Google extends Chromebook lifespan to ten years

Starting next year, Google will provide Chromebook security patches and software upgrades for up to a decade. This will effectively guarantee that no existing Chromebook will expire within the next two years.

However, a Google spokesperson added the caveat that, “In making changes to the expiration policy, we have to coordinate with each partner making any component in these devices. It requires a security and performance guarantee from the makers.” Other Google sources indicated that the major Chromebook vendors are expected to work with the company to extend their hardware’s lifespan.

crtbob,

Never thought I’d see the day when Google extended the lifespan of a piece of hardware.

Thanks4Nothing,

I read the article. It is still unclear to me if the king of this e-waste, the Acer c720 will get any new updates. They started making it in 2013…but it was made for a while. There are soooo many of these things that cannot really run chrome anymore because of one reason or another.

epyon22, (edited )

I wonder if it’d just be easier to open these up to Linux distros. Out of the 3 Chromebooks I have once they go out of support they are on a quick decline to just becoming trash because I can’t do anything with them after that. At least traditional PC hardware I could just put Linux on it and have a device for years to come when the hardware actually fails.

Edit just to clarify none of my devices are supported by galliumos or as far as I know any other Linux distros

d3Xt3r,

Have you tried this? Apparently it takes only 4 clicks to enable Linux.

ripcord,
@ripcord@kbin.social avatar

That's running Linux in a container. And while it works REALLY well overall, they were talking about replacing the core OS entirely.

Johanno,

Apparently Google disables the whole Chromebook after Support. So even if it would work without updates Google is disabling the laptop software side. Nobody should support this kind of ewaste production.

Who owns the Chromebook? Me who bought it, or Google?

epyon22,

Yep use it all the time but the containers fill the hd quickly and aren’t exactly native so there are some quirks. Plus that doesn’t help much when underlying os goes out of support.

ripcord,
@ripcord@kbin.social avatar

Which models? I thought the majority worked with Gallium at least if not others. And maybe cloud ready or something for longer support.

Also will your current in-support ones get Lacros? I thought all the current ones were going to. That's the big one for long term use.

epyon22,

Acer Chromebook R 13

Acer Chromebook Spin 311

Asus CX22NA-211.BB01

Been a while since I’ve looked but I’ve haven’t had much luck finding Linux for those 3.

kellenoffdagrid,
@kellenoffdagrid@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Do you happen to know what the main problems are with installing Linux on chromebooks? I’ve never used one before and I’m not super familiar with the hardware, I was wondering what the issues usually are (are the processors/network cards/other hardware poorly supported, etc.)

epyon22,

They are more like phones than PCs so every model needs it’s own specific build and that specific build relies on proprietary drivers

Uranium3006,
@Uranium3006@kbin.social avatar

Last time I looked into this gallium always was discontinued. I got endeavor os working on a Chromebook. The problem is you need to flash your own bootloader and you generally can't do that on arm Chromebooks you will generally want an Intel Chromebook to do this on and there aren't very many of those. The one I have also suffers from having very low storage, I think the onboard storage is like 16 GB.

To be completely honest I'm burnt out on Chromebooks as a viable platform. I made one work in college but I wouldn't really advise going down this path. I probably advise you to get a Pinetab with the keyboard cover or some other similar tablet for that niche, or find a small laptop of the more traditional sense to do this on.

Chromebooks are kind of all weird platform when you think about it, a disposable laptop that's designed just to be a web browser. Google obviously made it to trap people in their ecosystem and the only real markets where they've seen much usages in education, where the very limited Suite of tool students use often were web-based anyways and they're disposability means that if a student trashes them which is not to uncommon replacing them isn't that big of a deal.

avidamoeba,
@avidamoeba@lemmy.ca avatar

Probably not for organizations given they depend on the device management functionality that comes with Chromebook. If they’re to switch to another OS, they’ll have to take on this device management. Roll their own timely security updates, hardening, content filtering, security policy creation and provisioning, privacy compliance, you name it. All of this and more done by every org. Chromebooks aren’t merely just a bunch of hardware. Their value proposition leans heavily on the OS and the built-in support and device management features.

amenotef,
@amenotef@lemmy.world avatar

My dad has one expiring this year. I told him next time to get some regular laptop with AMD Zen and use it in Windows and if he misses Chrome OS I can just install some light Linux distribution.

MonkderZweite,

Except if it runs on ARM. Because it can’t have general drivers, once that specific CPU is out of support, you’re out of luck.

iHUNTcriminals,

Are they also mailing out an added stick of 1gb ram?

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