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Google offering free Chromebooks to Indian schools

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

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Re: Google offering free Chromebooks to Indian schools

#31

Post by patrickaljord »

auctiontheory wrote: post #9
rwbt wrote: post #3

I commend Google for it, but my inner voice is somewhat skeptical that this is a great way to get kids hooked on Google's services. Then again, having a Chromebook is way better than some crappy linux machine/cheap windows laptop. So I think its a win-win for both parties.

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

> 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-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 :)

Re: Google offering free Chromebooks to Indian schools

#32

Post by agumonkey »

patrickaljord wrote: post #29
agumonkey wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With everything javascript, a browser can get you quite far. You have : - repl for a handful of languages from javascript to haskell with lisps in between. - jsfiddle to learn ~basic client-side webdev. - canvas/webgl to learn ~basic graphic programming. - if you dig deep enough you have VPRI OMeta for parser/metaprogramming. - if you're not in a hurry you can even learn ~basic unix (busybox, gcc 4.3) on Fabrice Bell…

If you install crouton, you can learn prolog or anything or if you just hit Ctrl+Alt+T you already have access to bash and chroot into any linux distro or ssh to a cheap vm.

I know, I said that as a snarky conclusion. It's just that you really don't need a full OS in these days of 'everything in the browser' to learn. I say to learn, because web-based everything is often a little bit too slow and resource consuming as of now, but to learn you don't need snap fast interfaces and interpreters.

Re: Google offering free Chromebooks to Indian schools

#33

Post by aufreak3 »

rwbt wrote: post #3

I commend Google for it, but my inner voice is somewhat skeptical that this is a great way to get kids hooked on Google's services. Then again, having a Chromebook is way better than some crappy linux machine/cheap windows laptop. So I think its a win-win for both parties.

Is it possible to install regular Ubuntu or something on a Chromebook? I'd absolutely hate to see kids use computers whose operation they do not control.

Re: Google offering free Chromebooks to Indian schools

#35

Post by eitally »

pavanred wrote: post #21
rwbt wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends. A regular laptop can do more things, but most of the time students just need a laptop to research and write articles and the Chromebook does that very well, without exposing the internals of a traditional desktop system. If I'm a college student, I really don't want to deal with OS upgrades, malware and other things. I just want something that works out of the box and Chromebook does that perfectly. If I…

Say you use Windows, 1. Turn on automatic updates (default option, I think) 2. Use something like MS Security essentials And, if you use Linux, 1. Update regularly, again I guess most distros have a default option to check for updates on boot. And, you don't need to upgrade your OS unless you want/have to. How much more do you want to dumb it down? For basic use as you mentioned, to research and write articles, you a…

ChromeOS is dumbed down so much more than that, insofar as nothing ever breaks, update reboots only take a few (I know this is an aside, but one of the things that irritates me most about the modern web, and Google's "solution" especially, is photo management. Picasa on the desktop is simplistic but generally 100% ok, but Google+ Photos leads to horrifically unpleasant workflows, and god help you if you want print anything or share on non-Google properties.

Re: Google offering free Chromebooks to Indian schools

#37

Post by louthy »

rational_indian wrote: post #13
salient wrote: post #7

This deal was probably made pre-Snowden revelations. I doubt any of the world's governments are so eager to deploy US-controlled machines in their institutions and schools, especially if they are "cloud-only".

But it's free!!!

So was the Trojan Horse.

Re: Google offering free Chromebooks to Indian schools

#38

Post by winterswift »

I see there's a mini-shitstorm going on here, but let's say Google is in fact a business acting in its own self-interest to some degree, which seems reasonable. Let's say they're giving away Chromebooks because a) they wish to do good in the world, and b) they'd like to get more people using Google services, and this seems like a rather effective method of gaining long-term users. Now, ignoring the fact that you can indeed use crouton, enable dev mode, or otherwise "hack the platform" so to speak, where's the actual issue in having these kids using Google services? Google's offering them free computers. Does we honestly think that a poor kid in India wouldn't eagerly give written consent to become a user of Google's services, letting Google benefit from that as they do from any similar user, especially when they're not being forced in any way whatsoever to continue doing so in the future?

I'm a goddamn middle-class American, I believe I have a reasonable knowledge of what Google will get out of this deal (as they do every day from my heavy usage of their services), and I would accept the free computer. Even at that, poor kids without regular access to the internet aren't your average highly tech-literate, open-source-aware HN user, and I really doubt they care about Google's relatively responsible* use of collected information in exchange for a rather nice free netbook, even if they were fully aware of its implications.

*Sure, I understand this is an arguable definition, but in the larger scheme of things, it seems fair to say that Google doesn't have a malicious use of the data in mind.

Re: Google offering free Chromebooks to Indian schools

#39

Post by eru »

Teapot wrote: post #27
eru wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It already comes with a Linux. You might want to put a different flavour of Linux on it, if you care enough. It's pretty easy, at least if you are willing to boot from external media.

Hopefully the kids learns exactly this. How to get rid of the Google lock-in, and installs something that unlocks the full potential of the hardware.

Google actually has lots of documentation on how to do that.

Re: Google offering free Chromebooks to Indian schools

#40

Post by diadara »

winterswift wrote: post #38

I see there's a mini-shitstorm going on here, but let's say Google is in fact a business acting in its own self-interest to some degree, which seems reasonable. Let's say they're giving away Chromebooks because a) they wish to do good in the world, and b) they'd like to get more people using Google services, and this seems like a rather effective method of gaining long-term users. Now, ignoring the fact that you can…

I love quoting RMS. "What schools should refuse to do is teach dependence. Those corporations offer free samples to schools for the same reason tobacco companies distribute free cigarettes to minors: to get children addicted. They will not give discounts to these students once they've grown up and graduated."

Surely this applies only if you consider chromebooks as free and this not true atleast by RMS standards.

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