6 ms·
Chromebooks Were Once a Good Deal for Schools. Now They’re Becoming E-Waste
- mdwalters 3y agoI believe it's the planned obsolecense feature's fault for turning Chromebooks into e-waste.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- throwaway4220 3y agoThis lies squarely with Google. I bought a fully functional 11 inch acer intel touchscreen Chromebook for 25 on eBay which got its last update last year. I converted it to Ubuntu which was a pain
- vorticalbox 3y agoI have a perfectly good chromebook for a few years ago that is just sat in a box becuase it's running a super old version of chromeOS. I could just install Linux but the battery is definitely worse when not on chromeOS
- RugnirViking 3y agointeresting. Just how cheap are they, and how cut down can we make them, and are they easy to jailbreak? I'd love to play around with some for making into servers or even pi-like things for robotics
- als0 3y agoThey can be as cheap as $89 at Walmart.
- RugnirViking 3y agoI was thinking more about second hand ones. i'd love to pick up a bulk of 10 or 20 them if it wont be an enormous pain to jailbreak them all
- alchemist1e9 3y agoI have such an ambition also. There was a link recently to models which can be flashed and run pure Linux kernels.
- traverseda 3y agohttps://mrchromebox.tech/#devices https://mrchromebox.tech/#devices You probably want one that supports uefi firmware, which I think is libreboot.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y agoIt's coreboot, plus I think tianocore/edk2 to provide UEFI
- deelowe 3y agoThey are not easy to jailbreak. Many can't run Linux natively due to hardware restrictions.
- DHowett 3y agohttps://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/docs/+/HEAD/write_protection.md https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/docs/+/HEAD/wri... Chromebooks are among the better-documented and more open hardware platforms. The document above indicates how to disable firmware write protection both within and without the operating system. It also includes this quote: > Since the start of the project, the Chrome OS team strongly believes that when someone buys a device, they own it fully. ... To that end, we strongly believe that users must be free to fully program their device in any way they want. Can you point to any ChromeOS devices that have violated this principle?
- mdwalters 3y ago>> [...] we strongly believe that users must be free to fully program their device in any way they want. If this is the case, then why doesn't Google provide an official utility to install another OS on it?
- deelowe 3y agoI don't have the model in front of me, but many lenovo chromebooks cannot have any other OS installed.
- jacobwilliamroy 3y agoI have an Acer Chromebook. It dual boots into debian but in order to remove the chrome OS I think I have to unscrew some part and then short a couple of pins somewhere. This is the best I can remember. I read those instructions like 6 years ago and never bothered to try and follow them.
- mdwalters 3y agoReally? All it took for me was to format `/dev/mmcblkp1` to use Fedora 38 exclusively.
- jacobwilliamroy 3y agoOh it looks so easy now. Like I said it's been a few years since I read those instructions so things have probably changed. And I haven't actually used my chromebook since I lost the power cable in 2019.
- jraph 3y agoYes, it was a thing on some models. It was easy to do, but opening a laptop can be scary to many people and it voided the warranty. At least it was possible to hack the devices, but no such bullshit is ever necessary on any regular laptop.
- phpisthebest 3y ago>>and it voided the warranty. Opening the laptop would not void any warranty in the EU, or US. That is FUD. Manufacturers can not prevent people from "opening their devices" with threats of voiding warranty, and even putting the stickers that say that are illegal for which the FTC sent a latter to many manufacturers including Apple to tell them to knock that off.
- jraph 3y agoGood to know.
- 3y ago
- baz00 3y agoThey were always a terrible deal for schools. They were just a less terrible deal that the original status quo, at least here in the UK, of overpriced education supplier sourced PCs and unnecessary use of VMware. Surely we can do better than this both software and hardware wise.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- INTPenis 3y agoAll laptops become e-waste, why are chromebooks different? They were made with low specs, presumably they become obsolete sooner. But then again, I doubt most laptop users have their laptop more than 3 years.
- timw4mail 3y agoThey definitely could have more life than the duration of the ChromeOS updates. It's an arbitrary date, not performance-based at all.
- zbrozek 3y agoThat seems short to me. I build a new desktop approximately every 8 years and buy a new laptop every 5-6.
- jwells89 3y agoMost other laptops, even low end ones, can have new life breathed into them as laptops with a lightweight Linux distribution or even take on entirely new uses like a Plex/Kodi box or retro emulator box hooked up to the TV, power efficient file server, smart home control hub, etc — basically anything one might use a Pi for, an old laptop can do just as well or better. This is impractical on most Chromebooks because of how locked into Chrome OS they are. They're more like cheap Android phones with locked bootloaders than they are proper laptops.
- amatecha 3y agoCoincidentally I'm about 2.5 years into daily-driving a ThinkPad X230 (made in 2012/2013 or so), which I bought secondhand and am running OpenBSD on. Computers could be used a lot longer than they typically are. This one's now surpassing 10 years :) Relevant: "how and why I stopped buying new laptops" https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/12/how-and-why-i-stopped-buying-new-laptops.html https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/12/how-and-why-i-stop...
- jwells89 3y agoHonestly the only thing stopping me from toting around an old low value laptop is their battery life, which is generally awful. The modern web making their fans get angry and noisy also isn’t great, and barrel jack PSUs are a pain compared to USB-C PD. It’d be cool if there were efforts to sell kits that allow users to outfit old laptops with higher-capacity (but not physically larger) batteries, quieter cooling, and USB-PD.
- clashandcarry 3y agoFor some with Intel or AMD X86 chips, Mr. Chromebox offers a BIOS that will allow another OS to be installed. I got a few more years out of Acer Chrombook with this BIOS and an 2.5" SSD upgrade. https://mrchromebox.tech/#home https://mrchromebox.tech/#home
- shams93 3y agoThis is a good point, actually I think schools should buy the leftover devices and then run linux on them so kids can be learning things like django at school.
- paulryanrogers 3y agoKids have a lot of other important things to learn first. But perhaps for some high school elective. One can run ChromeOS on old, used devices. They won't have quite the same security, but are a lot better than nothing.
- rcarmo 3y agoI’m still using one of those as an electronics workbench machine.
- 23B1 3y agoWait till you hear what happens to all the other devices in the world!
- jsnell 3y agoDupe of this exact article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37281480 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37281480 But repeats of the same basic story make it to the frontpage multiple times per month: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36857506 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36857506 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35667547 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35667547 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37006174 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37006174 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35649281 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35649281 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36871178 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36871178 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35632233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35632233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36083380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36083380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36857208 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36857208 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36114532 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36114532 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36863095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36863095
- resolutebat 3y agoCall me paranoid, but this sounds like a marketing campaign by someone who would prefer that schools didn't buy Chromebooks.
- EA-3167 3y agoI think it's more likely that people make note of which stories get upvotes, and then farm them.
- joshspankit 3y agoI’m skeptical but the answer to “who’s upvoting them then?” seems pretty damning
- xaqar 3y agoThis article is a lot of FUD. Look at this list and see how many devices have a date of 2030! https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366 https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366
- jraph 3y agoI don't know about the good deal but the e-waste part was clear from the beginning. No surprise. It's written on the package. For this reason, and the part where the children's privacy is sold to Google, and the part where the children are taught to rely on someone else's computer (in particular big US corps), and the part where the pupils need to agree to some private corp's ToS for what is mandatory and public, schools should never have signed for this. No, it was not a good deal.
- blackhaz 3y agoCould not agree more. Google is nothing but assaulting the integrity of the educational system and well-being of the children and our common future. The value is not only not added, but is taken away from the educational process. I thought Microsoft was evil in the 90s, but seeing this soulless monster of a corporation anywhere near my children feels like a freaking horror movie.
- nolist_policy 3y agoAt least Chromebooks are secure out of the box. It's sad Google seems to be the only player in this space who really cares about security. Every other OS is a shitshow by comparison.
- xyzzy_plugh 3y agoI'm real confused by the comments here. Chromebooks were most definitely a good deal for schools. They are incredibly cheap; half of the appeal to me is that they are effectively disposable and don't need to be fawned over. Who cares if they can't be squeezed for the same length as a $1000 laptop? You can buy three of them. The problem I see is that school budgets don't account for such expenses on the regular, so schools end up using hardware for years and years after EOL. Either way, seems like a good deal to me.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago> The problem I see is that school budgets don't account for such expenses on the regular, so schools end up using hardware for years and years after EOL. That's a meaningful distinction; most hardware can keep running current software for a long time after it's theoretically EOL, but Chromebooks stop updating their software outright when the hardware falls out of support.
- jraph 3y agoEverybody should care. Producing a laptop has a high environmental and human cost. A school throwing away hundreds of computer has an impact on me, you and every other living being on this planet. A disposable laptop is an absurd concept. The idea itself should feel appalling.
- kcartlidge 3y agoAll the technical and business arguments for or against Chromebooks are a side-show. This is the real answer. Thank you.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago>half of the appeal to me is that they are effectively disposable and don't need to be fawned over. Maybe there's a hidden cost to pay for making e-waste disposable hardware which is felt at the environmental level. I'm pretty disturbed at how this waste is not considered in the rich west, as it only looks at the monetary cost of the device and not at the fact that those devices most likely end up in landfills much sooner than should be accepted. Just becasue we can financially accept such a thing, doesn't mean we should, for the sake of the environment.
- WalterBright 3y agoTeachers are always looking for a way to teach without doing any work. And the students want to learn without making any effort. It'll never work. All that is needed for teaching is a teacher with a blackboard, and a student with pencil and paper. Right up through quantum mechanics.
- jdougan 3y agoThe greatest school in history was a log with a student at one end, and Socrates on the other.
- traverseda 3y agoI wonder if you could install chromeos flex on these eol devices.
- DueDilligence 3y ago[dead]