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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Chromebooks are one of the most secure devices you can give a non-technical end user, and at a price point few can argue with, but that security comes with a privacy trade off: you have to trust Google, which is part of the NSA's Prism programme, with your data in the cloud.
Even those who put their faith in the company's rusty "don't be evil" mantra may find Chromebook functionality limiting—if you want more than Google services, Netflix, some other Web apps, and maybe the Android app store, then you're out of luck.
Geeky users willing to engage in some entry-level hackery, however, can install Linux on their Chromebook and unleash the Power of Torvalds™.
[...] Trying out Crouton is easy, and worth an evening's tinkering. Enter developer mode on your Chromebook, which for most users means holding down the Esc and Refresh keys while tapping the power button. Doing so will erase all local data on your Chromebook (in the unlikely event that you have any locally stored data on a cloud-focused device, granted). Hit Ctrl-D, Enter, and wait five minutes or so for the Chromebook to wipe.
Once in developer mode, your Chromebook will offer a warning message every time you boot-up that the device is now vulnerable. David Schneider, the Crouton maintainer, who works for Google but was unable to get permission to speak to Ars for this article, outlines the security trade offs on the Crouton wiki:
"Dev mode out of the box does several things that compromise security, including disabling verified boot, enabling VT2 [terminal], and activating passwordless root shell access. This means even without Crouton, if you're in dev mode, someone can switch to VT2, log in as root and add a keylogger that runs at startup, then switch back without you knowing. If you're logged in, they can also access the unencrypted contents of your Chrome profile and copy it elsewhere. If an exploit to Chrome is found, verified boot will no longer protect you from persistent compromises. Essentially, dev mode by default is less physically secure than a standard laptop running Linux."
You've been warned. Once in dev mode, enter your Wi-Fi password and accept the EULA, then select "Browse as Guest." Head on over to Schneider's GitHub repo and download Crouton, and follow the instructions.
There are a few more seemingly straightforward steps detailed in the article. Thinking of those in the community who might like to give it a try, who here has already converted a Chromebook to run Linux? Was it worth it? What hardware did you have? What 'gotchas' did you run into?
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday June 26 2017, @12:18PM (1 child)
Its not for legacy operators. The only thing I use windows for at my current employer is accessing web based applications. Last time I can recall a new legacy desktop application being used was around 2005 for a spectrum analyzer remote control. Maybe there's been something new in the desktop world since '05 but I don't think so. The winds of change were pretty clear by mid to late 90s.
My chromebook has a SSH client that has a UI that looks so weird it makes Putty almost look normal, but it works perfectly for console work. There's a VNC client that works awesome and I connect to a virtual machine of relatively immense specifications.
Even at home, I'm kinda moving away from my 15 or so year old mythtv system toward something more "emby media server" web based. I don't need an "emby client" it works fine from the web interface.
So it weighs nothing, costs next to nothing, does everything I could possibly want, battery runs 10 hours (depending on screen brightness) remind me again why I "need" to spend 10x as much on an apple laptop thats equally or less secure?
I played with the Crouton but its kind of a PITA and doesn't really have a point in that if I don't need extreme computing resources I can carry a rasp-pi in a (big) pocket. If I do need extreme computing resources without network access there are lunchbox sized nano- pico- whatevero- sized motherboards and cases. I don't live an area or lifestyle where I can't get network access where I need it, so most of the time its VPN back to home base and connect via SSH and/or VPN to truly immense resources.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 26 2017, @05:48PM
>remind me again why I "need" to spend 10x as much on an apple laptop
I just went to Starbucks to kill 20 minutes between appointments (my second time in a Starbucks in the last 6 years or so...) if you haven't mated yet, there's a common class of seeker out there who will pay more attention to you if you're showing the best bling in the room. The glowing apple in the lid was engineered for just such concerns. The Starbucks I was in only had about 3 laptops in evidence, most people were on cellphones (harder to differentiate from a distance), but at least one of the laptop lids was glowing fruitily, and the latte next to it stayed 1/3 drunk for the entire 20 minutes I was there, waiting for.... something.
🌻🌻 [google.com]