Not to mention Chromebooks essentially are open products. The entire source tree for the OS (minus a few proprietary twigs like the Widevine Encryption Module for DRM on Netflix) is a publically-accessible Git repository, and all Chromebooks allow the user to put them into a Developer Mode, which removes the low-level restrictions the system normally runs userspace in to ensure stability and security.
Contrasted with the largely-locked-down proprietary development of Mac OS, whose few open-source concessions were shuttered a decade ago, the notion of Chrome OS being somehow less legitimately hacker-friendly just seems plainly absurd.
> Not to mention Chromebooks essentially are open products.
The OS itself is pretty open. If I'm not mistaken though, if you put it into dev mode, you get a scary screen at every reboot, and an opportunity to hit space to re-enable OS verification, and apparently wipe out whatever modifications you've made to the system. In theory, actually rebooting the system should be a fairly rare event, but that's one of the reasons I haven't considered a Chromebook. I understand the security concerns, but if the hardware makes it difficult to do what I'd like, then whatever security they implement is moot anyhow, right?
Macs are basically the opposite; the OS itself is closed, but the hardware isn't difficult to install some other OS on. You've got options, because you aren't wedded to the software.
> I understand the security concerns, but if the hardware makes it difficult to do what I'd like, then whatever security they implement is moot anyhow, right?
"Difficult" as in a supported developer mode? Of course there is a way to reverse it otherwise they would have non-stop support calls from people who hit the button to see what it did and freaked out. The whole point of Chromebooks is that you can always get back to a usable state no matter what you do to it (even chuck it out the window, just log-in to a new one and you're 100% up and running).
I'm thinking about "ctrl-d" to boot, and the likelihood that my kid's going to eventually play with daddy's laptop and pound on the spacebar during reboot.
What I'd like: A Linux distro of my choice that boots as cleanly and directly as the original ChromeOS. A dual-boot to Windows would be nice too, although maybe at this point I could get by with a VM.
What I think a Chromebook would provide: The option for a Crouton install within ChromeOS or a dual-boot. I think that both options require developer mode. During boot, you get a fun little screen telling you to push the spacebar to "re-enable OS verification", which takes you into a system recovery process...or you press ctrl-d to boot the system as-is.
That all sounds like something that I can do, but it sounds like a step back in usability for me. And besides:
> Caution: Modifications you make to the system are not supported by Google, may cause hardware, software or security issues and may void warranty.
At least some Chromebooks allow to install a custom bootloader that does not show the scary warning through simple hardware tinkering like [1]. I think this is a good compromise from security perspective.
I appreciate the ingenuity involved, and I appreciate that it's possible on at least some of the hardware. It reminds me of the modifications necessary to replace a drive in the original Xbox.
If I was looking for a weekend project and a cheap machine at the moment, it might be fun to do. It also brings back memories of compiling new drivers to get some hardware working, haha. Likely, I could find similar hardware that doesn't take as much effort to get working the way I'd like.
Contrasted with the largely-locked-down proprietary development of Mac OS, whose few open-source concessions were shuttered a decade ago, the notion of Chrome OS being somehow less legitimately hacker-friendly just seems plainly absurd.