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Can you run Linux on it instead? Not to excuse Google - but there's little incentive for a company to maintain devices past a certain point when there's no fin

Can you run Linux on it instead? Not to excuse Google - but there's little incentive for a company to maintain devices past a certain point when there's no financial or regulatory requirement to do so. I'm not sure Windows 7 being supported for a decade was intentional, but we'll see what pans out with Windows 10's incremental model.

Dylan16807 8y ago
I'm planning to stick some kind of linux or alternative chrome OS on there, if possible. > I'm not sure Windows 7 being supported for a decade was intentional, but we'll see what pans out with Windows 10's incremental model. It definitely was. XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 10LTSB all start[ed] with 10 years of support, and you can install a newer version on your same hardware to reset that counter. Something's gone wrong with the core architecture if Google needs to actively "maintain devices" instead of just making generic security patches and shipping them out, with a little bit of testing.
- jrs95 8y ago
  Microsoft doesn’t need to constantly rebuild different kernels for every supported device, which is basically a necessity for Android/ChromeOS because of their Linux base. That’s probably a big motivator for the Fuschia project.
  - tracker1 8y ago
    It has far less to do with the Linux base than the shear variety of chipsets with custom loaders needed for ARM architecture.
    - digi_owl 8y ago
      And anything like PCI lookup on ARM. Damn it, MS balked at offering Windows on power efficient Atoms. This because Intel had stripped PCI from the SoC to save transistors and thus power. I suspect that if you were to poke at the ARM chips found in the Windows RT devices, they would be special variants with PCI grafted on. ARM SOCs are a bit like firing up an old DOS PC and fiddling with IRQ and DMA setting, only that you can't pull the cover off to see what cards are inserted and what the DIPs are set to.
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      To add insult to injury, it's an x86 Chromebook that doesn't require any of that custom ARM configuration to run.
hedora 8y ago
I guess I’m old fashioned, but I highly recommend getting an x86 netbook and putting linux on it. They still exist, and are basically chromebooks with the crazy google bios removed. For instance the acer 11” cloudbooks run linux well. You can disable secure boot. However, if you want chromebook style security without google or the centralized PKI, you can purge the ms keys and enroll the bootloader of your choice without special signing from the distro. You can also manually enroll the distribution’s keys, I think, but I don’t see any practical reason to do that.
- voltagex_ 8y ago
  The "crazy google bios" is CoreBoot, isn't it? Why wouldn't you want that?

Dylan16807 8y ago

I'm planning to stick some kind of linux or alternative chrome OS on there, if possible. > I'm not sure Windows 7 being supported for a decade was intentional, but we'll see what pans out with Windows 10's incremental model. It definitely was. XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 10LTSB all start[ed] with 10 years of support, and you can install a newer version on your same hardware to reset that counter. Something's gone wrong with the core architecture if Google needs to actively "maintain devices" instead of just making generic security patches and shipping them out, with a little bit of testing.

jrs95 8y ago
Microsoft doesn’t need to constantly rebuild different kernels for every supported device, which is basically a necessity for Android/ChromeOS because of their Linux base. That’s probably a big motivator for the Fuschia project.
- tracker1 8y ago
  It has far less to do with the Linux base than the shear variety of chipsets with custom loaders needed for ARM architecture.
  - digi_owl 8y ago
    And anything like PCI lookup on ARM. Damn it, MS balked at offering Windows on power efficient Atoms. This because Intel had stripped PCI from the SoC to save transistors and thus power. I suspect that if you were to poke at the ARM chips found in the Windows RT devices, they would be special variants with PCI grafted on. ARM SOCs are a bit like firing up an old DOS PC and fiddling with IRQ and DMA setting, only that you can't pull the cover off to see what cards are inserted and what the DIPs are set to.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    To add insult to injury, it's an x86 Chromebook that doesn't require any of that custom ARM configuration to run.

hedora 8y ago

I guess I’m old fashioned, but I highly recommend getting an x86 netbook and putting linux on it. They still exist, and are basically chromebooks with the crazy google bios removed. For instance the acer 11” cloudbooks run linux well. You can disable secure boot. However, if you want chromebook style security without google or the centralized PKI, you can purge the ms keys and enroll the bootloader of your choice without special signing from the distro. You can also manually enroll the distribution’s keys, I think, but I don’t see any practical reason to do that.

voltagex_ 8y ago
The "crazy google bios" is CoreBoot, isn't it? Why wouldn't you want that?