Built-in software ‘death dates’ are sending thousands of schools’ Chromebooks to the recycling bin
Built-in software ‘death dates’ are sending thousands of schools’ Chromebooks to the recycling bin
Doubling the lifespan of older Chromebooks would save California’s schools $225 million, according to advocacy group CALPIRG.
There are few things quite as emblematic of late stage capitalism than the concept of "planned obsolescence".
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All of these machines make for decent Linux laptops. I picked up an EOL Chromebook for $35 last year and installed Debian on it. Decent little machine. Not terribly fast but very useable.
These are Linux laptops. But yes, they'll work better if you put your preferred distro on them.
I turned one into an Emacs machine, it was £20 and I fucking love it. It's built like a tank too. It's a dell Chromebook 11.
some of those little machines are incredibly well built, it's a shame they go eol so quickly. Good to have Linux as an alternative OS
Good to know. Is it still a PITA to make the firmware let you change the OS?
Most modern ones it's just commands you have to run. You can usually find an easy walk-though on the MrChromebox website. I haven't seen one that required a jumper or anything in a LONG time.
Mine was really easy (dell chromebook 11), just followed the instructions and I had no problems. I have another chromebook with an amd chipset that I can't change the firmware on though (last time I checked), so if you're planning to buy one to convert make sure you actually can do it first.