Manbart

Manbart, 6 months ago

A flashed Chromebook is an accessible option

mrchromebox.tech

Manbart, 10 months ago

Crash reports are one thing, but web browsing data and enumerating devices on your local network go well beyond that objective

From www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/…/idsa-cip.html

Other devices in your computing environment

The categories of websites you visit, but not the URL itself, Includes universal plug and play devices and devices that broadcast

information to your computer on a local area network: for example, smart TV model and vendor information, and video streaming devices.

The categories of websites you visit, but not the URL itself, The information collected includes categorized web browsing history that shows how long and how often you visited specific categories of sites (i.e. social media, personal finance, or news). All site visits are classified into one of 30 categories. We do not collect URLs, web pages titles, or user-specific content without explicit permission from you.

Manbart, 10 months ago

I recently got a Chromebook from work (it’s no longer supported by manufacturer, so it was bound for ewaste). A Toshiba Chromebook 2 (model CB35-B3440).

Installing Linux was pretty uneventful after struggling a bit to get ChromeOS re-installed, which I had to do as the original image was ‘enterprise managed’ and thus had developer mode disabled. After reinstalling ChtomeOS and removing the hardware write lock (a foil sticker on the MoBo), I ran the install script from mrchromebox.tech which reflashed the firmware to Coreboot. Its pretty much a standard EFI laptop at that point.

It has 4GB memory, an Intel Celeron N2840 CPU and 16GB eMMC. I put Fedora LXQT on it. Overall, it is very underpowered in the CPU department, noticeably more so even compared to other low end laptops of similar vintage I have. But, its good enough for web browsing and e-book reading. The HD screen looks pretty good and the best part is the batterey life is way better than any other laptop I’ve had. You can actually use it for a full day on a single charge. If you understand the limitations, its a worthwhile device considering the cost of these ranges from free in m case to about $40 used on Ebay

Manbart, 10 months ago

I run Office 365 as a PWA at work, it works good enough. And I pretty much use it just for Outlook anyway (I never can get the shared calendars to work in the native Linux email clients), LibreOffice is good enough for my word docs, diagrams and spreadsheets. It helps that we use SharePoint, which doesn’t support all of the formatting features of desktop Office anyway

Manbart, 10 months ago

Wow, I had no idea they are still around

Manbart, 10 months ago

Like everything, it’s a trade off. Windows allows different versions of the same libraries, but at the cost of an ever growing WinSXS folder and slow updates

Manbart, 11 months ago

Yes. I can hold the 1 key down, and it will give me a voice menu to listen to my messages, but I get no notification when there is a new message. I previously had an iPhone, and in that dialer there was a voicemail tab that showed my inbox and you could listen to/delete the messages from there (and I got a notification when there was a new message).

There are some Play Store apps that have this function, but I have yet to find one that works without Google Play Services installed

Manbart, 11 months ago

I’m hoping to stick with vanilla LineageOS.

Manbart, 11 months ago

Just an update in case anyone is facing similar issues;

I installed MicroG on my vanilla LineageOS ROM using the F-Droid repo on their web page. I tried downloading the ‘My Visual Voicemail’ app again, and it now partially works, but at least it’s usable now. I still get a popup when I open the app that says Google Play Services is required, but I can now at least close the dialog to view, play and delete messages. Before it wouldn’t let me close the dialog. Not sure if notifications are working as I havn’t got a new voicemail yet, but it’s at least usable for my purposes

Manbart, 11 months ago

Tried installing MicroG from the F-Droid repo, and ‘My Visual Voicemail’ app at least partially works now. See my other new post for details

Manbart, 1 year ago

How has hardware compatibility been for you with Guix? It seems compelling g to me but my understanding is that it strictly avoids non-free blobs