Google Turns Old Macs, PCs into Chromebooks with Chrome OS Flex | Hacker News Reader

Google Turns Old Macs, PCs into Chromebooks with Chrome OS Flex

arstechnica.com

27 pointscarride11 comments

The installation instructions are "hidden" behind a weird company signup form (https://chromeenterprise.google/os/chromeosflex/#form-sectio...)

Here is the direct link to the installation guide: https://support.google.com/chromeosflex/answer/11552529

So... could a person take an EOL Chromebook, install an aftermarket coreboot+tianocore firmware to get UEFI, and then install this to keep running officially-supported, fully-updated Chrome OS long after the machine went EOL?

People are doing this with cloudready, so I don’t see why not.

Did you read the article? Neverware's CloudReady was acquired by Google.

Surely that's evidence that it definitely works like that

Yes, and that’s the reason for my comment.

What's the difference with Chromium OS (its open source counterpart)?

Neat, I've been wondering what to do with a very working 2012 macbook pro and its new battery. I did try Ubuntu on it but the mouse settings just weren't for me.

Why would someone want to turn its PC into a walled garden ?

Because if you can live within that walled garden, it's a very nice garden - faster and safer than Windows, easier to use than many Linux distros, cheaper than a Mac.

(I say, typing from my GNU/Linux laptop, but I can see where people would legitimately benefit.)

You are not the target market.

I volunteered teaching computer skills in a “low income school district”. They had a laptop cart on wheels, with cheap, aging laptops that took multiple minutes to boot up + log in + become useable. And you had to completely turn them off, not put them to sleep, to avoid overheating the cart. You quickly learned to always factor in this time when planning.

This is the target market. The PCs were already configured as a “walled garden”.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com