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Early Access to Chrome OS Flex: The Upgrade PCs and Macs

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Re: Early Access to Chrome OS Flex: The Upgrade PCs and Macs

#101

Post by zizee »

vorpalhex wrote: post #97
fartcannon wrote: post #66

Schools should be using Linux (or a BSD) exclusively. And preferably, open format alternatives to anything locked down. Proprietary software is fine if the data is easily exported to another format. Transforming a perfectly good Linux machine into a Google data pipeline is a horrible thing to do to children.

I'd love to see you maintain 800 linux laptops kept in the hands of kids. "What do you mean you recompiled ALSA and now you can't join Zoom little Timmy? Did you try invoking modprobe again?"

If it is anything like my kids school, the maintenance would be exactly the same regardless of the OS. The students are instructed to keep everything in their synced drive, and they reimage machines at the drop of a hat.

Re: Early Access to Chrome OS Flex: The Upgrade PCs and Macs

#102

Post by my123 »

Zhenya wrote: post #68
my123 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Chrome OS not the problem a lot of the time, they drop support for devices using commodity SoCs that are still supported elsewhere... it's a quite hardcoded expiry date. And they don't even drop support for all machines using a given SoC at the same time. For Chrome OS updates are wholly owned by Google too.

I am more knowledgeable about the arm / android world. I do wonder if for the chrome os world there are SoC+BSP vs ChromeOS feature requirements that cause this lack of ability to support (e.g. trust zone etc)

> (e.g. trust zone etc)

For chromeOS devices, the boot firmware (incl TZ) is owned by Google.

Re: Early Access to Chrome OS Flex: The Upgrade PCs and Macs

#103

Post by Angostura »

andrewmutz wrote: post #23

I am writing this comment on Chrome OS Flex and can not say enough good things about Chrome OS Flex. I installed it on my wife's old macbook air (~2013) and it brought new life to a machine that we had written off as useless. The OS does a great job of exactly two things: web browsing and linux stuff. It won't do more than that, but if that's all you need it is great. I honestly think you could make some decent cash…

That's odd. My wife is still using a mid-2013 MacBook Air as a daily driver - using MacOS, and it's fine or browsing, Office, e-mail etc etc. In what way was yours 'useless'?

Re: Early Access to Chrome OS Flex: The Upgrade PCs and Macs

#104

Post by LoveMortuus »

vorpalhex wrote: post #94
LoveMortuus wrote: post #46

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but what does "cloud first" mean in the context of an operating system, does it mean that you need to always be connected to the internet to use it, like can you use the computer offline?

It uses Google Drive (or similar) to store all your files. There is a local drive used for caching so you can work offline entirely but the idea is that the workstation is "cattle" - you can throw it into a shredder, log into a new chromebook and have all your apps/files/etc installed and ready to go. The selling point for these are light computer users.

That sounds pretty cool, having access to all of your file from any computer that you login. But would guess that you'd have to pay quite a lot for such a luxury especially if you store more then just text files and such.

Thanks for the explanation! ^o^

Re: Early Access to Chrome OS Flex: The Upgrade PCs and Macs

#105

Post by alexnewman »

doubled112 wrote: post #74
alexnewman wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The days of underpowered chromebooks is gone.

They're still pretty brutal. The BestBuy around the corner from me, for example, is selling an Asus Chromebook with a Celeron N3350/4GB RAM/64GB eMMC and 15.6" 720p screen for $400 CAD. Is this not underpowered? Sure there are other options, but to most people the appeal was the low cost. For $799, I'd just buy a PC.

my 4 core top of the line intel 10th gen i7 with 16GB of ram i got for 750$ begs to differ

Re: Early Access to Chrome OS Flex: The Upgrade PCs and Macs

#106

Post by fartcannon »

andrewmutz wrote: post #79
fartcannon wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think websites can't give you malware for your Chromebook? That's like the number one way to get it.

What are you referring to? Chrome extensions?

I'm referring to the fact that it's connected to the internet.

Re: Early Access to Chrome OS Flex: The Upgrade PCs and Macs

#107

Post by Crontab »

andrewmutz wrote: post #23

I am writing this comment on Chrome OS Flex and can not say enough good things about Chrome OS Flex. I installed it on my wife's old macbook air (~2013) and it brought new life to a machine that we had written off as useless. The OS does a great job of exactly two things: web browsing and linux stuff. It won't do more than that, but if that's all you need it is great. I honestly think you could make some decent cash…

I am typing this on a mid-2013 Macbook Air and it doesn't feel useless to me - although I maxed out the RAM to 8GB when I ordered it.

Re: Early Access to Chrome OS Flex: The Upgrade PCs and Macs

#108

Post by bitwize »

alexnewman wrote: post #55
bitwize wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft has a whole blog post about VSCode on Chromebooks in their Crostini Linux environment. Which is just... gah: https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2020/12/03/chromebook-ge... I mean, the fact that it can be done is neat, but on most entry-level Chromebooks it will be a memory hog, and you might be better served with vim or emacs (one or both of which should be learned to functional competence levels by every…

The days of underpowered chromebooks is gone.

A number of models with 4 GiB RAM are still floating around out there; I consider that underpowered if you are going to be running a browser + heavyweight apps (Visual Studio Code is heavyweight). For Windows 1x, 4 GiB is barely usable; ChromeOS does better but today's memory-hungry apps can take that advantage away.

Re: Early Access to Chrome OS Flex: The Upgrade PCs and Macs

#109

Post by raydiatian »

andrewmutz wrote: post #23

I am writing this comment on Chrome OS Flex and can not say enough good things about Chrome OS Flex. I installed it on my wife's old macbook air (~2013) and it brought new life to a machine that we had written off as useless. The OS does a great job of exactly two things: web browsing and linux stuff. It won't do more than that, but if that's all you need it is great. I honestly think you could make some decent cash…

Why do you smell like a paid shill

Re: Early Access to Chrome OS Flex: The Upgrade PCs and Macs

#110

Post by shadowgovt »

For those maintaining a machine for older relatives: I found that switching them to Chrome OS has really taken the burden off me as their sole tech support. No installable applications means no vector for adware to convince them to fall into a cycle of installing other adware until the machine is bloated beyond functionality.
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