5 ms·

Think of the hundred of millions of kids who've been hooked onto Microsoft's products. Why shouldn't kids have a choice?

wklauss 13y ago
I think we should strive for not repeating the Microsoft situation with a different brand. Like someone else commented, a Raspberry Pi seems like a better solution. Chromebooks are extremely tied to Google services.
- stinos 13y ago
  rPi might seem ok at first, but I'm really not sure it's the best solution for cases like this, I find it's too much of a 'hacker' device? Sure if it works, it gives you a pretty usable general purpose OS (kinda slow though) but if it breaks (and it will sooner than the ordinary laptop/PC, either in software or in hardware) you'll have to have quite some linux experience in order to fix it. I agree with your last sentence though. One single device tied to a single OS is a bad choice. I'd rather give them a laptop that dual-boots Linux and Windows. That at least gives children a taste of the real world where more than one OS is used and learns them how to use both.
patrickaljord 13y ago
> Why shouldn't kids have a choice? With chrome you can develop for the web which is the most open platform that works everywhere. And if you want to develop in native, you can install crouton and do whatever you want. Chromebooks are not locked in or "jailed", they all come with a dev switch that is documented by google and encouraged for anyone who wants to use it: http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-for-chrome-os-devices http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-fo... This is the way it should be in my opinion, the possibility to mess up with your device should not be enabled by default to avoid confusing noobs. But, if you're a tinkerer, it should be as easy as pressing a few keys and the process should be duly documented by the manufacturer and it should not breach the warranty. This comes from a happy pixel owner who enjoys hacking on Golang, js and even ruby among other languages on my chromebook. Best environment I've had after 10+ years of ubuntu and some osx :)
- snowbunny 13y ago
  When you do an dev unlock, it erases all data so you can't dual boot, it's all or nothing. The unlock method is awkward, and every single time you ever boot again, you have to click past a scary looking warning. And people were complaining about UEFI secure boot in Windows 8, where all you needed to do was turn a checkbox off with the mouse in the BIOS settings.

wklauss 13y ago

I think we should strive for not repeating the Microsoft situation with a different brand. Like someone else commented, a Raspberry Pi seems like a better solution. Chromebooks are extremely tied to Google services.

stinos 13y ago
rPi might seem ok at first, but I'm really not sure it's the best solution for cases like this, I find it's too much of a 'hacker' device? Sure if it works, it gives you a pretty usable general purpose OS (kinda slow though) but if it breaks (and it will sooner than the ordinary laptop/PC, either in software or in hardware) you'll have to have quite some linux experience in order to fix it. I agree with your last sentence though. One single device tied to a single OS is a bad choice. I'd rather give them a laptop that dual-boots Linux and Windows. That at least gives children a taste of the real world where more than one OS is used and learns them how to use both.

patrickaljord 13y ago

> Why shouldn't kids have a choice? With chrome you can develop for the web which is the most open platform that works everywhere. And if you want to develop in native, you can install crouton and do whatever you want. Chromebooks are not locked in or "jailed", they all come with a dev switch that is documented by google and encouraged for anyone who wants to use it: http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-for-chrome-os-devices http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-fo... This is the way it should be in my opinion, the possibility to mess up with your device should not be enabled by default to avoid confusing noobs. But, if you're a tinkerer, it should be as easy as pressing a few keys and the process should be duly documented by the manufacturer and it should not breach the warranty. This comes from a happy pixel owner who enjoys hacking on Golang, js and even ruby among other languages on my chromebook. Best environment I've had after 10+ years of ubuntu and some osx :)

snowbunny 13y ago
When you do an dev unlock, it erases all data so you can't dual boot, it's all or nothing. The unlock method is awkward, and every single time you ever boot again, you have to click past a scary looking warning. And people were complaining about UEFI secure boot in Windows 8, where all you needed to do was turn a checkbox off with the mouse in the BIOS settings.