I always loved the premise of the Chromebook: disposable device with a disposable OS; secure by default; your data is always backed up; if you have any doubts or problems you can always restore to the factory image and be back in action within minutes, etc.
I would love to see these principles implemented in a privacy-respecting manner: bring your own device, choose your identity provider (including self-hosted options that integrate with e.g. email or even plain old SSH), choose your storage backend (including other clouds but also e.g. Syncthing, SFTP...).
Immutable / secure-by-default OS would also be interesting, but nothing else out there is quite like ChromeOS. NixOS/Guix would be good candidates, but the underlying scaffolding is quite complex. Alpine & OpenBSD are both radically simpler, but lack the aspect of trivially reproducible builds. Then of course there's the question of providing a good UX on top of that base: I want to connect to Wifi, select the ID provider, type my username/password, and start working. That's an enormous gap to close.
A few UEFI firmwares support netboot from a URL over wifi.
With that, you could set up a special secret URL which you'd type in on system boot, and have your personal OS loaded for you, complete with your settings and data, on any machine.
The local hard drive could be used as an encrypted cache so that it's only slow the first time you boot up.
Sadly, support for wifi from UEFI is rare, and bugfree booting over the network is tricky to get working on a wide variety of hardware.
The URL wouldn't have to be secret. You should not be baking secrets into an OS image anyway. But this is a very cool idea! Just specify e.g. https://start.example.com as your boot URL to get to the installer; you can point the system at your personal data later.
macOS (at least on Intel) is able to download and start the installer from the Internet, straight from the UEFI environment - you just have to hold the right magic button combination. I've only done this once, but it felt like one of those ideas, "why isn't every computer in the world able to do this".
> I always loved the premise of the Chromebook: disposable device with a disposable OS; secure by default; your data is always backed up; if you have any doubts or problems you can always restore to the factory image and be back in action within minutes, etc.
As long as device can be reused, wiped completely and supplied with new OS etc. otherwise "disposable device" we should avoid at all cost as that is not green.
If it means crappy quality and unreparable, something that will last for a couple of years tops, I agree that is terrible.
It could also mean decent quality that will last, but is cheap enough that you won't worry too much about it being damaged or lost or stolen.
I love my Macbook, and my previous one is still going strong after 8 years, in the hands of a family member with lower need for computational power, but I hate carrying around a device so expensive. I don't dare eat near it, and I wince whenever my backpack bumps on something.
I miss the careless freedom of carrying around a cheap, crappy linux laptop.
Maybe we should use word "reusable" instead. It still carries those points, but does away with suggesting that device may be tossed to the bin once you are done with it:
> reusable device with a replaceable OS; secure by default; your data is always backed up; if you have any doubts or problems you can always restore to the factory image and be back in action within minutes, etc.
I have a nice stiff leather sleeve I bought when I had a Surface Pro 3, which now fits my M1 MacBook Air perfectly and does a more than adequate job of protecting it in my backpack. I eat around it all the time (but keep liquids well away.) I love this machine, but it's meant to be used, and by golly I don't baby it.
In this case (Linuxifying Chromebooks), it would be green because the supported Chromebooks are pretty ancient and available in large quantities from refurbishers.
> secure by default; your data is always backed up; if you have any doubts or problems you can always restore to the factory image
I found that Qubes OS provides all of that for me, without any reliance on megacorporations. All software runs in VMs, which are automatically backed up and can be restored to a state before reboot easily. VMs run Linux and Windows, so all apps are working as expected (except those relying on GPU). And the UI is great.
I coded on a chromebook throughout college. It was the crucible of learning software development in the mid-2010s because you had to improvise. Most assignments were in Java back then (from what I understand, colleges teach mostly python now) and I couldn't run eclipse (the standard IDE used in college at the time). I ended up renting a VPS from Vultr for $5/mo and SSH'ing in. I coded everything in vim with no debugger or code completion, and compiled everything with makefiles.
Classes usually only required a single java file to turn in your work, which was then compiled and run automatically with the results being verified by another program, so as long as your individual java file output the same results as what was expected, it didn't matter what build system (if any) you used.
The only other class that didn't use java was systems programming, where we did C. I had been doing C since I was 12 at that point, and since I was already using ubuntu server via ssh, it wasn't a difficult class at all for me.
For my OS final, we had to write an operating system simulator (a program which simulated the kind of events that would occur in an OS: new processes, processes being deleted, memory paging, single process multi-tasking with pre-emption). I didn't actually read the instructions and ended up writing a kind of hypervisor(?) which ran programs in an 8080 emulator with some of my own custom instructions for memory banking and forking to meet the requirements of the class (your program had to be able to do memory paging up to something like 512mb of RAM).
You had to have some kind of user interface, so I wrote it as a web server in C with a custom HTTP server implementation. The program returned an HTML page which looked like a desktop. You could spawn terminal windows and run specific programs. I wrote a few long-running programs which printed out numbers to demonstrate memory paging and process pre-emption. There was a special instruction I made to fork the program so you could clone a process from another process, and I used one of the unused flag register bits to signify which fork the program was.
The professor was impressed by the implementation (and I implemented all the algorithms required to get 10 points extra credit), but because I didn't actually write an OS simulator (closer to an actual OS, but not quite there), he gave me 100%, but no extra credit. I was happy with that, because I'm not a grade chaser.
Unfortunately, I failed the class because I couldn't answer trivia on the exam like "What does GRUB stand for" because I spent the whole semester working on the hypervisor and not actually going to any of the lectures. I just read the textbook and coded in C at the library.
Here's the very rough code, with a slightly buggy 8080 emulator implementation:
This is one of the most random, slightly off-topic, and absolutely amazing stories I've ever read in my life. So much of it rings familiar, down to (almost) failing the exam on trivia questions :)
BTW have a look at this blog post: <https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2023/faas-in-go-with-wasm-wasi...>. It uses a lot of off-the-shelf components like a WASM runtime instead of a custom 8080 emulator, and net/http rather than rolling your own HTTP server - but it's fascinating, how close your crazy project ended up from actually viable real-world use cases.
I'm using a Chromebook 100% of the time. It's a great experience. The primary limitation is that the dev environment is a bit quirky - it's not running directly on the virtual machine, instead it's in a container. This can lead to some weird stuff when you're trying to do other containery things or if you need to run a nested virtual machine.
I've created a script to set up an EC2 instance, rsync changes from my project directories over to it, and manage the instance state to save money. This pretty much solves any issues.
I really like a couple of things:
1. It is the only OS that "just works" for me. It's the only non-Windows that I can actually plug multiple monitors into and not have it flip out and freeze for minutes.
2. It keeps risky stuff (code development) isolated from sensitive stuff (web browsing). If I SSO in my web browse and install malware in my devbox I'm actually pretty safe.
3. I get to use debian, which works well for me.
4. It's the only OS that feels truly multiuser. I can `ctrl + alt + .` to switch desktops to a totally different user and users are completely isolated with distinctly encrypted directories so if one person is logged in and another isn't you can't just access their stuff. This worked really well when I was using ChromeOS for work since my work profile was very isolated from my personal environment - I could follow 'work profile' stuff like "only install these extensions" while doing whatever I wanted in my personal profile.
Basically it's everything I want in a laptop and nothing I don't want. The main limitation is the VM, but the limitations are sorta niche - I doubt many people need to run Firecracker.
> It's the only OS that feels truly multiuser. I can `ctrl + alt + .` to switch desktops to a totally different user
You can try, but you won't get Linux or Android subsystems.
I found out early on that if you have multiple logged-in users on a Chromebook, only the first one gets to run Linux/Android. Those apps will crash and fail silently for the other users.
Acer Support and Google Support were absolutely stumped by this, and they wanted me to RMA my device.
But no, it is a design limitation. (Note that article's 3 years old and it's still design-limited.)
Also, there are limitations around "Enterprise" controlled accounts. You can create them as a user without the device itself becoming "Enrolled", but be careful, because the first user you create on a Chromebook becomes the administrator forever (like an Android phone). So I had to Powerwash a couple of times after finding these things out.
> 1. It is the only OS that "just works" for me. It's the only non-Windows that I can actually plug multiple monitors into and not have it flip out and freeze for minutes.
This sums up my experience completely - I used linux for over a decade and finally got tired of the little annoyances that no desktop environments seemed to solve. ChromeOS wraps it all up (presumably because the hardware is known and the OS is built against that hardware). And then Crostini allows me to do all the fun full stack development things (like k8s, minikube, docker, etc.)
I pretty much agree. I'd only add that container stuff seems to work fine for me, including everything I've tried with docker and docker-compose, and I haven't felt the need to do anything on a remote instance. The only thing I haven't been able to get working locally (yet) is minikube, but I can live with that for now.
Same here, I'm happy Google Eve user since 2017 or was it 2018. The little beast has 16GB of RAM, and initially I was using crouton, but one crostini got better I switched to it. There are little things that are missing:
- No idea how to compile/link/load kernel modules. This is rarely needed, but can happen.
- No Vulkan support yet, OpenGL / ES seems to be fine.
Mmm.. that's pretty much it... And yes, Bonuses:
- Android!
- As posted above said - web browsing, NetFlix (DRM support)
And lately, since I've returned to the office and left my Windows machine at home while waiting for beefier at the office, started using Chrome Remote Desktop and that works super well with additional huge monitor and first time noticed how well the laptop also supports multiple monitors.
As last bonus: It can flip around and become an "iPad". Perfect when we were visiting our niece and I gave their 2 year old to watch youtube kinds on it.
I have only one real complaint:
- I can't find any newer chromebook laptop with 32GB of RAM (or even 16GB, apart from mine). Feel like 32GB is going to make it a lot better to use for development.
I tried using a Chromebook as my primary home machine (so browsing, plus remote access to my work Linux machine for work stuff like programming or fixing production issues, ansible, etc)... It worked great for 95% of things.
The remaining 5% were mostly small things EXCEPT for one: I'd occasionally like to do some video editing (cutting up work screen recordings, making youtube videos, family videos). And to solve that, I ended up getting my first Mac. It totally solves the video editing problem, even allowing me to make videos on a laptop rather than being tied to a desktop (the only previous option that even half-way worked).
One thing that really irks me about MacOS, that ChromeOS has down is updates: ChromeOS it takes <30s to do a full system update and be back in business. For MacOS, I can count on my machine being out of commission for an hour.
Yeah I think part of the problem is that ChromeOS relies on the Android SDK for apps. I'd rather Android provide a native SDK for apps that really require fine tuned performance - something like video editing is a good example.
Any chromebook that supports crostini will allow you to run linux (debian by default) and allow you to use many dev tools. I build node stuff all the time on chromeos. I have a Framework Chromebook.
Nope, I bought the Chromebook from Dell. I'd link it to you but they haven't sold it for a few years - it was the only option with 32GB of RAM. Now there's Framework laptops though.
Chromebooks, in general, require less RAM to operate than a PC or Mac. So don't overestimate the gobs of RAM you'll need. By the same token, it is much less common for vendors to build Chromebooks with large amounts of RAM. Mine is a cloud gaming machine!
I actually picked up a Pixelbook Go off ebay this week because I wanted a really nice quality laptop for Linux. Getting things figured out was kind of hellish (I'm working on a guide) but I was looking into Depthboot yesterday as a way to see if I could get audio working (the custom kernel seemed like it had better chances).
Ended up not working, as Depthboot requires you to build your own images and there's a problem where the builder gets stuck on the DE step (and also the github seems to imply the project might be getting sunset?)
In my experience, follow MrChromebox's firmware utility guide to set up UEFI firmware, use a recent kernel as they have good support for most chrome os devices, and for audio the absolute amazing https://github.com/WeirdTreeThing/chromebook-linux-audio solved like 3 days of headache for me with one script.
I'd highly recommend it. Picked up an i5/16GB/128GB config for ~$200 and it's hardware on par with my M1 Macbook Air, and the first x86 laptop I've owned with battery life to match, especially with Arch. Amazing value and I think my favorite linux device ever.
> (and also the github seems to imply the project might be getting sunset?)
It seems that the custom distro (similar to Asahi Linux for Macs with Apple Silicon) is the one being sunsetted, not this one
> EupneaOS (Discontinued)
> Some of you may have noticed EupneaOS has been removed from most pages, this is due to the development of EupneaOS being stopped. The sole focus will be on maintaining and improving Depthboot, for more information please checkout our Discord.
I was able to open the webpage yesterday. But today, now Jul 28 03:25 UTC time, it seems both the website and the github project (actually the whole namespace) were gone.
By enabling developer mode and running "sudo crossystem dev_boot_usb=1 dev_boot_signed_only=0" to allow booting alternative images. Then you can boot USB based images and they don't have to be signed.
chromebooks can boot from other sources in developer mode, pressing ctrl + u on startup brings up a generic SeaBIOS when certain flags are enabled from crosh
“The Depthboot base distros all allow image/iso/rootfs sharing, but only in an unmodified form. The Depthboot script customizes some internal distro behavior (for example it adds our eupnea packages) and thereby creates modified images. To allow modified images to be shared, all trademarked content would have to be removed, i.e. all Distro logos.”
They add some of their own sauce to each of the distros. (This you're allowed to do (and do very easily because it's free (as in freedom) software). What you're not allowed do is build an ISO of the result and distribute and still call it Arch or Pop!_OS or whatever (because … drumroll … it isn't any more). You can't expect Distro makers to be getting user support requests from users from custom versions of their distros that a 3rd-party made.
All this is obvious and perfectly reasonable when you think about it. And without free software it'd be difficult for a non mega-corp to create and maintain a project like this. So what you see as user hostile is actually users being allowed an able to try shiny new software on their proprietary hardware/software combo.
Their FAQ has a "why is distributing our images illegal" section.
Not sure why that would mean hating users, distributing modified software while keeping their trademarks is always a no-no, at least with Linux it's possible to just rebrand (which these guys don't want to do).
I guess they could ask to merge their stuff upstream and get away from these roundabout ways.
- Archlinux has clear trademark policies that allows you to distribute derived product as long as it is not done with a commercial intent.
- Ubuntu policies mention asking them for permission, I guess Eupnea just didn't bother.
- Debian trademark policy do not mention derived work, my wild guess is it would be allowed as they say you can use their trademark to promote debian and distributing a lightly modified version that works on more devices looks to me like promoting debian work. In doubt I would still ask.
- Pop!OS do not have a public trademark policy, so Eupnea would have to ask.
- Fedora trademark says you can do it if you are using their secondary mark: Fedora Remix. And they facilitiates this with the existence of 3 packages generic-logos, generic-release, and generic-release-notes that need to replace fedora-logos, fedora-release, and fedora-release-notes packages in your distro (you can also do your own derivatives). Not a huge deal.
So basically Eupnea is lying. They just don't want to bother. In 1 or 2 cases, it is clear that it can distribute it as is, in 2 cases it needs to ask permission before arguing it is or not possible and in the last case they can distribute it as is but need to advertise it differently (fedora remix instead of fedora and replacing 3 packages).
There needs to be a way to do this same thing with MediaTek and Snapdragon ARM-based Chromebooks. MediaTek and Qualcomm need to let their firmware and bootloaders allow ARM-based Linux distros to be installed on bare metal. Too many cheap Chromebooks that schools purchase use ARM-processors and get consigned to the e-cycle bin when they can continue to be useful low-end machines if only we could easily get pure Linux on them.
This is exciting. I was shocked to discover I could not change the OS on the Dell 3120 Chromebook I bought. Nor can I update the Chrome browser it includes to a version that understands HBO Max, which was why I bought it.
There's no problem changing the OS on your 3120. I have a bunch running Debian. As a sibling comment points out, the first step is to remove the write-protect screw. It's very easy to do.
“The Depthboot base distros all allow image/iso/rootfs sharing, but only in an unmodified form. The Depthboot script customizes some internal distro behavior (for example it adds our eupnea packages) and thereby creates modified images. To allow modified images to be shared, all trademarked content would have to be removed, i.e. all Distro logos.”
I had a chromebook which required you to open it up and flip a hardware switch to allow write access to the OS. Have to open it up and push the switch with a little screwdriver.
That's probably the best way to "lock down" a machine while also keeping it in use after the manufacturer decides that it's not worth their time to support. Lock it down for most people, but unlock it for those who know what they're doing.
I had a Asus Chromebox that did this and I actually always thought it was a good compromise. Still let me install my own OS with minimal hassle (case was well designed, screw was easy to get to), but normal users can get the security of a locked down bootloader.
My pixelbook is the same way. However, I custom made a debug cable so I wouldn't have to pull the battery out which often destroys it because of all the adhesives they use
Previously mentioned Depthboot from Eupnea Project (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36888598), while allows you to install Linux distributions on Chromebooks, requires user to generate modified images with custom kernels, which is harder to maintain than mainline/original distribution kernels.
Meanwhile Chrultrabook project is actively contributing to upstream projects, allowing for installation of Linux distributions from original images thanks to proper UEFI support with Coreboot - this makes it more future proof, despite more steps required for Coreboot installation.
I’ve been doing full stack web and mobile development on a Chromebook for about 18 months now. It’s actually the best developer experience I’ve ever had.
Everything is nicely sandboxed, things work well by default.
I probably spend about 50/50 of my development time either locally in the integrated Linux developer environment or remotely using GitHub Codespaces where I’m just using a PWA essentially as my IDE.
What’s the specs of your Chromebook? I’m thinking about buying one and sell the crappy tablet I almost never use. But I have the impression from reading the subreddit that 4GB isn’t enough to use Android apps on it. Also I’m not sure how to know if Linux container is available from random Chromebooks in local stores.
I owned a Pixelbook Go and it was good but it died after getting only slightly damp, wrecked the keyboard somehow. I can't imagine getting one today since at the same price point you can get the much much faster HP Dragonfly Pro. The only real drawback is the 14" HP is bigger and heavier than the 12" Pixelbooks.
Picked one up this week! It may seem like there aren't any resources online for it (I'm working on a guide) but it actually works great! Just use a recent kernel and https://github.com/WeirdTreeThing/chromebook-linux-audio for audio which works pretty great.
Hardware is amazing, arch flies on this thing and the battery life lasts forever.
Given the experience of using Android Studio on regular computers, and the hardware of most Chromebooks, that is most likely targeted for people that like to suffer.
I'm typing this on a Asus Spin 713. IMO, works great both for web browsing and other consumer-level tasks and for development and system administration. The Linux container image gives me a full command line, and pretty much everything works, including my usual Tmux+Neovim development environment. I've never felt the need to do any development on a remote VM or anything.
I've been using Linux and UNIX (Solaris, HP-UX) on my workstation since 1999. I did a 2 year experiment on using a (non-rooted) Chromebook as my only machine and it works fine for everything except the terrible window management, very basic UI, and occasionally having access to the system to debug peripherals.
I'm back on Linux using XFCE, and it's much better being able to set hotkeys to what I want.
I have a Samsung Chromebook Plus (v1/kevin). I was looking for something that wouldn't be too cumbersome to carry around with my work laptop during my 1hr commute and at roughly 1cm thick and 2lbs this machine fit the bill. I swapped the OS to ArchLinux ARM and used it as a light dev environment sticking to nvim+lsp.
These days I work from home and rarely use it - just for writing.
HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook. I don't use it for "light" programming, I just use it for anything. I picked this hardware because the display backlight is extremely bright and it can be used outdoors under any conditions.
just a note: the owner (?) of the project has gone on some sort of archiving spree, and has hacked (?) the discord and github accounts of the real owner...
One of the former main devs posted this on discord:
"Sooo here is a timeline:
1. WTT (the other core dev) left
2. I decided to also leave (see message in #announcements)
3. I gave the discord server, subreddit and github to QuantumChilliPepper
4. QuantumChilliPepper didnt really do anything, then went on a vacation, came back and went completely m.i.a. for over a month
5. Hackernews talks about eupnea
6. QuantumChilliPepper got compromised (at least eupnea email, github and discord)
7. Hacker deleted a lot of important channels and after messing a bit finally have back the server"
Somehow this doesn't work in my tiger lake chromebook. Actually it works, but the final "install-to-internal" script fails, it somehow gets stuck at the wipefs command.
Please forgive me for failing to get this idea across clearly, and I will try again, because I consider it an important one:
There are people in the world, many people, who do not have any access to either money or the ability to choose their computing device, and the only devices they have available to them, if they are lucky, are the ones which they have already been granted by the circumstances.
These people include, but are not limited to, people in disadvantaged financial situations, such as countries with low monetary flow; those living in abusive households, especially minors; those imprisoned or otherwise having their freedom restricted; those attached to a device for sentimental reasons; those who are able to exchange money for a device, as you suggest, and are waiting for it to arrive.
To the overwhelming majority of the world, 300 dollars, or even 20 dollars, is a huge sum, one that is either unattainable, or can only be attained through much struggle, difficulty, and sacrifice.
To an individual in such a situation, their Chromebook, or 10-year-old Android phone, or 20-year-old PC, may be the only option at accessing the digital world. And we should do everything in our power to facilitate their ability to use such a device.
I can’t argue with that. That is why I hope end of life chromebooks are not landfill. A good outcome is a container of them going to help poor people.
Prisons are an interesting one. The constraint is political not financial, at least for US prisons. Probably giving someone a access to a $1k computer requires $10k to feed the rent seekers inbetween. And that is if we even value not punishing prisoners beyond the fact they are inside anyway.
$500 Lenovo in North America, flips all the way open, had to swap the WiFI ($25), drop that trash RealTek and add Intel. Big SDD, 8 cores. Runs Gentoo+Xfce. Multi touch, webcam, all work a treat. I prefer it to a similar sized Chromebook ($400) cause it's got more power.
Things you get on a Chromebook that you don't get on a 300-euro laptop with Linux include: working multitouch input devices, working webcams, working suspend and resume, working audio, working wifi, and 7 years of software support.
> Because you can also buy a real PC pre-loaded with GNU/Linux for about the same price, around 300 euros.
In the US, decent Chromebooks usually go for about 200 USD. Decent meaning intel mainstream core processors. From what I've seen, those tend to be well supported by 3rd party firmwares; Intel Atom based Chromebooks seem to have a lot of delays in support, ARM based seem to be mostly unsupported, I don't know about AMD based. It's better to confirm the 3rd party firmware details before purchase, of course, but Intel mainstream core is a good rule of thumb; and it's a good rule of thumb for performance too (although current AMD is likely better if you know you can boot your OS of choice)
Gallium OS worked great... until it got abandoned.
Then, those seeking updates were stuck finding a distro that worked well, with available drivers, had to deal with the stupid keyboard and remapping the keys, etc.
A relative still uses an Asus C200 Chromebook. When GalliumOS was abandonned, we were able to successfully install Linux Mint. Mainline Linux now works correctly, we took some packages related to the keyboard from GalliumOS and pinned them. A bit annoying but workable.
The sound has always been capricious though, but it was also the case on GalliumOS.*
I think buying this machine was a good call at the time, almost 10 years ago. Very good battery life, lightweight, cheap and now we know, incredibly durable.
But I'm with you. It definitely was a maintenance burden and it's good that this relative is patient with the flaws that it exhibits, and its slowness.
Today, it would make more sense to just buy a refurbished pro laptop and put Linux on it and be done with it. It'll be as cheap, but the whole experience will be way better. That's what I do for me, and that's what we'll probably do with this relative when they or the machine gives up, which does not seem to want to happen. Good for the environment I guess.
If it's cheap (and shabby) enough to reason once in 3 years upgrade, that is no longer a problem. And that's exactly how long my Lenovo laptops tend to survive these days.
I would certainly never buy a new one, but there are tons of used Chromeboxes/books for sale on Ebay and elsewhere at very convenient prices. I've reflashed a good number of them and installed various Linux distros; this can be invaluable for people who need an unrestricted OS but have not much money to spend on a new PCs, beside repurposing hardware that could end up in a drawer or, worse, in a landfill.
For those interested, my method of choice is described at https://mrchromebox.tech/
It is not destructive, one can backup and restore the original firmware at any moment, although I wouldn't see any reason to do that.
I would love to see these principles implemented in a privacy-respecting manner: bring your own device, choose your identity provider (including self-hosted options that integrate with e.g. email or even plain old SSH), choose your storage backend (including other clouds but also e.g. Syncthing, SFTP...).
Immutable / secure-by-default OS would also be interesting, but nothing else out there is quite like ChromeOS. NixOS/Guix would be good candidates, but the underlying scaffolding is quite complex. Alpine & OpenBSD are both radically simpler, but lack the aspect of trivially reproducible builds. Then of course there's the question of providing a good UX on top of that base: I want to connect to Wifi, select the ID provider, type my username/password, and start working. That's an enormous gap to close.