You can upgrade the RAM and storage on some of them. Installing either Linux or windows is also possible.
Comment on Google Intros Chromebook Plus Devices With More Power, Apps and AI for $399
whileloop@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Unless you can easily upgrade the RAM, Storage, and replace the OS when it loses support, it’s still ewaste.
notthebees@reddthat.com 8 months ago
whileloop@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Possible != easy. Putting Linux on any old Windows PC is dead easy, takes not even half an hour. Linux on a Chromebook? Easily hour+ long headache on your first time.
Kerfuffle@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Easily hour+ long headache on your first time.
Whenever I read this kind of thing (and people seem to say it pretty often), it seems really weird to me. Same goes for complaining about distro installers. An hour of possible headache/irritation and then you use the machine for years. Obviously it would be better if stuff was easy, but an hour just seems insignificant in the scheme of things. I really just don’t understand seeing it as an actual roadblock.
(Of course, there are other situations where it could matter like if you had to install/maintain 20 machines, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.)
whileloop@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Oh yeah, its absolutely not a huge deal if you already have a chromebook and just want to keep using it. But if I’m buying a new laptop and I know that putting another OS on it will be unnecessarily difficult, I’m just going to pick a different laptop.
macallik@kbin.social 8 months ago
HidingCat@kbin.social 8 months ago
What makes it so difficult, even though they use similar hardware?
db2@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
ChromeOS is Linux.
notthebees@reddthat.com 8 months ago
Well yes but actually no
JaymesRS@midwest.social 8 months ago
I read this in Maurice Moss’ voice
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tony@lemmy.hoyle.me.uk 8 months ago
Apple laptops you can’t upgrade any of those things and they sell like hotcakes. It’s really not something most people do.
It looks like lenovo is already selling laptops at that spec, with the chromebook version being £50 cheaper than the windows version. Bet it’s the same hardware underneath… the rest is microsoft tax. If it is the same hardware, putting linux on it is going to be fairly easy.
baronvonj@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Unless you can easily upgrade the RAM, Storage, and replace the OS when it loses support, it’s still ewaste.
Which consumer desktop Linux distros have more than 10 years of updates?
whileloop@lemmy.world 8 months ago
All of them!
Linux and Linux distros are generally designed to be hardware-agnostic, and generally works just fine on very old components. I’m currently running the current version of Ubuntu on a used U1 server from ~2013, no issues, no headaches. It just works. Grab any Windows PC from the last 20 years, you won’t have any compatibility issues running most Linux distros, though some distros might expect more performance. Linux Mint is fairly lightweight.
baronvonj@lemmy.world 8 months ago
And you can install those distros on a Chromebook, no? You can probably use CloudReady after ChromeOS no longer supports it after 10 years.
Debian LTS for stable releases is 5 years
Ubuntu LTS is 5 years
ubuntu.com/about/release-cycle
Fedora is 13 months
GigglyBobble@kbin.social 8 months ago
LTS just means staying on the same release and guaranteed support for that time which is important for businesses. As a consumer you can always just do a release upgrade.
Since most businesses rely on Windows anyway, that's pretty much irrelevant for this discussion. They cannot use Chromebooks either.
TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 8 months ago
You aren’t understanding.
That’s support for one specific software release.
It’d be like saying Apple supports iPhones for 1 year not 5+ years, because they’re only on iOS version X for one year.
Linux devices get updates literally forever.
raptir@lemdro.id 8 months ago
Debian has been around for 30 years. And on my non-Chromebook I can always install the latest version.
baronvonj@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Debian LTS for stable release is 5 years
raptir@lemdro.id 8 months ago
And when that support period ends… I just install the next Debian release.
When the support period for ChromeOS ends, I’m “officially” out of luck.
I have a 13 year old laptop that runs current Linux distros without a problem.
hperrin@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I just recently installed the latest version of Manjaro on a Dell XPS 15z from 2011. So Manjaro supports hardware from at least 12 years ago.
baronvonj@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Nice. I believe I can put ChromeOS Flex (forgot about the name change from CloudReady in my other comments) on my old Surface Pro 3. Or Fedora. Or keep running Windows. And when my HP 14c stops getting updates from Google in 2030 or 2031, I’ll consider Linux or Flex on it. 😁
Nioxic@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
zdnet.com/…/the-oldest-linux-distro-just-got-a-ma…
1993s slackware
baronvonj@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Slackware 1.0 isn’t still receiving updates though. There doesn’t seem to be a statement on how long major releases are supported, it just says “a number of years.”
GigglyBobble@kbin.social 8 months ago
Why do you compare patches for major software releases with updates for hardware? Those are completely different topics.
sir_reginald@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I’m running Arch Linux in a 18 year old laptop. And I could and have run Debian in the very same laptop in the past.
I don’t get your point at all. If laptops were as repairable as desktops, we could continue using them for 15+ years.
TwinTusks@outpost.zeuslink.net 8 months ago
I have a CR48 from 2010 that is running arch linux, is slow but completely workable.
baronvonj@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Brilliant! So you’re affirming it wasn’t automatically ewaste once Google stopped supporting it!
macallik@kbin.social 8 months ago
It is worth noting that they updated their support to be 10 years moving forward, so I disagree with the eWaste sentiment. I agree that Linux as a permanent alternative isn't super easy, and I say that typing from a Chromebook running Debian 12.