16-year-old Oakland tech repair intern, has looked into whether there was a way to replace the outdated Chromebook software with a non-Google brand, but it ended up being a lot of work, Kimathi said, and the open-source replacement wasnât up to par. âItâs like the Fritos of software,â he said. âNo one really wants to use it.â
Now, Iâm not sure if what they tried was Linux, but I wouldnât be too surprised. The younger generations grew up with smartphones; I feel as though operating systems will become more streamlined and opaque as time goes on. I suspect weâll have to contend with the phonification of mainstream computing in the coming years.
roadkill"being a lot of work" = I couldn't follow a guide.
Honestly, Chromebooks are among some of the easiest systems to boot a Linux distro on. Far easier than, say, Bootcamp.
- Exceptions apply to enterprise or education enrolled systems as they lock those devices down. Corporations and schools, however, do have the option to release the hardware and allow modifications to the system.
ScrubblesRight, but then multiply that guide x1000 systems, losing google enterprise, switching over to a unix directory system, setting up infrastructure, network shares, printers, and everything and itâs not just a guide - itâs a team of people working for weeks to get it set up. Of course to us itâs easy, itâd just be a computer or two. To an entire company/school it may be over a million dollars to swap over
teawrecksYouâre saying itâs over a million dollars to revive some chromebooks? Or to build out a system that is independent from planned obsolescence? For a school district that has to operate in the long term, I think one of those is a bargain.
Also, the cost of maintaining 2 vs 1000 systems obviously scales up, but itâs obviously not nearly linear. The difference in cost between managing 1000 and 2000 systems would be negligible.
orcaThe plan on a large scale with a team sounds good, but IT at schools is a total mixed bag due to budget, etc. Iâve seen some schools where IT is just burnt out and underpaid (canât tell which came first) and sometimes the IT team will be an old head that still reminisces about Windows NT.
It would be cool if there was an independent team that resurrected those laptops for schools. I think the problem that arises though is security.
Right, for a huge enterprise they would probably honestly consider it, but a school with ~1000 students? Less? Itâs going to be cheaper to trash those and get new ones. Donât get me wrong I think itâs a terrible waste and Google is horrible for putting them in this situation, and Iâd love for the open source community to offer some scripts for wiping, installing ubuntu, setting up ACLs, connecting to a domain, connecting shares, etc, but still most schools are going to see this and just say âOkay google how much money do you need for us to keep working?â
TedvdBAgree. Iâve got a chromebook running Linux, for that I had to open it up and remove a screw. It takes around 15 minutes if youâve done it before, so for bulk migration to Linux itâs not feasible.
You had to remove a screw to install Linux? Is that like a physical tampering prevention measure? Makes me think of how I had to swap a jumper to install a GPU in an old HP tower that had integrated video.
Yes itâs exactly that, check out this documentation.