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Software ‘death dates’ are sending schools’ Chromebooks to the recycling bin
- BillyTheMage 3y agoThey could have installed Linux on those
- wmf 3y agoNo, they couldn't have
- justinclift 3y agoSome chromebook models can (apparently) have Linux put on them. The article doesn't seem to really touch on that though.
- cafard 3y agoI did some years ago install Linux on a Chromebook. I didn't do much of anything with it, but then I didn't do much of anything with the Chromebook at all.
- justinclift 3y agohttps://github.com/dnschneid/crouton https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton
- n8henrie 3y agoI have an old Acer C720 that's been happily running Linux for about a decade now. Very under powered (2 gb ram model) so I have to keep the distro lightweight. Bought it refurb for $150 -- what a great deal that was! I like it enough that I've looked into a newer chromebook with a bit more RAM, and I was disappointed to learn that most of the newer models apparently can't be rooted like this.
- asjfka 3y agoStallman was right all along.
- hsjqllzlfkf 3y agoThe most important thing that I've learned from Stallman is that "craft a story - don't worry how convoluted it might appear - where corporations take actions in order to benefit themselves at the cost of everyone else" is a good heuristic to predict the future in a capitalistic society. To be clear, this isn't criticism of capitalism. Capitalism has good things and bad things, and I have faith that we can keep the good things and mitigate the bad things. Instead the point of my comment is to highlight how some times our intuition starts moving in the right direction but we stop it because "come on that's too far fetched, they'd never do that". Yes, of course Stallman was right.
- elkos 3y agoWould like more info in that quote from the article: > Kimathi Bradford, a 16-year-old Oakland tech repair intern, has looked into whether there was a way to replace the outdated Chromebook software with a non-Google brand, but it ended up being a lot of work, Kimathi said, and the open-source replacement wasn’t up to par.
- wmf 3y agoSchools need the "indestructible" nature of Chrome OS where the OS very rarely breaks and even in that case you can factory reset and the student logs in and everything syncs so nothing is lost. No mainstream Linux distro works that way.
- antiloper 3y agoDoes anyone know how the "death date" is implemented? Does the OS not boot if NTP says the date is greater than some preconfigured value? The article doesn't say.
- jtokoph 3y agoGoogle just says they won’t be providing software updates at a certain point. So the devices won’t get security patches, new browser features, updated root certificates, etc.
- andrewstuart 3y agoI guess Ghoogles love of cancelling applies not only to their software but also their hardware.
- mlongval 3y ago“I have become Death, destroyer of Chromebooks.”
- lubujackson 3y agoGoogenheimer