Stop Calling these “Chromebooks”

[Skipple]

1 minute ago, 99_U-238 said:

I don't know about you but university lecture recordings pile up, a lot

The point is that the entire purpose of these laptops its to store data in the cloud, not locally, and when you need additional space, purchase it from Google on a per month basis. 

[99_U-238]

Just now, Skipple said:

The point is that the entire purpose of these laptops its to store data in the cloud, not locally, and when you need additional space, purchase it from Google on a per month basis. 

That actually makes sense from their perspective. Good one, if only google didn't suck like a pump

[Uttamattamakin]

10 minutes ago, Skipple said:

I don't think this is anyone's argument, nor do I think it's in Google's best interest to drive their user base to Linux. 

However, what is likely to happen is that those "technically curious" young users, who start on ChromeOS, can, on their own volition, stumble their way into Linux package distribution. Google is giving those users the tools they need and that should be, unironically, praised.

Once the elementary school children who have a Chromebook try to use it for college work and beyond they will.  I have been showing or trying to show students that they can run Linux apps on their chromebooks for years.   Some have this strange "this feels wrong and I shouldn't have to do this" reaction which is puzzling.  Even so far as to complain to the dept chair about it.    (At the same time though I 've had students act strange about downloading educational software that is not on the app store.)  

 

As these people are forced, hopefully, forced to mature either in college or in work to use real software.  Real MS Office or Real Libre Office or Real Only office natively, locally they will have to learn that they can indeed run real software on the devices.   The working world will get their heads right.  It's BYOD as long as your device can run Outlook, Excel, Word, and Powerpoint full fat, full features.  

 

57 minutes ago, Kisai said:

I don't consider Android, ChromeOS or SteamOS to be "Linux" because out of the box they require proprietary software or hardware parts that can't be replicated on a vanilla whitebox computer. 

I agree with everything you have said above there.  The line of "can I install this on any vanilla computer I buy or build" is the difference between a GNU-Linux distro and ... lets call it a Linux variant.   A Linux variant might run on just one small set of things while real Linux can run on everything.  It might need to be recompiled but it can run on anything one would call a personal computer in the broad sense of the word. 

 

Inversely I'd define a personal computer VS a computing appliance (like a smart phone) by if I can run a random Linux distro on it.

 

A unified Linux UI/UX would be great.  In fact I would be in favor of the open source community if not agreeing on a single DE at least agreeing on a single default behavior for the DE.    Like something as simple as agreeing to have three icons on one side of the screen at all times.  Application menu, Web Browser, email , File manager.   Any DE can be made  to do that.    Then finally ditch X11 for Wayland.  This way new users will always see these icons in roughly that order from top to bottom no matter what. 

Unix had the same issue.... which is why all the variants got together and created CDE.    We need KDE and GNOME to get together and create such a thing for GNU Linux. 

[Tideroo]

4 hours ago, sub68 said:

I know most people will not like my take but hey I am someone that is a student and troubleshoots with these everyday

 

(I dont use one any more I use a macbook air from 2017 lol) while intouch with IT school around my area.

Background: my district lets you bring your own device from 6th grade. (the windows laptop I had back than sucked) they had 11in macbook airs (original education spec). still have macbooks for certain arts courses, lab computers lenovo desktops, but most are chromebooks.

 

The district has 23 IT techs within that around 8 sys admin and network admin around 9 are building technicians (district runs like 15 buildings) rest arent enough trained for running a server). This is the most for a district around me and still they are swamped with work that isnt chromebook related. higher more people for school IT, we wish, but education type is a very high turn over rate.

 

Google claims they dont track data, but not 3rd party apps.

Should there be a more security conscious service like google education? probably yeah but there isnt any polish ones on the market that would run without hitches and no with almost zero maintenance.

Another problem google doesnt support a device when its more than say 5 years old so at somepoint its just ewaste.

 

Schools get really good discounts on this like a device is like half off, but also get grants to further more it.

School dependent, but security operation of a average district sometimes they dont have the man power to run wifi services for it.

Yeah school has changed alot, like the TI83 changed the education sector so has chromebooks everything is a electronic.

Only like math is on paper.

Yeah? its still expensive as heck for a district to buy mass quantities comparble also chrome os doesnt need a lot to run.

100% agree aside from the "expensive" price tag, it's still worth it however especially when it's only used by students who need something cheap yet fast enough to do write stuff and do light web stuff. I installed Linux on my Chromebook (bought it myself, it wasn't required) as soon as I could because I wasn't happy with not knowing where my data was sent, being pretty much forced to become dependent of the Google ecosystem and I had that issue with all the third party apps as well (not including not being able to install actual linux apps which wasn't possible before from what I remember).

 

The only real downside to a chromebook is its storage space. Only 32GB for most machines, what the heck ? Every computer around that time when Chromebook launched had at least 250 or 500GB, often 1TB as well. It's what actually makes the Chromebook e-waste later on IMO. As soon as ChromeOS becomes useless to you, there is no viable alternative aside from techie guys who maybe will try to install Linux or Windows (if they're luck to have the 128GB variant) on it. Everyone else will be like "Welp it's like my old tablet, gotta grab a better one!" except that this tiny laptop is still more than capable enough for everything except mid/heavy games. Sadge.

[FlyingPotato_is_taken]

In the past people sad ChromeBooks where so much better because ARM is cheap. Now they are using Intel x86.

 

How is it that Windows laptops are so much worse at the same price??? 

[Tideroo]

6 minutes ago, FlyingPotato_is_taken said:

In the past people sad ChromeBooks where so much better because ARM is cheap. Now they are using Intel x86.

 

How is it that Windows laptops are so much worse at the same price??? 

I dunno anything about how it works behind the scenes but if they have to buy the windows license full price, it's 100$ less for good components /: While of course they still have to build something somehow powerful enough for a W10/W11 home edition filled with bloatware that will run 24/7, and  make some profit when selling it.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

14 hours ago, Skipple said:

Well, that's because converting a Chromebooks to another Linux distro or Windows isn't officially supported. Everything that Linus showed in this video is 100% supported and enabled by Google and the laptop manufacturers. 

yea. You can run other linux or windows, but that involves a uefi replacement and a bootloader unlock, usually removing a screw. Thatll probably void any warranty

[sub68]

14 minutes ago, Tideroo said:

The only real downside to a chromebook is its storage space.

its situation dependent, 90% percent of our documents is on google drive.

32gb gives you a ton when everything is clould based (ok games makes sense why its so full but we dont so...)

Or if your like me you keep a flash drive or external drive around with you.

I currently keep a SSD for editing until I can or want to expand my mac but.

[Tideroo]

30 minutes ago, Helpful Tech Witch said:

yea. You can run other linux or windows, but that involves a uefi replacement and a bootloader unlock, usually removing a screw. Thatll probably void any warranty

It pretty much voids the warranty on the spot yep and it's a bit "risky" too (just like installing a custom firmware on consoles that can handle one) but still, the "underground" community is really active and eager to give these little laptops a second life. There is a distro (GalliumOS) made solely for it and many guides and little programs to help you deal with that. A 10 second side note about it would have been nice, ever since Linus showed Chromebook I've always hoped he talked about it at least once, especially when IMO it helps with his "it's not e-waste !" point.

 

But in the end it's still a cool video, especially for students !

 

Edit : Just learned the distro in question (GalliumOS) stopped receiving updates in 2019 and got discontinued 2 years ago. FML for not being up to date with this stuff anymore.

[Issac Zachary]

Interesting video.

The funny thing is that it seems to me that everyone I know would probably be fine with a Chromebook (my wife, my kids, my mom, my coworkers, my pen pal, my neighbor, my dog, etc.) with one exception: me. Well, then again I don't know anyone who uses so much Windows only software as I do.

[Tideroo]

10 minutes ago, sub68 said:

its situation dependent, 90% percent of our documents is on google drive.

32gb gives you a ton when everything is clould based (ok games makes sense why its so full but we dont so...)

Or if your like me you keep a flash drive or external drive around with you.

I currently keep a SSD for editing until I can or want to expand my mac but.

It kinda defeats the point IMO, you should be able to use any laptop without having to plug USB keys or being connected to internet solely to use it to its full potential (especially when school never wants to share their wifi password for your own chromebook *cough* but that's a specific situation so not really a valid argument).

 

Unless you're at home, in school or in a public place, there's simply no guarantee you'll be able to access your files unless you always have a USB key laying around which then just wastes a USB slot. Again "petty" arguments but it's like having a car with a fuel tank as big as a jerrycan, for a few more $ (or less greediness) you could have had something so much better. 

 

Perhaps I'm just wrong and I only see the usage for a chromebook from a technical standpoint (and honestly not taking care of its cloud abilities, I avoid that like the plague) while most people would never care about it, but to me it's still a huge downside

 

 

[Skipple]

11 minutes ago, Tideroo said:

 you should be able to use any laptop without having to (....) [be] connected to internet solely to use it to its full potential

Then, simply, a Chromebook isn't for you. The entire operating system is predicated on the fact you are connected to the internet. 

[sub68]

6 minutes ago, Tideroo said:

It kinda defeats the point IMO, you should be able to use any laptop without having to plug USB keys or being connected to internet solely to use it to its full potential (especially when school never wants to share their wifi password for your own chromebook *cough* but that's a specific situation so not really a valid argument).

 

Unless you're at home, in school or in a public place, there's simply no guarantee you'll be able to access your files unless you always have a USB key laying around which then just wastes a USB slot. Again "petty" arguments but it's like having a car with a fuel tank as big as a jerrycan, for a few more $ (or less greediness) you could have had something so much better. 

 

Perhaps I'm just wrong and I only see the usage for a chromebook from a technical aspect (and honestly not taking care of its cloud abilities) while most people would never care about it, but to me it's still a huge downside

I see your problem.

Tbf when I edit I am stationary.

I feel your case is kinda a edge case, but its due to me working in a area with mostly people using cloud services. but yeah storage I feel is subjective on what you need. I own like 3tb in raw HDD for cold storage of photos. I have around a terabyte in my main machine. basically I separate my machine into what does what.

[FlyingPotato_is_taken]

52 minutes ago, Tideroo said:

t if they have to buy the windows license full price, it's 100$ less for good components

Licence cost are artificial. If Microsoft would want  they could drop the fee low enough for this device class that this wouldn't be an issue. 

[Tideroo]

3 minutes ago, Skipple said:

Then, simply, a Chromebook isn't for you. The entire operating system is predicated on the fact you are connected to the internet. 

Yea, that's the point I was bringing up. I bought it with the idea of installing a lightweight linux distro on it, if I was stuck with ChromeOS I would never have bought this laptop (that I honestly enjoy a lot) in the first place.

 

3 minutes ago, sub68 said:

I see your problem.

Tbf when I edit I am stationary.

I feel your case is kinda a edge case, but its due to me working in a area with mostly people using cloud services. but yeah storage I feel is subjective on what you need. I own like 3tb in raw HDD for cold storage of photos. I have around a terabyte in my main machine. basically I separate my machine into what does what.

 

Like Skipple said above, I've never really been the target consumer because of the cloud services that I simply never use. Chromebooks aren't very practical as a personal laptop IMO, but for a school or a company it definitely has its use (especially if they already use a lot of the feature google already offers). It's simply a case-by-case situation and yep it's ultimately very subjective as it depends on each user need. I never tried to discredit this, I just got a bit too biased with my personal preferences I think. Apologies for it !

 

[Tideroo]

24 minutes ago, FlyingPotato_is_taken said:

Licence cost are artificial. If Microsoft would want  they could drop the fee low enough for this device class that this wouldn't be an issue. 

True, but that's how they make most of their money as far as I know (edit : after checking, its ~10% of their revenue). It's always been like that for many years now, essentially forcing you to buy for something you may even never need in the first place.  I remember that video of Linux nerds being mad at Microsoft for not being able to get their money back if they bought a computer and didn't wanted Windows, it still holds up today IMO.

 

I don't know if people can refund it though, but we still get screwed up because of that in the end. Paying for Windows only if you install it instead of having the buy the whole package (computer+windows) would be a more fair solution, but it's a bit cumbersome for the consumer and Microsoft would never allow this anyway lol

[Kisai]

58 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

 

 

A unified Linux UI/UX would be great.  In fact I would be in favor of the open source community if not agreeing on a single DE at least agreeing on a single default behavior for the DE.    Like something as simple as agreeing to have three icons on one side of the screen at all times.  Application menu, Web Browser, email , File manager.   Any DE can be made  to do that.    Then finally ditch X11 for Wayland.  This way new users will always see these icons in roughly that order from top to bottom no matter what. 

Unix had the same issue.... which is why all the variants got together and created CDE.    We need KDE and GNOME to get together and create such a thing for GNU Linux. 

This was what always was a major turn off of using Linux GUI's. There is no cohesive design language between them. Yes, choice is nice, but the Not-Invented-Here'ness of every distro is absolutely infuriating.

 

I've used Linux since, oh Redhat version something in 1997, like version 4 or something. And back then it used to look like Windows 95, and at least when it looked like that, I knew where to expect things. Current Linux distros all want their own visual language and it's just kind of annoying and feels like the same kind of vendor lock-in crap we've been stuck with with Windows.

 

 

[dogwitch]

every person i know that had a chrome book or sold one(3 people at a walmart i know). most of the time said book has failed in less then 12 months.

[Uttamattamakin]

2 hours ago, Tideroo said:

The only real downside to a chromebook is its storage space. Only 32GB for most machines, what the heck ? 

I know exactly what you mean.  Looking around Best Buy at a Chromebook it is like they decided not to carry even one with more than 8 GB of ram or 32 GB storage space.  Want more HP can spec you out a Elite Dragonfly chromebook with an i7   512GB of storage, and 32 GB of RAM for 3200 ish.  

At that price I had better be able to run everything from every OS on it and game with an EGPU. 

 

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

This was what always was a major turn off of using Linux GUI's. There is no cohesive design language between them. Yes, choice is nice, but the Not-Invented-Here'ness of every distro is absolutely infuriating.

Right on target. 

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

I've used Linux since, oh Redhat version something in 1997, like version 4 or something. And back then it used to look like Windows 95, and at least when it looked like that, I knew where to expect things.

This is kinda why I liked KDE back in the day and use it to this day.  I know if I click the icon in lower left I'll get an app menu that makes sense.  If I want to change something I can.  While I get that Linux shouldn't just mimic the big OS's it should at least be internally consistent.  

 

As a fan of KDE I hate to say it but GNOME is almost that one consistent look, with KDE being second, and all others being distant also-rans.  Even with that though as you said every distro will have a different customized way to do so many things.  Very few just stick with the defaults of GNOME or KDE and want to put their stamp on those as well.   In particular how to install software.   

Maybe here we can borrow from Google and convince everyone to build a UI based on Chromium for GNU Linux.  Chromium OS more or less has done that for us.  Someone would just need to take the UI parts of it and transplant them to Linux. 

I admit the above is a bit of a stream of consciousness even more than usual from me.    I have just thought a lot about why GNU Linux fails as a desktop OS.  The problem is that it isn't just ONE thing.  Every distro, and UI are different.  Users and devs don't know what to expect from it.   So they just leave it to ubergeeks.

[Elijah Horner]

2 hours ago, FlyingPotato_is_taken said:

Licence cost are artificial. If Microsoft would want  they could drop the fee low enough for this device class that this wouldn't be an issue. 

Im on team Microsoft should make Windows free, kind of insane that it has a cost at all rn, especially cause you can keep upgrading and it has ads still baked in

 

[Middcore]

2 hours ago, FlyingPotato_is_taken said:

Licence cost are artificial. If Microsoft would want  they could drop the fee low enough for this device class that this wouldn't be an issue. 

 

HP, Dell, etc. are not paying Microsoft $100 a pop for licenses to put Windows on the PC's they manufacture. 

[Elijah Horner]

48 minutes ago, Middcore said:

 

HP, Dell, etc. are not paying Microsoft $100 a pop for licenses to put Windows on the PC's they manufacture. 

Just because they arnt, doesnt mean they dont charge a bit extra lmao. They are paying SOMETHING, where as it should just be free at this point

[Brian McKee]

1 hour ago, Elijah Horner said:

Im on team Microsoft should make Windows free, kind of insane that it has a cost at all rn, especially cause you can keep upgrading and it has ads still baked in

 

I mean I agree that it should be free if the end user is already the product. With the data they collect even on their paying customers they more than make up for license fees. This is why imo they don't really hound users anymore about keys and just put a little annoying watermark.

 

However I do think if one is paying it's unacceptable that ads are involved, which is why personally I've moved mainly to Linux.

 

As far as Chromebooks are involved, I'd be surprised if Google isn't taking some sort of loss on it to make sure they get a huge install base.

[Issac Zachary]

8 minutes ago, Elijah Horner said:

Just because they arnt, doesnt mean they dont charge a bit extra lmao. They are paying SOMETHING, where as it should just be free at this point

It may be cheaper, like $20 per computer. But it still is an extra charge.

 

But what really gets me is the cost for a personal license. Sure, you can get those OEM keys. But the last time I got one of those I had a bad CPU, and while the store changed the CPU, no problem, I no longer could use that OEM key. So I broke down and got a +$100 Windows key. Well that blew my computer budget.

 

It's things like that that make me loyal to no one company. They are all a pain. Microsoft, Google, Apple. I just go with what works best for me until something else comes out that's worth it in my opinion. Or, what is more likely to happpen, when what I had stopped working.

[noxtol]

i mostly just use them as an cheap way to read but they are still nnoying