Thousands of Chromebooks Are 'Expiring,' Forcing Schools to Toss Them Out:
As thin, light, and inexpensive as Chromebooks can be, they come with a major caveat: short life expectancies. Chromebooks aren't just a little flimsier than the average laptop—they're shipped with software "death dates" that render them useless three to six years after release. And because schools are some of Chromebooks' biggest customers, they're now swamped with bricked hardware.
The Chromebook crisis is apparent at northern California's Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), where thousands of laptops have reportedly stopped working. Sam Berg, the district's computer science coordinator, told Silicon Valley's Mercury News that while Oakland students can gain tech repair experience through an OUSD internship, the expired Chromebooks simply aren't fixable. "They're designed to be disposable," Berg said.
The district was forced to replace 3,851 laptops last year after the Chromebooks reached their built-in death dates. Over the next five years, that number will skyrocket to 40,000 as more than 60 Chromebook models expire. The district's tech internship for teenagers will attempt to salvage as much hardware as possible, but most will need to be recycled.
Google told OUSD the baked-in death dates are necessary for security and compatibility purposes. As Google continues to iterate on its Chromebook software, older devices supposedly can't handle the updates. But this illustrates a particularly contentious issue in modern technology: planned obsolescence. From smartphones and computers to printers and even kitchen appliances, consumers have learned to purchase things with the knowledge that they'll need to be replaced in just a few years. Not only is this expensive, but it produces a shocking amount of e-waste, less than a quarter of which is recycled.
Also submitted as: Built-in software 'death dates' are sending thousands of schools' Chromebooks to the recycling bin
(Score: 4, Insightful) by shrewdsheep on Thursday July 27 2023, @10:39AM
after expiration, please have the Chromebooks refuse to boot, unlock the bootloader and print out the following message: "This crapware has taken a dump beyond repair. Please install a better OS (which you should have done to begin with)."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mth on Thursday July 27 2023, @10:42AM (31 children)
It's not feasible to support old hardware forever and connecting devices that receive no security updates to the internet is a bad idea. So some form of obsolescence is unavoidable, I think. And in that case, it's better to plan it than to have it come at an unpredictable moment.
The real issue, in my opinion, is not that devices become unsupported at some point in time, but that it happens at a time when the hardware is still expected to be usable.
In terms of specs, much computing hardware is still usable after 10 years, but I assume that wear on laptops used by children will be a more limiting factor. Still, with a solid build and not too much abuse, the hardware should last longer than 3 years (the lower end of the 3-6 years cycle mentioned in the summary).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday July 27 2023, @10:49AM (9 children)
The "it's slow as molasses, nobody wants to use it anymore" obsolescence is fine. The equivalent of "Your car has driven 100,000 miles, therefor we the manufacturer are preventing it from starting, and if you try to install something to fix your own car from the brokenness we intentionally designed into it we'll sue you" isn't.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by mth on Thursday July 27 2023, @12:02PM (6 children)
As far as I know, the laptops don't literally stop working, they just stop receiving updates and probably school policies declare them unusable as a result. In that case, the car analogy would be the manufacturer refusing to do repairs for models after a certain number of years, but you could still seek repairs from other parties.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Lester on Thursday July 27 2023, @12:22PM (5 children)
> As far as I know, the laptops don't literally stop working, they just stop receiving updates
>> they're now swamped with bricked hardware
As far as I understand they have stopped working.
(Score: 5, Informative) by VLM on Thursday July 27 2023, @01:53PM (1 child)
I own an old chromebook from the 10s. One of the first higher def ones (some old chromebooks had absolute shit displays, like 640x480 or maybe 800x600). The don't stop working. You get a nagware alert half a year ahead and then one day updates just stop and you get a final nagware alert and thats it.
For "internal use only" type stuff they're fine, just don't use it on the internet. If you have an Apache Guacamole server set up locally or over a VPN, the browser on chromebooks works great accessing it, and now you have a near perfect rdesktop / ssh / vnc client. That's about 99% of what I ever used it for anyway. The mushboard keyboard is kind of meh but I find it too useful to toss out.
AFAIK the "install linux on your chromebook" functionality still works, it worked last time I tried it years ago, so eventually I'll turn it into a completely up-to-date linux laptop. Thats a lot of work compared to "webbrowse"
My chromebook has android app support. Note that traditionally Android firmware never gets updates past delivery date, although the apps should be updated in perpetuity. I don't use that functionality right now.
Not bad for something like $300 back in the 10s. Battery life is still awesome, at least for now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2023, @04:20PM
>>For "internal use only" type stuff they're fine, just don't use it on the internet.
Chromebook. Don't use it on the internet. Giggity.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GloomMower on Thursday July 27 2023, @06:10PM
>>> they're now swamped with bricked hardware
> As far as I understand they have stopped working.
The article is exaggerating. It is "bricked" in their eyes only because it is no longer supported by Google. This is include using it with their Google's management software, which the schools care about because you specify which apps, websites, etc the student is allowed to goto or use. A computer is of no use to the school if it can't prevent the student from doing cool stuff with it.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Dr Spin on Thursday July 27 2023, @06:42PM (1 child)
I thought America had RICO laws to deal with the "Nice laptop you have there, but we have killed it to make you buy a new one" sales tactic?
Or is Google run by the ghost of Al Capone?
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 3, Touché) by mcgrew on Friday July 28 2023, @12:25AM
Nice campaign ya got there, Senator, shame if anything was ta happen to it. Like, say, instead of you and your opponent each getting fifty mil in campaign candy, he gets a hundred instead?
RICO?
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday July 28 2023, @12:21AM (1 child)
When I worked for Disney, a guy I worked with said he had worked at GE as a quality control inspector. He said they fired him for letting light bulbs through quality control that lasted too long.
Note, this was in the age of incandescents, 1980-1985. Now planning the evil is even easier.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Friday July 28 2023, @02:34AM
"Technology Connections" has a good video on that topic.
Basically there's an inverse relationship between the amount of light emitted by a given filament and the filament longevity. So a light bulb that "lasts too long" will be dimmer than spec.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Nuke on Thursday July 27 2023, @11:59AM (1 child)
No-one has "supported" my hardware for years but that hasn't stopping it working. Whether that means it must be tossed into a hole in the ground (where most will end up despite all the "recycle" mantra) should be the user's decision. The issue here is who owns the thing.
(Score: 4, Informative) by mth on Thursday July 27 2023, @12:07PM
I fully agree with you, but as far as I know, what is happening is the schools deciding that this hardware has become unusable because it's no longer supported, not the laptops bricking themselves.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Thursday July 27 2023, @01:22PM (6 children)
That's mostly only true if you do anything that matters on your computer. Especially anything with finances, etc. If it's just being used to play solitaire and browse the web (and there's nothing else of significance on your network), what does it really matter if every criminal on the planet knows what you're doing?
And given that updates won't do anything to protect against myriads of scammers and spyware out there, never doing anything financial on your computer is good advice for the computer illiterate to begin with.
But, given that the primary target audience is the computer illiterate, and most will probably at least be using it to pay for a Netflix subscription or something, AND, most importantly, that you can install an independent Linux distro to "resurrect" it? I'm inclined to agree. Mostly. I'd be vehemently opposed if it was a hardware lock though.
It does seem like there should at the very least be a requirement to put a big "Will expire in 20XX" label on the package/online ad to ensure customers can make an informed purchasing decisions. Preferably something legally binding that entitles you to at *least* a full refund if it expires (or stops getting updates) before the guaranteed support period is over.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Thursday July 27 2023, @01:57PM (5 children)
Mostly the problem as mentioned is schools.
Two problems school admin does NOT want to get in the middle of:
1) Our support contract with SaaS "edutainment" vendor does not support last year's whatever so you're still paying but on your own
2) The district has a legal obligation to provide education to K12 kids and if there is any error message or excuse the kids will "the chromebook ate my homework" plus maybe legal stuff not providing a functional educational environment, just like refusing to buy textbooks or pay for running water.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday July 28 2023, @03:42PM (4 children)
Good points - and good reasons to
1) Get a guarantee of an acceptable minimum supported duration before purchasing any hardware or software in your stack.
2) Avoid purchasing anything that will require you to buy new stuff more frequently than your budget comfortably allows
Though I will say that schools and businesses alike are usually very familiar with running software on unsupported older hardware/OSes rather than spending a huge amount to replace their entire existing infrastructure.
If you're giving/loaning students hardware to take home there is definitely an incentive to get cheap disposable hardware to make replace the inevitable loss/theft/damage.
But before doing so you really need to consider that 100% of disposable hardware will have to be replaced within a few years, and you're going to need a pretty outrageous expected yearly attrition rate to keep the average yearly expense from being much more expensive than just buying better hardware up front.
It's downright shameful that Google markets chromebooks as laptops, without making very clear that they have severely limited life spans, unlike every "real" laptop sold in the last 40 years, most of which are still running fine if not physically damaged. Maybe not supporting the latest software, but they keep doing what they were bought for almost indefinitely.
Heck, a decent laptop from 19 years ago (when the move to 64-bit started gaining steam) will still run virtually all modern software just fine. Maybe a little slow for really demanding stuff, but aside from 3D games most people would barely notice most of the time.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday July 28 2023, @04:09PM (3 children)
All true points. I'd add to:
My kids school district does rolling upgrades, so they toss out the old ones anyway, and being (ab)used by kids, they're pretty trashed in general by the time they age out.
Sure I can keep a laptop and use it for a decade, and you probably can, but kids... well...
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday July 28 2023, @06:47PM (2 children)
And how long would that be? If the average laptop only survives a couple years, then yeah, cheap Chromebooks *might* be a sensible alternative (keeping in mind their construction tends to suck too, so they will probably have to be replaced even sooner)
But that's probably not the case here, or they wouldn't care that the Chromebooks are being mass-disabled while still working fine.
And that's pretty consistent with my own experiences - even young children can take reasonably good care of a computer if it's expected of them. They may look like death warmed over after a while, but as long as they aren't frequently dropped large distances (which is aided by children's hands not usually being far from the ground) they mostly still work okay. The single biggest threat is probably spilled beverages - and that can be made mostly a non-issue for a couple bucks by putting a membrane skin on the keyboard.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday July 28 2023, @07:26PM (1 child)
My understanding from talking to my kids about their friend's dead school district ipads and school district chromebooks is the primary killer of hardware is too much heavy junk in the backpack, with traditional dropping being a close second. A distant third is rain. "Oh its raining just walk home after practice" and you need a new device.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday July 31 2023, @02:10PM
> "Oh its raining just walk home after practice" and you need a new device.
Seriously? In an age where practically everyone of all ages has a cell phone, is "has keep a plastic bag handy in case of rain" really gone out of style?
Shoot, I'm rarely more than arm's reach from a couple shopping bags tucked into an odd corner as emergency rain protection/gloves/collection bags.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday July 27 2023, @01:55PM (11 children)
They don't have to support it forever.
When they stop supporting it, they could unlock it, making it very easy for the legitimate owner, who actually purchased it with real money, to support it by themselves. There is no good reason to turn it in to a brick.
They can make is so that their original OS allows you to see that it is trusted execution, and that an unsigned unsupported OS is not. However there is no reason to make it difficult to install an alternate OS to continue to get useful life out of the hardware.
They do this simply because nobody is stopping them from doing it.
We have a right to peacefully assemble, but we don't have a right to repair.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Thursday July 27 2023, @02:02PM (5 children)
I own a chromebook that can run linux, with Google support. Admittedly not all can. I can cut and paste the installation instructions from google.com which worked last time I tried it:
1. On your Chromebook, at the bottom right, select the time.
2. Select Settings Advanced. Developers.
3. Next to "Linux development environment," select Turn On.
4. Follow the on-screen instructions. Setup can take 10 minutes or more.
5. A terminal window opens.
No jailbreaking or hard core hacking or whatever required.
Note from the article the school district can and will lock that down to prevent kids from being kids, but the district can unlock that trivially or the enduser can "powerwash" the device which wipes all config and its pretty much new-in-box. I have never powerwashed a school district chromebook so there MIGHT be more to it, or maybe not.
There is the alternative "crouton" process which is a longer story, but its not that much more elaborate (type in one line on the chromebook's shell)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday July 27 2023, @02:25PM
My nice Pixelbook is now over five years old and still working.
Almost immediately when I got it, I followed the Crouton route and stayed with that for years.
I anxiously watched the development of the Linux beta, and even tried it -- along side still having Crouton.
After the Linux because a supported feature, I decided to take the plunge and powerwash the machine back to non-developer (eg trusted) mode and go with the officially supported Linux.
Here are my opinions or observations on the pros and cons of each:
My opinion: I wish the officially supported Linux could give you a desktop GUI (of your choice) within a single window.
I've made a number of attempts to do this by launching an X within X session in officially supported Linux and then run apps within it. The latest attempts are somewhat successful but there are still problems with this approach that I don't have time to try to work out.
I now use only the officially supported Linux on Chrome OS the way it was intended, and am mostly happy with it. It's not my first choice of how it should work, but it works well enough.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 3, Informative) by GloomMower on Thursday July 27 2023, @06:29PM
Those instructions run linux in a virtual machine. Several chromebooks you can actually overwrite chromeos and actually install full blown linux on it. Sometimes that means rewriting the booting firmware which can take some effort.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday July 28 2023, @06:50PM (2 children)
None of which does you any good when the OS disables itself.
As others point out you MAY be able to completely replace the OS - but that also probably means breaking compatibility with most/all of your existing software ecosystem (not such a big deal for individual users, but potentially a deal breaker for an organization).
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday July 28 2023, @07:24PM (1 child)
Do you actually own a chromebook that has done that?
AFAIK that's never happened in the history of the brand...
There's a big difference between "we've shipped our last security patch" and remotely bricking hardware.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday July 31 2023, @01:47PM
No, I have never owned a Chromebook, for reasons I've outlined in other comments, I'm just going by the summary.
It doesn't really make much difference though - Whether the OS is actually bricked, or just can't be used because the context demands regular security updates, running a guest OS inside it doesn't fix anything.
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Thursday July 27 2023, @06:45PM (4 children)
When they stop supporting it, they could be forced to unlock it,
Preferably under threat of getting the bill for extinguishing fires in land-fill sites caused by non-removable Lithium batteries
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday July 27 2023, @07:03PM (3 children)
Are fires in land fill sites a bad thing?
(asking for a friend)
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Immerman on Friday July 28 2023, @05:51PM (2 children)
I think you're being sarcastic, but just in case:
Definitely yes.
Landfills are typically designed to contain large quantities chemicals in a (reasonably) safe manner.
Fires not only put some of those chemicals into the air, they generate a lot more through the burning of plastics, etc. that are minimally toxic themselves, but generate toxic fumes when burned.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Immerman on Friday July 28 2023, @05:53PM
...they can also potentially breach the containment layers, allowing all those previously-contained toxic chemicals to leech into the groundwater.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday July 28 2023, @06:39PM
I was definitely being sarcastic.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday July 27 2023, @10:46AM (2 children)
If some tech-minded people in the Bay Area were looking to make a useful contribution to the world, figuring out how to make these obsolete Chromebooks into something useful again might be a good use of your time. My instincts are that there's some way of interacting with these things that's probably not in the manual and the school tech people haven't thought to try that would allow you to turn them into, say, a non-walled-garden Linux box. And if we're fishing them out of the trash, there's very little to lose except time.
Unless, of course, Google's figured out some sort of legal chicanery that allows them to sue people who are tinkering with their own computers. Which sadly wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2023, @06:40PM
There was a Texas nonprofit (Reglue) which did this sort of thing, refurbishing donated computers in order to give them for free to disadvantaged youth.
Sadly, it seems that Reglue's operations did not continue after founder Ken Starks' retirement.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday July 28 2023, @06:14PM
Unfortunately that's a lot easier said than done.
I mean, it's easy enough from a technical perspective. At least for those Chromebooks that haven't been locked down so they can ONLY run an official Google OS (sadly it seems that's a shrinking percentage).
The real challenge is making it work from a financial perspective. And that's hard. Especially since Chromebooks primarily target the "just barely good enough" budget end of the market.
Many (most?) hardware sells for $100-$200 when new.
While at an absolute minimum, refurbishing requires thorough testing (we'll assume everything not in 100% working condition just gets thrown away so there's no repairs required), physical cleaning, and installation of an appropriate OS.
Trying to do all that work, reliably, for cheaply enough that it can be sold for enough to pay for labor is tricky. Especially when you consider that the hardware was just barely good enough years ago, and that the battery is probably near the end of its life, so you're either selling it as a "plugged-in only" device, or adding another $25-$50 dollars in parts and labor to replace it.
All of which means your project probably needs to be heavily subsidized just to pay the bills, much less turn a profit. Even if you can somehow manage to get your hands on the old hardware for free.
It's one of those things that a tech-savvy person who doesn't value their own time highly can easily do for themselves, or on a volunteer basis, but as soon as you add economics to the mix it gets a LOT harder to justify. And to do *anything* at scale, you pretty much have to make it work financially first.
I ran into similar situations fixing "real" computers - where if you're being honest you have to warn your potential customer that the repairs will cost a sizable portion of a new, much more capable device, and are they really sure they want to pay to fix it?
(Score: 5, Informative) by PiMuNu on Thursday July 27 2023, @10:49AM (7 children)
I believe the article is misleading. It is entirely possible to install a new OS on the chromebook, it does not brick itself as implied heavily in the article but rather ChromeOS only support the OS for 5 years (not unreasonable and similar to many linux distros)
https://www.howtogeek.com/210817/how-to-enable-developer-mode-on-your-chromebook/ [howtogeek.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by PiMuNu on Thursday July 27 2023, @10:54AM (2 children)
> many linux distros
many *other* linux distros - ChromeOS is a linux distro.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday July 27 2023, @11:22AM (1 child)
ChromeOS is a Linux distro the same way a vampire is a variant of a human being.
(Score: 3, Funny) by BsAtHome on Thursday July 27 2023, @02:59PM
And vampires do not exist. Vampires are compared as equals to ChromeOS. Therefore, ChromeOS does not exist. QED.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Thursday July 27 2023, @12:07PM (3 children)
FTFA :
But PiMuNu said :
So, seriously, these laptops have not stopped working? So why are the schools dumping them, are they really that snowflaky? The Linux distro I'm using now is out of support and it's still working, as is the copy of Windows XP I keep in a VM for certain purposes.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by helel on Thursday July 27 2023, @12:41PM
It's fine as an individual to run insecure software. An organization with tens of thousands of machines cannot afford that kind of security risk.
(Score: 2) by GloomMower on Thursday July 27 2023, @08:49PM
Without working google management software, they can't remotely spy, add apps, or setup rules to prevent students from doing cool things with it. Often there is a standardized test the student has to do, and the test app only supports certain number of older versions of chrome os.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday July 28 2023, @06:32PM
It sounds to me like the *hardware* is not bricked - but the operating system is. And a whole lot of chromebooks are locked down so it's all but impossible to install anything other than official release of ChromeOS - in which case the hardware may as well be bricked, even if the "update me now" software technically still works and just has nothing to do.
But, assuming they're not locked down, yes, the school could indeed install Linux on them instead, assuming they also have a tech-savvy army to do the work. (And from the work I've done at schools, the IT department is often... anemic.
Unfortunately, even then they still have a bunch of underpowered Linux laptops that probably can't run most/any of the ChromeOS software ecosystem they invested in, so they're not actually much better off than they were.
Which is the basic reason why I advise everyone to stay away from Chromebooks. Unless you're just looking for a internet portal you plan to throw away in a couple years, you'll be MUCH better off paying a bit more for a bottom-of-the-barrel "real" laptop. Chromebooks just end up being one of the most expensive and least capable options available.
Unless you're tech savvy enough to know exactly what you're getting, and how to make it work for you - in which case there are lots of niches they can be good for.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday July 27 2023, @11:09AM (1 child)
Those are Google products. What did they expect?
Taxpayers should demand to know who approved stupid purchases like this and that head roll.
(Score: 2) by gnuman on Thursday July 27 2023, @09:37PM
What, the elected school board, of course.
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday July 27 2023, @11:12AM (5 children)
and give them a second life? One might say, a real life...
They might even convince FOSS activists to do it on the cheap.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by canopic jug on Thursday July 27 2023, @11:39AM (3 children)
Yes, some of the older ones can be refitted with a normal GNU/Linux distro [mrchromebox.tech]. However, some can't. The newer ones mostly can't.
In the really old ones you can even swap out the tiny pre-installed SSD for one of a more appropriate size. The newer Chromebooks (IIRC 2017+) have them soldered in because of that. Not surprisingly the soldered in SSDs burn out rather quickly after the kit's EOL anyway. Even with a working but tiny SSD, the schools or people that refurbish the Chromebooks to run a proper GNU/Linux will need their own proper infrastructure for file sharing and such, too, since there is not enough space for projects beyond a current working file or two.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday July 27 2023, @02:20PM (1 child)
Can you boot them from USB drive?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2023, @07:12PM
My older ARM chromebook (ASUS C201 "Veyron Speedy") can boot from usb or from a micro-SD card. I never bothered with the internal eMMC flash, just installed Gentoo on an SD card.
It works pretty well, although the battery went kaput several years ago. I use it as a network sound server. It kinda sucks as a laptop (keyboard is trash, and it wobbles a lot on the table while typing).
I did reflash the firmware, as I recall the only real benefit to this was to be able to disable the developer mode nag screen, maybe also to change the default boot device (this model's firmware is 100% free software). You have to open the case to remove the write protect screw but this was very easy to do.
(Score: 3, Informative) by epitaxial on Thursday July 27 2023, @03:19PM
My experience with Linux on a Chromebook that was only a few years old was not good. The drive was only 16gb and most distros take up a large chunk of that. Hardware support is sketchy at best. It booted but sound barely worked after doing all the required tweaks. Sleep worked about half the time. Sometimes the machine would wake up but the display would not. Hibernate mode drained the battery quickly and there was no real resolution for that.
Oh and the best part. To allow the bios to be flashed so you can install Linux natively you had to open the whole thing up, disconnect the battery, power up with the charger, run a command to allow write access, shut it down, reconnect the battery and put it all back together.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by anubi on Thursday July 27 2023, @11:44AM
If nothing else, use them for HMI panels or remote displays.
I have lots of old dogs around. The latest tricks are beyond them, but they still do their old tricks as good as they ever did.
I even still have old manual tools that will still work even if the internet and power grid goes down.
And seeing how my political leaders are assholing themselves to the rest of the world and kissing elite ass, there is gonna be payback. From all parties to this mess. I don't want to be the one holding a bunch of expiring technology. I want the old stuff that has no expiration date.
I note I still support stuff I did in DOS FutureNet Dash-2 thirty years ago. I have quite an array of 386SX motherboards I kept to run DOS based programs and Borland Turbo C++. I don't need eye candy; I need my processes controlled without having to involve only God knows how many permission granting entities, each of which wields monkey wrenches to toss into the works should I cut him out of the loop.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 27 2023, @11:21AM (1 child)
"Do no evil" unless there's profit in it. How many metric tons of crap are being recycled, due to a conscious decision to obsolete these things? There goes all of Google's street creds with the ecology crowd.
Surely someone will be smart enough to start installing some Linux distro. To hell with "support", just install something, and keep the hardware in service!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nuke on Thursday July 27 2023, @12:14PM
Probably not many, unless by the word "recycling" you are using the majority modern meaning of the word which is : "crushed with all the other crap and buried, or shredded and dumped in the sea".
(Score: 3, Informative) by RamiK on Thursday July 27 2023, @12:09PM (3 children)
https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366 [google.com]
Some of them support linux but the specs suck so bad they're not worth it.
compiling...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by isostatic on Thursday July 27 2023, @12:44PM (1 child)
Perhaps handy where you might otherwise use a raspberry pi?
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday July 27 2023, @02:25PM
You gave me an idea: I wonder how hard it would be to gut the Chromebook and put in a pi? Mostly would depend on the display interface.
(Score: 2) by tizan on Thursday July 27 2023, @10:40PM
It depends what you run on it...a light weight window manager will do fine...it is definitely more beefy that Raspberry hardware and people are doing plenty on these lightweight hardware with linux.
I run kde on an old chromebook with 4 GB ram...i changed the SSD from the 32GB to 256GB ...i do a lot of netflix watching on firefox on it...no problem.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Thursday July 27 2023, @12:12PM (1 child)
They'll be along with a special build if Windows any minute now! Won't they?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by GloomMower on Thursday July 27 2023, @06:22PM
Windows equivalent would be windows 11 SE. It is similar to chromeos in that it expects most of apps to be web based.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/windows-11-se [microsoft.com]
There was a company offering support for their version of their own build of chromeos to use on older computers or "expired" chromebooks in case you need the management tools. I seem to have a hard time finding them now, so maybe the went bust. Maybe it was "CloudReady" but seems google bought them and shut it down or turned it into chrome os flex.
Looks like you can install Chrome Flex on old "expired" chromebooks.
https://9to5google.com/2022/02/16/chrome-os-flex-chromebook-eol-aue/ [9to5google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Thursday July 27 2023, @02:10PM (1 child)
The real purpose of the article is a hit piece on Google because other laptop mfgrs purchase advertising but Google does not purchase ads for chromebooks.
This is exactly the same process that happens with every other piece of computing hardware after the OS is no longer supported. Pallets of perfectly good desktops that can't run W10 or W11 hit the e-waste forever. Apple does the same thing with powerpc hardware, for example.
The only reason this journalism article exists is Google isn't paying enough for advertisements.
Something similar happened with Toyota Priuses were selling really well without buying advertising and suddenly, for no apparent reason, a short term rash of unintended acceleration articles appears "out of nowhere". Unintended acceleration, purely coincidentally, never appears with vehicles where lots of advertising is purchased.
Likewise Chromebooks would never have an obsolescence "crisis" if Google would have purchased more advertising like a good laptop manufacturer.
(Score: 4, Touché) by GloomMower on Thursday July 27 2023, @02:42PM
Not just apple's powerpc hardware, all their hardware.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by GloomMower on Thursday July 27 2023, @03:29PM (1 child)
They are only bricked in the sense they get no updates, then still run. You can install a Linux disto on the chromebooks. Also there was a company that offers management and updates to expired chromebooks.
The schools just don't want to because they want official support from Google, and so consider it bricked.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Thursday July 27 2023, @10:49PM
Except from a corporate standpoint, that might as well be "bricked". Once any software / hardware set falls anywhere outside of its support matrix, that puts corporate at a high risk of spooky bad things youcantbetoosafethinkofthechildren happening. Trying to repurpose them, assuming it is possible, would cost time and money. So off to the dumpster with it to cover their own asses.