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Chromebooks conceptually are fine, they only need to be powerful enough to run a word processor and play youtube videos and most of them pass that bar. I don't

Chromebooks conceptually are fine, they only need to be powerful enough to run a word processor and play youtube videos and most of them pass that bar. I don't think it's a great idea to give kids an OS and web browser that can be remotely exploited, Chrome gets patched to fix zero days as much as add new features. Firefox can work as an alternative but runs in an Android/Linux VM which impacts performance, it's a worse experience. Software updates are free for a lot of things, as much as anything can be free. Most web browsers are free, all open source software is free. The Linux kernel that Chromebooks run upon is free. You can use a decade old Windows 7 key to activate a copy of Windows 11. It's not like Google stop getting "paid", they're a software as a service company supported by advertising. Continuing to update Chromebooks would be a support burden, particularly if the hardware is reliant on proprietary driver blobs. But Google have a responsibility not to create a bunch of e-waste, so they should get their shit together and figure it out.

WWLink 3y ago
-gets on soapbox- I think giving kids locked down appliances is a terrible idea and a great way to limit the number of people who become software engineers in the future. -gets off soapbox-
- scheeseman486 3y ago
  In this case they are an appliance, the hardware is owned by the school and user accounts are managed through them. Those taking an interest in coding could be given access to a Linux VM with an IDE and compiler, they don't need ring 0 access to the computer they're currently using to learn to code. Given these computers often change hands between students, it would actually be somewhat dangerous to allow one of those students to, say, install a rootkit. Once the school (or any other org) is done with them I'm all for removing all locks on the hardware so it has a fighting chance of staying out of landfill.

WWLink 3y ago

-gets on soapbox- I think giving kids locked down appliances is a terrible idea and a great way to limit the number of people who become software engineers in the future. -gets off soapbox-

scheeseman486 3y ago
In this case they are an appliance, the hardware is owned by the school and user accounts are managed through them. Those taking an interest in coding could be given access to a Linux VM with an IDE and compiler, they don't need ring 0 access to the computer they're currently using to learn to code. Given these computers often change hands between students, it would actually be somewhat dangerous to allow one of those students to, say, install a rootkit. Once the school (or any other org) is done with them I'm all for removing all locks on the hardware so it has a fighting chance of staying out of landfill.