Chromebooks are going to take over.

[@gavjlewis]

Picked up a cheap Chromebook that i honestly didn't need and thought i would use it for a few days and then it would get locked away and gather dust. I was so wrong. Its not a daily driver but it just sits on the coffee table and as soon as its needed its up and running in 5 seconds. The battery lasts longer than i can keep my eyes open in a day. Leave it on, no worries as soon as the screen goes to sleep it uses virtually zero power. It has a bright 1080p IPS panel and is plenty fast enough. Yes they keyboard isn't the best and neither is the trackpad and its all cheap plastic, but it cost £80 ($100). It also will get updates until 2030.

[@Gatorade69]

To be fair it's probably better than the eWaste HP laptop my stepdad bought in 2016. Windows updates can't run because the amount of eMMC storage on the laptop isn't enough. It should be illegal to sell products like that.

[@andreamichelezucchi8600]

@@Gatorade69 Agreed, that is close to criminal in how such devices are marketed and sold.

[@boothjop]

​@@Gatorade69Put Chrome OS Flex on it. This salvaged a 10 year old Mac Mini I had kicking around that had basically stopped useful.

[@Gatorade69]

@@boothjop Thanks for the recommendation. The keyboard on the laptop doesn't work on it anymore but it was one of those laptops that you could turn into tablet. I'm actually trying to build my stepdad/mom a new PC right now with my old spare parts, he just needs to get a GPU (he doesn't game and the CPU doesn't have integrated graphics), a CPU cooler and a case. Believe it or not they are finally getting internet in their area. Also I have a really old Mac Mini so I might look into that.

[@JohnJohnson-jm8ku]

That's how I use my Chromebook as well. Every once in a while I charge it, otherwise it sits on the living room table ready to burst immediately into action when I need it. I also carry it with me on travels, because it's so lightweight and has a 360 touch screen. I thought about a used MacBook, but it wouldn't have a 360 touch screen.

[@Brick_Soup]

My school gives everyone a Chromebook for general school stuff but we still have a computer lab full of dell optiplex PCs for specific computer related courses.

[@hubertnnn]

I think that's a good balance. Someone in a different comment mentioned that ipad/chrombook generation don't even know what a file is. By doing this kids will have Chromebooks for most of their work and internet access (regardless if you can afford a computer or not), while having the computer lab for learning more advanced stuff.

[@Brick_Soup]

@@hubertnnn in my basic JavaScript class half of the people didn't know how to turn on the computer. They just kept turning the monitor on and off.

[@p3chv0gel22]

​@@Brick_Soupi'm working as a IT tech and i'm always shocked by the tech illiteracy of some people in my Generation. One person wasn't aware that you could just plug in a DVD drive via USB and burn a disc. They only ever used "The Cloud"

[@yasu_red]

​@@Brick_SoupI remember doing that when I was about 7 years old and didn't know a thing about computers. It's off-putting to me that so many people just never move past that.

[@whasian1487]

At my local high school there are many different computer labs. If they are in a class that requires using autocad for example, those desktops are higher end with discrete gpus in them. Every student has a chromebook for tasks it can handle which is the majority of the curriculum.

[@votezoidberg2020]

You should have mentioned one of the biggest reasons which is that most schools had Office licensing and it was getting more and more expensive. So the logical step was the free Google workspace which existed for years and is still available to most edu's. Moving to Google cut down significantly on not just OS licensing but also word processing, spreadsheets, email, and presentation software's. Add in the Google forms and other education based software's that made assigning homework and in class work super easy and it was an amazing offering for an insanely low price for schools.

[@LainK1978]

It isn't changing.

[@andrejsk6211]

It's just a shame that they switched to Google's services instead of FOSS. I guess this shows how important corporate backing and support is when dealing with large organizations.

[@caleb7475]

Google Recently started charging my old college and so I lost my .edu email. You can never trust that cloud services will always be free.

[@mariusjmi]

wtf is FOSS? ​@@andrejsk6211

[@jackieAZ]

@@andrejsk6211corporate backing isn’t necessarily the issue, it’s just that the nature of foss is developer efforts are being split 1000 different ways which while great for new ideas is not great for supporting any one particular software/suite at scale. IMO the closest competitor to the Google office suite would be libreoffice, which I personally do use in my professional life alongside Microsoft office but googles software is really nice and simple for students below college level. I can see why schools would pick Google.

[@hasslehoffs]

4:18 my PTSD thought it was going to an ad

[@falsemcnuggethope]

The best ads are not ones you can buy.

[@jonathanbruffaerts1324]

I got an actual ad when I clicked the timestamp

[@nateo200]

Same lol

[@harris8205]

thought the same^^

[@TheElly750]

Pavlov strikes again

[@jarencascino7604]

I had a chromebook in school and without knowing better I got one for college (because they were cheap). I made it work and 4 years later I’m still using it.

[@Me-eb3wv]

What degree did ya get

[@Me-eb3wv]

I might do something similar. I’m thinking about studying Mechatronics so sooner or later im gonna need to use my windows gaming laptop to run all the labs I’m gonna need. But for my general elective classes I’m thinking of just using my chrome book. You don’t need the latest, most powerful CPU to write papers and read PowerPoints

[@rafaelmateodev]

@@Me-eb3wv Yeah don't get anything new if you game a gaming laptop already. You can take notes in your chromebook and enjoy the large battery life. Then get home and do whatever you need to do in the work laptop.

[@hgh9mrp]

I am on my third chromebook. The first one was an original Cr-48 courtesy of Google itself. Most recent one is an Asus C302C. I have used thhem mostly as travel machines. Main disadvantage was the five year end of life limitation, but the new Chromebook Plus line with ten years of support has eliminated that issue. May the chromebook live long and productive!

[@FintanMoloney]

I am actually thinking of doing the same thing. I think a Chromebook would be great for travel for my essentials rather than relying on my phone all the time. The battery life and so on and the fact they are light to carry seems perfect for this.

[@Seven71987]

So you're one of the special lucky people who had the privilege to own an original prototype cr48 cb! That's so 🇩🇪!

[@ChrisPollard]

My mother-in-law is in her 70s and ALWAYS had issue with the dirt cheap Windows laptops she would get. A few years ago we bought her a 17" Chromebook (for the bigger screen) and it's been problem-free for her. Email, Facebook, some of the online games she plays all run just fine. And it was about $350. Chromebooks ARE the computer that most people actually need. The newer ones with upgradeable RAM, proper NVMe SSDs (also upgradeable), and i3/i5 processors shoud perform quite well for years to come. Especially compared to the absolute DOGS of eMMC cards they have been saddled with. Never get those. Ever.

[@burrfoottopknot]

Face palm, these things are absolute rubbish a fast race to the bottom such as e books were and are. But hey keep sprooking for likes

[@Unknown-64209]

​@@burrfoottopknotI did windows on one of these machines for my friend and considering the specs, it was running like native windows 10 (ya I got win10 on there)

[@burrfoottopknot]

@@Unknown-64209 i have seen family members with them also and customised the operating system with as you stated and it still ran like a slug, the cost of the chrome books are also ridiculous considering the rubbish components they use. but yeh because some tech tuber (who relies on you tube / Google as a main income has no conflict of interest) said it's good..

[@speedracer2please]

I got my mom a Chromebook in her 70s as well! She kept getting viruses on Windows, her Linux machine was too slow (not linux's fault) and all she really needed was a browser most of the time anyway. It was perfect. Every boomer and child needs one.

[@Paras-ot2qo]

@@speedracer2please noway you gave poor lady Ubuntu before

[@jortand]

Back in 2018 my grandmother asked with help because she needed a computer for email and checking for baking / knitting stuff, I got her a chromebook. It's easy to set up all you need is a Google account, a thing basically every adult has with their email, the UI is perfectly simple for someone who hasn't used a computer before, and you don't need a very powerful computer to browse the internet. As far as I know, it's still going strong, and I'm planning to buy her a new chromebook at some point this year because nothing beats that price.

[@Spheraz]

you should have bought her a framework laptop with Linux on it so she learns Linux lmao

[@Pedro-zh6kk]

​@@Spherazah yes, especially the version that you need to assemble yourself.

[@dasistdiewahrheit9585]

@@Spheraz Why not install LFS Linux?

[@KeepTheKitLow]

Anyone commenting on here doesn't have tech-inept family lol. My grandma has a cell phone, but she leaves it turned off and at home ~always, it's because she doesn't feel comfortable using it. If she approached me asking for help choosing a laptop, 10000% it would be a chromebook. I could set up Linux, as I did when I was 16, but Chrome is just soooooo simple for the end user.

[@ashtonhoward5582]

​@@KeepTheKitLow yeah and Linux has the issue of being annoying to set up in a way that's resilient to anything someone could do to it. Like I could set up all kinds of locks and such (hell, even do what the SD does with r/o locking the OS partition) but at the end of the day I'm spending less time and money to buy gramma a Chromebook. And a Chromebook has closer feature parity with their phone, unlike with any generic Linux distro. You can (probably) get Adobe Reader on a Chromebook because they have an Android app for it, while with Linux you're SOL unless you want to spend time setting up wine just right, which would be time where gramma wouldn't have her computer.

[@compuguy71]

I work in IT support and in the past couple of years a couple of nationwide retailers we support have transitioned to Chromebook boxes (not laptops). If some folks are learning to use Chromebooks at school, arguably a smaller but growing number are also getting exposure at work.

[@JJFlores197]

We may be very slowly migrating over to Chromeboxes for staff device. I'm an IT tech for a school district. Students already use Chromebooks, but teachers use Windows devices. We installed new interactive displays over the summer and they have a Chromebox attached to them. Some teachers love them because they're much easier to use than their Windows device and others struggle with the login screen.

[@sweh]

Maybe a decade ago I bought a $150 Chromebook; not for "daily driver" use but for when I was travelling (e.g. home for Christmas). All I needed for that was a web browser and ssh (so I could ssh back home). And at that price if it broke (eg while flying) then I wouldn't be too annoyed. It was a massive step up from the Asus netbooks (better display, keyboard, etc) and the Transformer android tablets (tablet+keyboard dock). Worked well!

[@antifreeze44]

@7:36 I Scrambled to answer my discord just to find out no one was calling, that was WELL DONE!!

[@jerryseinfeld6283]

same lol

[@k-life3440]

Same lol

[@nickneuburg1388]

i had another window on top of chrome so it was even more convincing

[@yuki_haiia]

dude it actually scared me 😭

[@halvarf]

Looks like everyone's just letting Linus talk as a background noise. 😅

[@4RILDIGITAL]

The shift towards Chromebooks is more and more apparent. The strides Google has made with its OS over the years are truly commendable. And with the increasingly acceptable cloud applications, a substantial market acceptance can be expected in the upcoming years.

[@kirby6-kg8nj]

YES! They are amazing! It's been the best OS that I have ran personally and professionally since forever. It's just too, too good.

[@iamfreeareyou681]

Really? Because I can do everything I can do with a chromebook, on the Chrome web browser, but I can't do anything I can do on Windows on a Chromebook. Most people do still have Windows computers, even if they have a Chrome tablet or Chromebook. And Windows became better with WSA and WSL so Android apps can be run natively, and you can run Linux right in Windows, only without the GUI.

[@xeon39688]

@@iamfreeareyou681 windows is just better for everything

[@bruhgtrsgrtsgvrtsgrt]

AI comments are going extreme nowadays. Time to visit the library.

[@boltez6507]

​@@iamfreeareyou681 you forgot about the price boi, chromebooks just aren't competing with you 1000$-2000$ish windows machine

[@robotredkitten817]

I wish the school system in Canada was a bit more conscious of what they are doing. I think that schools should should prioritize FOSS cause whatever they do they will give someone a bit of a monopoly.

[@flamingscar5263]

the problem is FOSS doenst pay the schools, a company does, schools around the globe and ESPECIALLY in america are underfunded, any bit of extra income helps, and when Google comes in and says "hey well save you hundreds of thousands of dollars if you just agree to sign up exclusively for Chromebooks and Google apps" the schools take that agreement

[@Crokto]

@@flamingscar5263 its not even about paying the schools, it's about the support

[@matthewnirenberg]

I have no issue with FOSS however I've found that a blend of FOSS and commercial software is required as quite often there isn't a FOSS equivalent or the equivalent isn't compatible with commercial software. Then there's the issue that FOSS development is glacial as most people aren't donating to the developers which means those developers can't commit enough time to improving the FOSS. I've seen it first hand as a software developer myself, some software I wrote and made free had to be discontinued as not a single person ever donated to its development but they did create a "wishlist" of over 1100 things they wanted added to it. My answer was "here's the source code, do it yourself, I need to afford to live, I can't function without money and can't commit to continuing developing something that doesn't generate revenue, I'm a solo developer with only 12hrs to work each day". Ever since I changed to writing only closed source software and requiring users to buy either annual or perpetual (version locked) licences, I was able to spend all my time programming and improving my software. The key is to create software that has very efficiently written code that lets the program be as small as possible (i.e. lightweight - many programs are many times larger than they truly need be), as user friendly as possible, that has simple and clear documentation and that any licencing is painless for the end-user. I use a protection system known as "IntelliLock" to protect my software. Users of my software simply install their valid licences by clicking a button in my program to select a licence, by putting the licence file next to the EXE or by double-clicking the licence file as the custom extension is associated with my program so it automatically installs. I know that some people do donate, the problem is not enough do. If people want good FOSS, then the whole end-user culture needs to actively encourage donations to developers. There's a hell of a lot of work that needs to be done before FOSS software can reach compatibility with commercial software. For example, FreeCAD which is great has basically zero compatibility with its commercial equivalents, meanwhile Alibre Design can work with most commercial CAD formats natively and at a fraction the price of SolidWorks. I see the same thing with video editing - ShotCut is the best FOSS NLE video editor but its not 100% compatible with Resolve or Premier.

[@TadeoDOria]

While as a Linux user I agree with the spirit of your comment, unfortunately that's not how it works because money. If it's not Google then it's Microsoft (as is the case in the UK, where schools require students to have MS services like 365 and OneDrive). The power of lobbyists is strong, and Google's option at least is more FOSS friendly than Microsoft's.

[@matthewnirenberg]

@@TadeoDOria Microsoft doesn't require students to have Office365 or OneDrive - either they connect to the schools volume licencing whilst connecting to the schools Windows Servers' domain or they run Office Home & Business or LibreOffice. Instead of OneDrive, schools allocate a 25GB part of their network drives to their students and yeah its remotely accessible. Not a single school in AU, NZ or the EU requires students to have Office365 of OneDrive. Even in the UK, one can use Office Home & Business and doesn't require OneDrive - Google Drive or any other alternative is perfectly fine.

[@tora201jp]

Installed latest flexOS on my panasonic Letsnote I picked up for 80 bucks here in Japan, and its amazing. Everything works perfectly out of the box too. Had put Windows 11 on it via registry hack, but it ran like a dog, even with 8GB of memory. This thing absolutely flies now.

[@LainK1978]

If you had to use a registry hack to get Win 11 installed then expect it to run like garbage. Also 8GB for Win11 is like 4GB for Win 10; only good if the only thing you do is use the browser or very basic programs.

[@someguy9175]

@pugdev4 your "pretty fine" is worthy of concern.

[@Gatorade69]

​@@someguy9175It is possible if you get rid of a lot of the junk and bloat. Tiny11 runs pretty well on older computers with hard drives.

[@Unknown-64209]

​@@someguy9175yeah ikr. I can use windows 11 but 10 is much faster

[@NormanF62]

Install Tiny 11, even Tiny Core 11 to run Windows 11 on old computers. Then Windows will really fly! 😊

[@Nostalgia_Realm]

It's a shame that Linux for the masses is being delivered by Google, and not by a FOSS initiative such as the Linux Mint distro. Linux Mint is a great drop in replacement for Windows for pretty much everyone and their dog. A big plus is that you're not relying on Google's services but you can use whatever you want!

[@golangthebest7746]

because this is not about linux, this is about an entire ecosystem only google can do it, and its not a shame, google is doing a great job in opposite to microsoft now with project idx you can also develop apps from a chromebook, this is just perfect, thanks to google

[@scarecrw]

I both work with children who use chromebooks and use a pixelbook myself (in addition to a windows desktop). I'm certainly in a bit of a niche, but between my work using primarily online productivity tools and the ability to run linux/android apps, chromeOS is absolutely fine. Anything computationally intensive is done on my main PC anyways, so the weaker specs don't really factor into my use case. As for students, the one gripe I have is that those administrative tools mean that student usage is *heavily* locked down. How you want your child/student to use their chromebook is a matter of personal opinion, but I'll offer one concern: the batch of students growing up with chromeOS is not going to develop the same tech skills that many previous generations were able to. I have never seen a student chromebook that enabled linux, and many have harsh restrictions on app downloads. The tech skills that I have today started from mucking around on school computers and that option just isn't available for most current students.

[@AndRei-yc3ti]

Many countries in the world are transitioning to homebrew linux distros for schools - for example in Moscow they have their own linux distro for schools that uses KDE and a bunch of productivity apps. They added this to school laptops and its a distro run by the city government, so it gets support for schools. Quite a good product actually and many young kids will grow up using linux at schools. Chinese schools are also doing similar stuff. I think MS is shooting itself in the foot.

[@escapetherace1943]

just put mx linux kde onto an i3 chromebook lol and now you have 15+ years of support

[@davidfishwick5573]

You are correct but to be fair, even if they had used windows you could probably guarantee things like command prompt, registry editor and downloads would be restricted by group policy so I suspect you would end up with a similar situation

[@fedora]

While Chromebooks aren't fully "Linux" (as in using the standard tools Linux desktops use), their efforts in standardizing have been really good for the freedesktop community! Also, great recommendations for FOSS apps!

[@Stay_away_from_my_swamp_water]

Didn't expect a comment from fedora channel here. You didn't do shameless auto promotion, then I'll do that for you. It's probably the best os for laptops. Macos and windows included (tho I haven't tried pop yet).

[@jfolz]

Hey, you're supposed to run my laptop. How did you get out?

[@darkpixel1128]

@@Stay_away_from_my_swamp_water extra promo: the immutable OS variants, Fedora Silveblue/Kinoite are probably better for new users because they stop you borking your device (or at least let's you easily roll back changes if you do manage to break something).

[@gljames24]

​@@Stay_away_from_my_swamp_waterTotally agree. Fedora is great for my laptop and I need to take the time to swap out of Ubuntu on my server and desktop.

[@Omega-mr1jg]

I think I went too schizo, im seeing my distro in LTT's comment section!

[@savagepeng]

During the times of COVID-19, I frequently visited libraries. I owned a 17-inch Asus laptop that weighed over 3 kilograms with the adapter, and its battery lasted only 2 hours. Naturally, it was often difficult to find an available charging point in libraries, cafes, etc. Consequently, I contemplated purchasing a new laptop with a battery life of 8-10 hours at a reasonable price point. However, they were quite expensive, typically costing upwards of 800 euros. That's when I came across the Acer 314 Chromebook, priced at 250 euros at the time and promising an 8-hour battery life. As a computer engineering student, I decided to give it a try. It was used primarily for watching recorded lectures and programming. The Chromebook even featured a terminal for use. So I bought it and was thoroughly impressed. The battery consistently lasted more than 8 hours, and coding with "vim" in the terminal was a game-changer. Also, when I needed to charge it, I didn't bring the Chromebook charger; instead, I used a 25W Samsung fast charger, which worked quite well. I have since passed on my Chromebook to my brother, who is a teacher, and he is perfectly happy with it. So, indeed, Chromebooks are excellent products.

[@JJFlores197]

They can be excellent if you buy decent ones. Buy the really low-end devices and you'll quickly see how painfully slow some of them are.

[@savagepeng]

@@JJFlores197 yes but you cant expect good performance from cheap products right? Thats why they are cheap

[@thalberg-]

Great to hear but hahaha, why does this sound just like how an engineering student would structure and write an essay!? No jabs here, just found it funny!

[@ikuturso7570]

When most people use laptops only as "phone with keyboard and bigger screen" Chromebooks do really make sense. On the other hand a similar i3 pc laptop can be had for just $50 more which makes sense as well in many cases.

[@jothain]

You're right. My dad was tech savvy guy younger, but he's getting old and memory is getting problematic. Also as nowdays he uses computer daily, like 99% of stuff he does seem to be watching documentaries, reading news and emails. So he has essentially grown to use....Browser. I've seriously been considering to buy him some good Chromebook as gift as he many times seem to have issues with like Windows settings when he plugs laptop into external display. I really dig the idea of them. It's not for me, but to be fully honest I think I could live with one too, though obviously would have to ditch like 3D cad programs to quite severe extent.

[@spicynoodle7419]

What is a PC laptop?

[@rohithkumarbandari]

​@@jothainYou might not have to ditch 3D cad work if you unlock Linux capabilities of chrome os and use something like free cad.

[@jothain]

@@rohithkumarbandari I suppose, though I'm not quite "there" with quality of FreeCAD, yet.

[@rohithkumarbandari]

@@jothain Fair enough, there is also libreCAD, QCAD and NanoCAD if you still wanna try. Though I agree that autoCAD is pretty powerful.

[@amazingdrewH]

One of the things preventing the long game is that universities and workplaces still primarily use Windows and the Office suite, as well schools have started ditching the Chromebooks they bought during the pandemic now that their demands are different moving from Online learning to in school learning

[@gazsoimi]

yeah, any place with 40+ employee will have windows desktops, and active directory. or struggle with everything.

[@ajbp95]

Sure, for now, but I wouldn't be surprised if that would change in a lot of places. I mean a lot of Microsoft Office can be done online today, so there may be ways past it.

[@18earendil]

My university was Debian all the way except for a few Windows PCs in some , of the XP category, to run legacy softwares in some pratical labs. But it was a STEM oriented one.

[@zouyan]

In another 10-15 years, those elementary kids who used Chromebooks in schools may drive the change to something like a chromeOS instead of windows in the workplace

[@jeremyjedynak]

Google Sheets is way better than Excel.

[@ariannashook9334]

I love how you can use one chromebook till it dies, and pick up right where you left off on a new one! my current one has lasted 5 years and I got it on sale for $300. it honestly has a great screen and build, and is only just now starting to slow down! not to bad!

[@MikkoRantalainen]

One thing worth mentioning is that Chromebook touchscreen support is actually very very good compared to Windows (or Mac OS which still doesn't support any laptops with touchscreens).

[@davidfrischknecht8261]

I still have no use for a touch screen on anything other than a phone or tablet.

[@xathridtech727]

​@@davidfrischknecht8261cool doesn't mean having support is bad. However I think that's thanks to Linux people not Google.

[@ezikhoyo]

Support is always cool yeah but touch on a laptop is such a UX warcrime..

[@SilverBullet46]

​@@davidfrischknecht8261One thing I like is zooming on webpages actually zoom instead of just making everything bigger

[@0w3nn]

I need to use macrium reflect, batteryinfoview, flightgear, other browsers, iTunes, and other software and you can’t and the program compatibility sucks, and windows has more software support. Windows is way more customizable and chromeos has a way worse file explorer and you have to relogon every once in a whole after you sign out which requires time and worst of all it requires wifi, so sometimes you’re quite literally locked out of your laptop. Also chrome books have horrible upgrade ability and literally the only thing you can upgraded is the wifi card. Chromeos also doesn’t allow icons on the desktop so quite literally is wasting 95% of the space on login for just a wallpaper. Literally the only thing good about chrome books is the battery life and MacBooks already do that better and with better performance. Windows is way more versatile and capable, admit it. A chrome book is just an android tablet with a keyboard. Any 150 dollar thinkpad or elitebook quickly outpaces a 150 dollar chrome book easily. And imagine naming an OS after a browser. 😂😂😂

[@cardsfanbj]

I'm like 2 years younger than Linus and I remember 3rd grade we had a room full of DOS machines that I started learning to type on. Occasionally had a class learning, not even like a once a week thing. Fourth grade on, we had one PC in our classroom with either 95 or 98. Not like at the teacher's desk, I forget what it was used for. Eighth grade I got redistricted into a brand new school facility and we had an updated computer lab. I went to a private high school and we had a good sized computer lab, divided in 2, one was a classroom and the other was open for students to use in their free period, and we also had a small bank of computers to use in the library. Except it was all Apple now. Most computers were G3s, but there were a couple G4's. School also had a couple of carts of iBook G4s for teachers to check out for their class to use for a day. None of these classes I took actually taught me how to type fast. I knew how to type, but I learned to do it fast playing RuneScape. Selling ore or cooked fish on one of the market worlds, back before they released the Grand Exchange, you had to type fast and accurate if you wanted to successfully market your goods.

[@coffinsnail6930]

im older i remember getting a first apple for typing in freshman year.

[@Nogamers9057]

Yep, i remember 37.

[@HazewinDog]

It's funny. I also don't remember what the computer that would always be in the back of every classroom was used for. At least not for the earlier years of primary school. Now I'm younger than you, but in grades 7-8 I remember there were now multiple computers in the back, instead of just one, and I do remember those were used mainly for rehearsing and practicing subjects.

[@jackpowell9276]

We use this at work for "grab and go" devices for those who forget their macbook or if your device is being repaired etc. I also bought an older one for my mother from work as it was being replaced with newer ones. For her basic home needs its perfect, just needs google docs/sheets, browsing etc and all her android phone accounts etc were already there.

[@ZackMuffinMan]

I always had Windows desktops (Vista-10) in school. We got the e-waste chromebooks in high school as options for classroom (not computer lab) use.

[@rohithkumarbandari]

Your calling it e-waste even after watching the full video.

[@quadsnipershot]

When I was in high school it was when they got tablets for every student. The next year they exchanged everyone for a chromebook. Then the next year they gave up and just said bring your own or we will give you a real laptop. The school did not anticipate that no teacher or the union would transfer to google docs or the wifi being so bad that stuff would not load. By my senior year before they got rid of chromebooks every teacher went to pen and paper and most teachers said no laptops since students would not pay attention.

[@DAG_42]

Yeah I don't understand how you could get kids to listen with a laptop in their face. You'd have to be using software that takes over hardcore (locks out popups and other SW from foreground)

[@iliamanolov5926]

@@DAG_42 Chromebooks have a fairly decent firewall system and I can absolutely see some schools configuring it to only be able to access Google + a few educational sites.

[@flamingscar5263]

@@DAG_42 the problem of getting kids to pay attention isnt a new one that laptops suddenly invented, if we jump back before even smartphones were a thing youd have kids drawing in their notebook instead of paying attention, reading comic books under the desk, sneaking in a game boy, and really doing ANYTHING but actual school work, hell when I was in school Id stare out the damn window and count the birds flying by instead of doing my work because somehow THAT was more entertaining

[@creesch]

@@flamingscar5263 You are right to some degree. But, laptops and phones for that matter do present a whole new layer of distraction because they are dynamic.

[@KarltheKrazyone]

yes and.... good teachers learn to adapt, most were not given the time and tools. My whole school had one 28.8 connected PC when I was in late middle school and by high school we had the whole lab running on one DSL connection. Ideal? No, but more useful than a set of Britannica that were published in the 80s. Within two years of me leaving the school had two dedicated distance learning terminals with full video. I think the bigger thing is that there is a generation of kids who don't see windows as the default, and for a lot of industries that don't "need" to be on windows, and would actually be better run on custom OSes and intranets, these kids are actually way better equipped to adapt.

[@sslaia]

I also fell in love with the Chromebook recently. I bought Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 3 and it blows my mind. It's more useful than my Galaxy Tab S8 (yes Duet 3 is also an Android tablet), not only because I can consume contents on it, but because it's a full desktop PC, which Samsung Dex can't compete.

[@daniadiaz1658]

Thank you for this. Ivw been considering a Samsung Galaxy S9 tablet, but I already own a good Chromebook and I was wondering I'd the yabmet could replace the chromebook eventually since I don't think that I'd need both. My Chromebook is a workhorse, though, and I wasn't sure that the tablet would be as useful.

[@sslaia]

@@daniadiaz1658 the only issue I have with Duet 3 Chromebook is the weak SoC. Opening a PDF file with hundreds of pages is a pain. It's slow. But editing text and watching KZbin video, Duet 3 is just fine.

[@jasonz8635]

I actually own a chromebook solely for note-taking, light web browsing & reading textbooks. A 360deg touchscreen chromebook was surprisingly affordable (~80 used) and is perfect for what I use it for. Granted, I still need to bring around my gaming laptop for doing actual CAD work but it means that the low battery life of the laptop isn't a big deal and saves me 300-400$ on buying a better laptop with longer battery life.

[@lost-prototype]

If the tools become more available - the way Linus mentions - nothing stopping anyone from just throwing ChromeOS on a beefy gaming rig and having that single-ecosystem experience again.

[@genderender]

yeah, all my "thin-client" uses can be easily done by a chromebook. still some issues with ARM devices, wish companies put better chips in them, but getting 10 hours of battery out of a $200 laptop/tablet is pretty nice overall

[@Me-eb3wv]

I feel you. I’m going to study Mechatronics and I’ve been thinking of doing it that way too. My chrome book for my elective classes and my windows gaming laptop for my core classes where I’m gonna be required to run virtual labs

[@KanawhaCountyWX]

I was born in 2004, so when I was in early elementary school we had IBM and Lenovo think center desktops running Windows XP. Eventually we upgraded to hp's running Windows 7. By the time I was in high school we had machines from various manufacturers running Windows 10. Now I'm in University and everything on the campus is Adele running Windows 10.

[@pleasedontwatchthese9593]

That is crazy that they where still using XP. I guess not too crazy but it must have been pushing 10 years old by the time you got to use it. I'm older and it was basically dell desktops up too 12th grade.

[@trappedcat3615]

Windows 10 will probably be around for a long time in order to support decent hardware not compatible with with Windows 11.

[@blazebluebass]

It's still all Windows though.

[@NottJoeyOfficial]

My schools as a kid all had Mac computers, either the classic CRT iMacs or newer flat ones. I was happy the one time I got to use the Windows XP machine in the computer lab because it wasn't a Mac. By high school, every student got a Windows 7 laptop, and we kept those through the entire 4 years. The grades after us got Windows 10 after we graduated because they were finally transitioning to it in 2017 or 2018. I'm college all the computers ran Windows 10, though I kept Windows 7 on my laptop through 2022 because I didn't have the right hardware for Windows 10 yet. It's crazy to see the upgrade paths through life.

[@jet0802]

Dude, I love Windows XP, my first desktop was XP

[@raljix1566]

I've been a windows user since the 3.1 days - Picked up a Chromebook Plus a couple of days ago to give it a road test and boy is it a banging experience. Very impressive....

[@rpfour4]

7:12 I showed my daughter this image of Linus and his HS pic, and she said "bro looks the same" 😂

[@beeman4266]

He really does look the same. Some people just don't really age from 18-45ish, usually men. Meanwhile some other people look like a completely different person when they're 10 years older.

[@xwiick]

Why would you subject a girl to that?

[@Platinum199]

@@xwiick???

[@xwiick]

Not a pretty sight is it. @@Platinum199

[@0w3nn]

@@xwiick??? Why are you bringing in gender???

[@itchylol742]

Build Redux is USA only btw. WIsh you mentioned that

[@kreuner11]

A bit ironic since they're Canadian

[@kuromiLayfe]

They only ship in USD countries.. that doesn’t mean you cannot use a middleman for international shipping for about $50 extra .. There are tons of companies that let you ship to them and they then ship to you (i know about those from JP only imports)

[@Hotlog69]

As it should be. Did you see the prices and thought it was CAD? 😂

[@jorgebustillos8469]

Que picardia

[@dpgwalter]

@@kuromiLayfeIf they don’t sell products to non USD countries they are US (and friends) only.

[@KazrBrekker]

Honestly don't understand why people feel safe to store files in the cloud, especially after the recent file vanishing case on Google Drive. And then of course the privacy issue with Google

[@jaidenstechtips6601]

People want something simple and they want it quickly. Who wants to go out of their way to make a few copies of all of that data when you can just dump it with a "trusted" provider.

[@masterv2118]

We have staff that work off of Chromebooks (by choice). When interviewing we ask potential hires what hardware/OS they use at home. Over the years we have found that when the OS of the work machine lines up with what you user uses normally we have less demand on tech support. - We do keep in mind the applications and hardware demands for a given role. And overall general productivity. Supporting a wider range of devices does come at a cost, but the increase in productivity and use familiarity with common issues (self support) these cost are highly mitigated.

[@W1ldTangent]

As the sysadmin I've adopted the same philosophy at my workplace, and have observed the same results. Most people opt to use the same as what they have at home though we don't force them, they can choose any platform they feel they'll be most productive on. Don't have any ChromeBooks yet but we'll easily be able to accommodate it, we're already a Workplace shop.

[@Lampe2020]

I think the "enable Linux terminal" actually starts a Linux VM (a bit like WSL on Window$) instead of giving users access to the raw Linux system under the Chome UI. You can get to that (I think it was Ctrl+Alt+F2 to switch to TTY2 which makes you able to log in as user chronos), but there's no package manager in the terminal part (certainly not APT) and you can't access sudo because you don't know chronos's password.

[@mrcrackerist]

I would guess its something more like docker or chroot as the kernel would be very similar.

[@koshrf]

You can access the underlying Linux os on Chromebooks and get root too, you just put it in dev mode and have access to it. The only downside is that it emits a pitch noise when starting and you have to take care of some updates. It has a package manager since it is based on debian.

[@koshrf]

​@@mrcrackeristit is a lxd container, it runs crostini (debian)

[@corkoles]

Yes it's a command similar to that and I know it exists, but I haven't found much use for it

[@littlebit670]

If you want to do Linux stuff without the Crostini VM, you would have to put the Chromebook in Developer Mode (press Esc+Refresh+Power, followed by Ctrl+D on recovery screen). Developer Mode is not recommended by Google however, and you will receive an annoying message upon every reboot that you have to dismiss with Ctrl+D.

[@aw8119]

The improvements in Chromebooks over just the last five or so years has been amazing. My daughter used one in middle school and high school and I have been using one myself for a few years. I’m able to connect automatically to the printers that are on my wifi in my home and my office. I just ordered a Chromebook Plus and I can’t wait for it to arrive.

[@vegetableball]

The way Chromebook runs Ubuntu is through virtual machine (so is Steam for Chromebook). Command line based applications run totally fine, but for graphical interface it could be a little bit buggy sometime.

[@maxisbac]

Steam fro Chromebook is Arch

[@yuryzhuravlev2312]

@@maxisbac chromeos itself is Gentoo

[@anthonybranco]

@@yuryzhuravlev2312 what the hell is Gentoo? Ok, I looked it up. Thanks. I didn't know that's what they called the distribution system.

[@user-28qhfk65]

Chrome OS was based on Ubuntu but now moved to Gentoo. They do use ubuntu terminal for their linux environment probably because it's software compatibility and easy to use. Edit: was it ubuntu or debian terminal? Idrk who even cares

[@RossReedstrom]

@@maxisbac His "also" applies to the virtual machine: Steam on Chromebook runs in a VM, which I believe is true.

[@WilliamHaisch]

I bought a cheap ARM Chromebook to experiment with Kali Linux. Unfortunately, Kali wasn’t optimized for that ARM chip and it ran dog slow so I reinstalled ChromeOS and used it for web browsing, Gmail, Google Office apps (mostly spreadsheets and word processing), and watching KZbin videos. It had great battery life and I didn’t have the usual computer anxiety baggage: instability, security, patching, where my files were, backups, etc. I did miss having a caps lock key (seriously, wtf? I remapped the Search key to caps lock) but other than that, it was a wonderful business machine! 😊

[@user-28qhfk65]

Wait hold up how did you manage to install kali on arm based chromebook? Is there anywhere I can read about this?

[@WilliamHaisch]

@@user-28qhfk65 OffSec provided disk images that could be installed on the old Samsung Chromebooks. The original documentation I used doesn’t seem to exist anymore. The Kali Linux site has documents a similar procedure that _might_ work better because it is cross compiled from source.

[@AtariWow]

@@user-28qhfk65 Look at their download page there is an arm section. I'd assume they used the RPI 5 one since it's 64 bit.

[@barryfrombarnsley2790]

@@user-28qhfk65presumably it was back when you ran Linux under crouton on chromebooks. You could use any Debian-based distro. I installed kali on one years ago, although I ended up just using vanilla Debian.

[@Gersonzao]

Kali Linux is meant to be used for security researching and pentesting, I suggest you to try Debian

[@jamesalexander5559]

I've had to work on repairing these things for a few local school districts at my job. To be honest I'm quite impressed with what these little devices are capable of. Chrome OS has made massive improvements from when we used to use when I was in school.

[@naruto5046]

Funnily enough i actually got myself a used pixelbook(top spec) and survived my last job for 8months no problem, cause they gave a 10 year old macbook for work use, and while i can and am proficient with macOS, it’s heavy af, the workflow required from the company is predominantly their web-based backend system and some office suites so it was actually really great to daily the pixelbook

[@SanoKei]

I used my $60 chrome to remote desktop into my PC at home. It actually worked great. I got an Lenovo IdeaPad 3 with the 5500u and I've been happy with it ever since

[@Dubmaster3]

This is about the only good use case for one of these garbage devices.

[@ayushrhaena6492]

Wait thats actually genius

[@trappedcat3615]

​@@Dubmaster3That and Android apps

[@trappedcat3615]

​@@troublebotchromeremote desktop

[@am53n8]

@@troublebot anydesk has worked pretty well for me, I used it on both chromeos and android to remote into my pc back home

[@mdzaid5925]

It's somewhat true... I work at an MNC and all our work is typically confined to browser. For office- We use google suite For chats & calls - google chat & meet (The above two are bundled in google workspace for corporates). And lastly, Salesforce, where our majority of our work is done. Then servicenow, genesis and list is long....but thing is, everything is in browser.

[@DanteHaroun]

Used all my budget for a sick desktop pc and paired it with a Chromebook for school, best setup

[@mudit1]

You can also remotely control your pc great

[@KangoV]

I got my mother-in-law a Chromebook 3 years ago. I've NO support calls in that time. She loves it!

[@Anna_Rae]

Now that's impressive. Sounds great not getting support calls lol ❤

[@MikkoRantalainen]

As a software developer, I'd say that sensible options for mother-in-law are iPad and Chromebook. And I would personally consider Chromebook a much better general purpose computing device. Of course, getting a Chromebook without at least 1080p IPS touchscreen would be a big mistake. Something like Chromebook Duet 5 may be a bit expensive compared to cheapest units but it has 1080p OLED touchscreen, 8 GB RAM and 256 GB SSD. Basically the only con-side is eMMC storage instead of faster NVMe interface which will slow down launching new applications a bit.

[@ajbp95]

Was thinking the exact same thing! If my grandparents would need a new laptop I actually think I would go for a Chromebook. Haven't thought about it as an option before, but this video had made me at least consider it.

[@benwu7980]

@@ajbp95 Have recently had similar with elderly aunt and uncle that aren't tech savvy, but was going back over the type of stuff I used to set up for an older friend that was similarly not-techy. Stuff like recovery partitions with Acronis. The upside for the friend's laptop, was that he never went on the internet, so most of the problems with his was just stuff like losing desktop links or folders getting dropped into other folders. For aunt and uncle, I'd need learn and test a number of internet safety things like parental controls, and teach about them, which doesn't sound like fun at all on Windows.

[@rishabhbhargava766]

recently bought a personal chromebook plus. Works like a charm.

[@Immudzen]

At work we have moved towards having more powerful machines for developers instead of doing everything cloud based. The cloud based stuff is just too glitchy and unreliable compared to anything local. The latency is also MUCH higher and that has a negative impact on productivity.

[@aj.j5833]

It wasn't like people actually wanted to have everything cloud based. They trying to force us all to it by removing all other options. So it not even a case of people accepting, just many people feeling they don't have other options.

[@Pyroteq]

The only people that enjoy using cloud apps are people that barely do any work. For people that can touch type and know all the shortcut keys the added latency is awful.

[@reezlaw]

I envy you. Where I work they're trying to move everything to VDIs and it sucks dicks. You get a tiny laptop and an underspec'd stupid VDI that is supposed to replace the workstations we used to be able to order. In IT we are recycling workstations that are 7-8 years old for as long as we can (they can't force us to throw them away... yet) and they still DESTROY those VDIs. 8 years of an 8 GB RAM VDI will cost FIVE TIMES AS MUCH as one of those 2016 Xeon workstations with 32 GB.

[@pineconesaga287]

The only problem is that most schools will probably still be buying the worse Chromebooks in favor for the inability to be able to game or do anything than a Canva here, a Google Doc and Slide there, and rarely, some 3D things. That or they will heavily bottleneck the "new Chromebooks" with their trashy tracking software and heavy firewall. On top of that, considering the restrictions for schools, their network, and whatever else, this upgrade is practically useless when even the settings app/page is often blocked on school Chromebooks. I'm grateful that my high school allows for their students to bring personal computers, and I bring my Windows laptop because I do not like my location being tracked 24/7, but with how controlling schools are, is this improvement even going to be felt as a whole?

[@Dave102693]

It’s not worth it lol

[@capitalofTX]

How to fix Chromebooks: Install Linux

[@deveksha0307]

For real 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@famousmwofficial8046]

Is it really a chromebook if I doesn't come with Linux pre installed? You probably bought a windows laptop and not a chromebook

[@DanTDMJace]

@@famousmwofficial8046like a different distro, not the mess that's chromeos

[@harryedgeworth74]

ChromeOS is Linux

[@capitalofTX]

@@harryedgeworth74 I mean *real* Linux. Not crafted from the dirty hands of Google.

[@drnotes630]

2.5 years ago I bought a $400 Lenovo 2 in 1 chromebook (the kind that fold over into a tablet form) as a basic work laptop to drive around with and do basic tasks at home. It's been rock solid and does everything I need it to for my small business. Plus it integrates with my android (pixel) so it's all the same environment. I don't get the Chromebook hate. They serve a very valid purpose.

[@spookyweeb5563]

it takes 800 dollars for a windows machine to do the same.

[@jtnachos16]

The hate comes from google utilizing chromebooks to establish even more of a monopoly, and the fact that their OS can leave people who have only used chromebooks rather hosed when they try to graduate to a normal device.

[@Fnordsrus]

My Lenovo Chromebook does everything that I require. They're amazing value for money.

[@TheJunky228]

@@spookyweeb5563 10 years ago I got a thinkpad t440s for $850 shipped and it is powerful enough to do all the engineering programs I've needed for school and everything else over the years. it's still my laptop today. the chromebook would not have worked for what I needed

[@EventuallyPrettyGood]

Honestly I bought mine specifically to put windows on it, but after running chromeos a few days I was hesitant. It's very streamlined, snappy and user friendly. The android Integration is also light-years beyond windows

[@SignalChange]

I own 2 chromebooks myself, my wife has one, my daughter has two and my desktop is a dual screen beautiful little chromebox that is just so insanely fast that nothing I throw at it slows it down. My office at work I've moved everything over to chrome os flex and now we are totally windows free. For entertainment I have a nice amd rig in the livingroom that runs chimeraos for steam. Being windows free is the best.

[@GumaKulkae]

and then the Linux option comes

[@snailairy]

Proud Chromebook owner here... I freaking love this thing. Hopefully, I'll be able to buy a Chromebook Plus soon.

[@famousmwofficial8046]

Are using Ubuntu for your LDE or you changed it to another system?

[@YaKillaCJ]

Glad it's being said. Geek Squad Agent at a very traffic heavy location. We repair dozens (at least 20) of computers a week including some MacOS devices. We see above a dozen ChromeOS devices a year and it's usually physical issues or accidental damage. The vast majority of people can do everything they have been doing on their Windows/MacOS using ChromeOS. Much how your phone can too but the screen and input sucks for productivity. I'm an advance user who build my 30TB Nas/Server and gaming PC with custom water loop. Use custom computer Intel N100 with Proxmox, OPNSense, Adguard, Reverse Proxy. Taught my daughter how to build her gaming computer. My Laptop and Tablet are Chromebooks because they just work and have advance options if I need it.

[@weasel101]

You see far fewer repairs for google crap because ppl just buy another one. I'm in my 40s and been in the industry for over 20 years. Was building liquid loops before Linus was even a name and still reviewing camping equipment lol. We're about to see a technical leap to tiny network devices with almost no footprint. Geeksquad is a cancer that comes only before this shift kills out an entire industry. Why is the US paying for a true WWW? Why is Microsoft buying a nuclear power plant? Why is graphine and heat wicking chips in production? These 0 client devices will allow big companies to retain ownership of EVERYTHING and reduce cost of devices as well as be more environmentally friendly. Better start expanding your education.

[@jachymhykrda]

i really like these videos that are focused more on the background and prospect future of the computer industry. great video!

[@xamyne]

I found a great use of my daughters chromebook. Bought her a lappy from a gs, upgraded the ram, commandeered the chromebook and installed straight up linux.

[@critter42]

I was in the second round of CR-48 giveaways. Still have it and all the other Chromebooks I've purchased over the years. When I went back to college in the late 2010s, my daily driver for notetaking, development environment, homework, etc. was a Chromebook

[@xsniperking2003x]

Still have 2 of them 😂

[@xsniperking2003x]

@@iamspencerx my brother and I both applied to the cr48 beta program and they accepted us both he said I could have his

[@t3hpwninat0r]

i bought my mom one of those old chromebooks with terrible specs years ago and she's been using it happily for years. the strategy of getting into schools to slowly consume a large portion of the market worked well for microsoft with windows, so no surprise it would work with chromebook too.

[@Housestationlive]

the problem is the lack of choice regarding software. like a console, an os choice is guided by the software's library.

[@el_quba]

I don't think anyone talking about "year of Linux desktop" is thinking about ChromeOS. It technically is a Linux based OS, but the idea of "year of Linux desktop " is a year when free, open and privacy respecting OS becomes mainstream

[@jarredc99]

Graduated in 2017 so have no clue what its like now, but in my high school chromebooks were being issued as student's laptops but all the computer labs still used windows PCs

[@AlasdairGR]

Graduated in 2016, and we only used a small number of school owned chromebooks for occasional lessons in like my math classes. Every other class I had still went to the library or nearest computer lab to do other computer-based assignments or essays.

[@xJRSUMMERSx]

completely agree, I have been really impressed with the functionality and ease of use of Chrome books for a while now, even though I will probably never use one. I have gotten my mum a few over the years and tech support is never more complicated than getting her to remember her login and doing a power wash. For basic social media and web browsing usage they can't be beat at the bang for your buck

[@MHanak30]

hey appearing on a video early really shows how many spam bots there are

[@Swqnky]

"This video changed my life", commented 3 seconds after a 20 minute video is posted.

[@ChristophHoward]

Yep! However if you moderate the comments for the first 10 or so minutes you'll catch most of them for at least awhile

[@DaSlotho]

0:18 yep dam thats lots...when they first came out parents were angry that they had to "PAY" like $500 NZD only to be told a year later that oh u can use ur own laptop

[@richardbaker4974]

My Chromebook took an awesome upgrade. It now runs Linux mint xfce. Sound is working and Bluetooth.

[@FlameSoulis]

Last year, I was able to revive my mother's laptop with a RAM upgrade and a fresh start on Linux Mint. I set it up as a basically a 'Zoom and Internet' machine, and they loved just how fast everything worked. They also liked the idea that their system just ran things with no issues, and enjoyed the friendly approach of the new user experience. They are now setting up their own printer configs and creating shortcuts for their favorite stuff... and they're not a computer person. Back then, I'd agree Linux is a niche, but now it feels great. Sure, maybe this is because of Chromebooks making a stand and getting things more approachable, but the fact I had an easy "Get out of Jail for Free" card on a flash drive, things are looking a lot better.

[@oscarfiala2104]

“ You still act like a kid” really got me 🤣 Edit: 7:07

[@nervusbreakdown]

I had a chromebook for over 5 years and it is still running very stong without any lags. I want to get another one soon!

[@connornorth9998]

I'm a sysadmin at a school and honestly, these things are amazing for what they're needed for. Especially with everything going cloud! Spend hours fixing a Windows PC or three minutes resetting a Chromebook, you be the judge.

[@Stay_away_from_my_swamp_water]

Ok let me introduce you to non persistent storage linux installs. You can have your machine always come back to the preconfigured state after a reboot

[@connornorth9998]

Sorry I'm missing what you're getting at here?

[@uss-dh7909]

I'll take the hours on a window pc. Job security is number one.

[@connornorth9998]

That's fair plays, I still manage both Windows and Mac devices alongside ChromeOS ones. Just every time I'm working on a Windows device I end up wishing I was learning something, configuring a new platform, messing around with the network etc etc

[@strawberriesandcum]

Hear me out here, how about we run the most basic of os on the lowest spec device that can only connect to a cloud hosted vm which can scale for any use you need, be it simple spreadsheets up to 3d rendering, for the low cost of £69.99 per month

[@roboseypien5526]

I got a Chromebook when my windows laptop kicked the bucket when university started up again, and to be honest, I quite like it. It's smooth, for the same price I could have gotten a less powerful windows laptop that would have ran like dog dirt. The Chromebook has been great for light tasks like notes and PowerPoints, and I got myself a proper windows desktop PC for heavier work I may need to do away from the university. I honestly haven't been able to flaw it so far.

[@terrencemoore8739]

The os gets feature updates very often too, it's always getting better

[@davidgiles9751]

Five Chromebooks in our house right now - some old, some newer. All still work great, although a couple of them are pretty dated. I take my HP 14" 2 in 1 Chromebook Plus with me on the road. PS: One Windows 11 Desktop PC (mine) and one Macbook Pro (recent college grad Daughter's).

[@tboatrig]

As the one who does all the family's tech support I've been buying them Chromebooks for about a decade. And my part time IT responsibilities are basically nothing now.

[@GeekyGamer167]

My mom has been using the same Chromebook for years now. I think she got it back in 2017, and she still uses it as her daily driver laptop without any real issues. It still works just fine for what she does with it!

[@darkflux]

DECENT Chromebooks may be decent, but nobody buys decent Chromebooks. they all buy the CHEAPEST option out there...and the CHEAPEST option in Chromebooks is decidedly not very good, both for speed and storage. can't tell you how many individuals i've had to let down with the bad news that "you don't have a computer, you have a Chromebook...". you cannot install programs (just the same apps you run on your phone), you cannot install a printer (and printer support is not only tricky, but requires extra steps beyond a computer(which many users are NOT going to be capable of navigating), and forget about storing even just your family photos (unless you only have a hundred or so). none of the major game play on it (other than maybe Minecraft), and even the ones that DO play don't play well, as Linus noticed. sorry, but even a Linux PC would be better. in fact, for most schools, they could just take their old Windows laptops and install a lite Linux distro...

[@TheShyArmyTV]

wrong you can run web apps besides play store apps

[@eaglefalcon]

ok, that fast scrolling at 5:16 is pretty seizurific. probably should've put a warning there or do a massive zoom out to get the idea across

[@spencerdawkins]

My stepdaughter came to visit and left without packing up her original Samsung Chromebook. Because they supported guest logins (even then), i was able to use it until she came back from California for another visit. It was fast enough, light, and held a charge as long as i needed it to. I've had three of my own since then. They work well, and moving to a 10-year support model for a $400 machine works really well for me. I do run Linux on them, but i haven't used Android yet. One of these days ...

[@kurt8327]

Worked IT in a school system. Most kids hate their Chromebooks and would much rather use a windows or mac device after graduating HS. Also, in College, most professors expect their students to have a mac or windows device when it comes to using specialty software.

[@spht9ng]

At least for computer science related stuff, you can do pretty much all of it on a Chromebook by enabling Linux app support. It's a development environment many prefer over Windows.

[@TheComputerToucher]

They probably hate it because the devices had 2 or 4GB of RAM with a Celeron that's practically melting from the 15 force-installed extensions and a battery made out of lithium modeling clay

[@Samwise_genji]

@spht9ng but so many stuff go wrong real quick in that container

[@slothnium]

The longevity of my current chromebook has more to do with the eMMC storage that I cannot replace myself, rather than the software or rest of the hardware. The N5105 w/ 8GB RAM runs surprisingly well, despite being passively cooled only.

[@jonm4206]

$25 ssd and $10 Sata to USB cable. Oh and $1 Duct Tape!

[@TomasCatarino]

I have a Chromebook Duet 3, I have had it for 2 years and it is amazing for low-power work and the battery has an excellent capability.

[@sanandn.r7889]

Low power work means

[@scrooglemcdoogle]

A chromebook got me through college in geology & engineering in tandem with a dedicated home desktop for heavy tasks. It took notes, did quizzes, did light productivity, had minimal problems, and towards the end with the native Linux support did 95% of my classroom tasks. Considering the amount of money I saved through the life of the device compared to the "recommended" MacBook Pro (which most colleagues seldom used) on both my desktop and chromebook setup, I have grown quite fond of them for simple productivity in lieu of a bloated Windows or Apple machine.

[@ajbp95]

Would it be possible to have something like AnyDesk and remotely use your desktop through your Chromebook, so you could even do heavier tasks on the go (as long as you have internet)?

[@soitchu]

​@@ajbp95 Yup! I am not sure about anydesk, but Moonlight has a webapp for it, and it works decently well. But I'm sure there are other apps that work as well.

[@fish3977]

​@@ajbp95if you got the drive for it, you can self host a lot on your desktop. Full remote use is very yanky but many demanding processes can be done remotely e.g. you can compile your code render something on your desktop you accessed from your laptop

[@saforder]

Even for a power user I can see them taking off, they have great battery life for basic office tasks etc and for anything more demanding they could always remote into their desktop using something like parsec.

[@masterv2118]

100% agree...

[@eldgard]

I've had a Lenovo Duet 5 for more than 2 years and still love it, it looks good and I use for meetings, light work (via office 365 and cloud services) Gamepass and media consumption, is a great tablet/laptop.

[@NormanF62]

The Duet has an ARM MediaTek chip so upgrading it is limited for now but once Google ports Google Flex to it, it will give them a renewed lease on life.

[@Blackeye1987]

ngl my chromebook is 5 years old and still its a full aluminum fhd convertable with 4h battery life... with chrome remote desktop its the BEST zero client i could imagine.. also steamlink geforce now its insane how much i startet to love my chromebook for what it is its just for casual stuff and it works perfect for it

[@user-28qhfk65]

Im curious how much did you pay for it cause I was thinking of getting one, though refurbished.

[@Blackeye1987]

@@user-28qhfk65 oh i think it was 300€ it was a special offer tho its a acer spin 514 but i dont know the performance as i said i use it as a zero client and i love it basic web easy rest just chrome remote desktop sometimes gaming via steam link but i have to admin if samsung dex would worl as good, i would use that

[@thebestdamager7400]

I see Linus mentionning schools using chrome books over and over again, and it might be different for canada/us, but I have never seen or heard of a school using chromebook in my country, and I work in a school in europe.

[@pilatus-iv4nl]

which country

[@hugoalvarado8697]

I recently got a Chromebook Plus and it has been my daily driver and I really love it. I can do Haskell, Go, Python programming without any issues, it is fast and simple to use.

[@ccorvinn]

I have a Chromebook Plus & an incredible Windows laptop; I can say, for the value for what you get (hardware, operating system, advantages over normal Chromebooks & Windows laptops), a Chromebook Plus is seriously the way to go. Such an underrated and over-hated system.

[@bigmak40]

One thing to also consider is that these boxes work great to remote to your more powerful home PC. Other than gaming and USB access, remoting to home works great and can keep you productive. I'd rather carry a lighter, cheaper, better battery life laptop than a chonker to run heavy hitters while on the go.

[@veabe69h]

I use a chromebook as my daily driver, and I honestly love it. It's fast, has an amazing battery life, and suits all my needs

[@rover908]

in late 2016 my high school brought us chromebooks for the first time and now all the way in 2024 I bought a Asus C223N chromebook just specifically for movies, internet browsing and bare minimum productivity stuff. Pretty impressed I shall tell Google

[@lukesaynor3582]

I used to totally hate Chromebooks. Then I managed to snag one for 100 bucks and realised how much more developed it was than last I used one. I now use it as my personal laptop for college. It runs on a celeron, but it’s pretty impressive!

[@FunkyM217]

I'm an old man, I remember the 1980s. Some folk will tell you of the 1960s and 32 kilobytes being enough to get us to the moon. My gaming life began with 64 kilobyte machines like the Commodore 64. And, the thing about the Commodore 64, was that it was an open machine. No Windowed desktop, no fancy Aero effects, just a Basic READY Prompt. But from that prompt, you could input BASIC (2.0, admittedly, an ancient standard even then) or straight Machine Assembler, if you knew it. And that's my point. I grew up in the era of the Bedroom Programmer, where an enterprising teenager could spend his weekends and evenings crafting a videogame, straight from his imagination, and with a couple of how-to books from the library, or bought straight from a Book-shop, he could create something good enough to sell to actual Publishers. And this happened. Matthew Smith became a Household name to British Gamers, after creating Manic Miner, and it's famous sequel, Jet Set Willy. The Darling twins, Richard and David, literally made enough money to buy a Lamborghini (or it could've been a Ferrari, I forget, but the point is that they could afford to buy a sports car) from their Start-up company, Codemasters, a publisher that's Still going today! So how does all of this history relate to the "Chromebook Plus Standard?" Well, I've heard about how Locked-down school Chromebooks are (probably partially by necessity, Teenage hormones and unsupervised internet access and all that), but for all we postpone a rapidly-getting-less-little-Johnny-or-Suzie-by-the-day their sexual awakening, we also deny them the pleasure of tinkering, and possibly even the most basic of filesystem functionality familiarity. Although, perhaps with the year of the Linux Laptop at last, a return to an age of Tinkering could set off a new era of Bedroom coders, and with the power of 3D acceleration, and a dose of PS1 Era nostalgia, while they won't be £1.99 Warriors, they're very likely to be Ten-dollar Titans, setting a new Price-point for software that could define an entire Generation. And that Would be something to Celebrate.

[@88porpoise]

But does it really stop the people who want to tinker? They will mostly find a way to do it. And cheap Chromebooks that can just run Linux are a great way to get them into tinkering. And back when tinkering was necessary, how much did the necessity to tinker just push people away from computers in general? Most people don't want to tinker and never have wanted to do so. They just want their computer or car or whatever to work.

[@bastienx8]

The school chromebooks are locked because they are for school stuff in the first place. Tikering is great but shouldn't be done in class. If they have an easy way to unlock their computer they would use it for anything but the actual course. A big point missing here is how important the parents are to introduce things to their children, a lot of them rely too much on the school system to "learn life" and don't discover new domains that could later become a hobby

[@ThatVinylChannel]

Got my first Chromebook roughly a year ago. Near top of the line, though. Since then I have traded in my Windows 10 PC for a Chromebox. I also upgraded the Chromebook to a Chromebook Plus model. I no longer use Windows except on my work PC. I really don't miss Windows at home or on my laptop, especially using Crostini and Debian 12 with the many Linux apps that ran very well in Chrome OS and the Play Store apps help as well!

[@Shadepariah]

We are definitely returning to the thin client/mainframe computing model

[@ascndr_]

I had one of the early Toshiba Chromebooks as a note taking machine at university. Worked great.

[@MovingShadowBE]

I use a CB as a daily machine as well. I even game on it too with Geforce Now. The batterly last a very long time and it boots up/works fast for browsing, watching YT, emails and sites like Netflix & Disney+. I wouldn't go back to Windows.

[@Nekolasxd]

the university i'm attending specifically states that we should not use chromebooks, nor any macOS based machines, even "lower tier" mobile processors are not encouraged. The recommended spec was any i7 with an rtx 3000 series card. To clarifiy: im attending a dual university, where you spend half of the semester working at the comapny you applied to, and the other half at university, also the company has to pay for your laptop, so i got a max spec rog flow x16.

[@johngaltline9933]

Is it the university generally, or a specific program where those specs would actually be needed, such as something in graphic design, video, or programing? outside of specific programs that use the compute power, I can't see a need for those specs. It's been half a decade now, but an AMD A6 laptop did everything needed for my sister's masters.

[@mudit1]

​@@johngaltline9933are 3D modelling and simulation related tasks also do require high spec devices

[@kingdededelicious]

I'm just curious, what are you majoring in?

[@fkdkdkfkrkska48485]

Sounds like a very weird restriction.

[@southbranch]

I like degoogle-in old chromebooks. throw a real linux distro on em. acer 720's in particular are sweet

[@Jessev741]

And I like installing ChromeOS on otherwise useless old Windows machines

[@appsaucetech]

I did this on an old dell chromebook 11 from 2013 with an n2840, slapped linux mint on it and called it a day

[@N4MELEZ]

Its a nice out of the box experience and pretty easy to use...

[@tro_b0t]

My local schools give every kid a Chromebook, from grade 1-12. Yet the amount of students who bring their own laptops is more than expected (around 1/15) as the bloat put onto the Chromebooks by school admins (to keep them locked down) has made the Chromebooks a running joke.

[@ThatLaloBoy]

Linux Enthusiast: "The year of the Linux is here!" (Sees Chrome OS Logo) "NO!!! NOT LIKE THIS!" *Deletes Bootloader*

[@_Makanko_]

Don't know why but that sent me back to the Matrix movie.

[@ANGELCRYPT0]

2 Chrombooks in our household and we love them. 😊

[@KeithBoehler]

There was an English Major that would use a Chromebook around 2015. He really only needs a basic word processor and KZbin, so it covers his basics. I think Microsoft and Office are costing too hard on brand recognition. Like outside of VBS macros, what is the real killer feature of Office?

[@HazewinDog]

I have never had Office or even just Word on any computer me or my parents owned. I asked this question in primary school, and I still ask this question today as a 30 year old. School did tell my parents that we needed Office, but they didn't have much money at the time and OpenOffice mostly worked fine, so they refused. And what was school going to do? Make me suffer for my parents' financial situation? Of course not, they just ended up letting it slide. OpenOffice was shit though, though so was Microsoft's Office. Now it's been about 10 years since I've used anything other than Google Docs, though I only found out about it post-graduation.

[@kh-ro5su]

office is a scam anyway. you can get something like libreoffice totally free and it's just as good

[@michaelcorcoran8768]

​@@HazewinDogit bugs me when schools mandate proprietary solutions, and at your own expense.. like what?