Chromebook expiration date, repair issues 'bad for people and planet'
theregister.com
theregister.com
But - Google themselves don't support Chrome that old. Google docs doesn't function correctly. Performance wise, it's fine, but the I bar showing the cursor location is in the wrong place.
It's ARM, and old ARM, so the only distro producing images is Postmarket OS. And those images can't drive the internal display properly.
Once bitten, back to x86 for future laptops. I'd consider something like the Pinebook that had Linux support from the beginning, but not something that didn't support normal Linux out of the box.
It has better battery life than latest Apple M1/M2 products that cost 10x+ as much! Even if you enable the newest "Low power mode", because it's effectively still a performance-optimised mode by Apple.
E.g., you can't even use the Manufacture Date from the box to tell how long the thing will be supported for.
There's already plenty of articles about how to check these expiration dates. When it was 5 years, it was effectively common that the thing you buy at Best Buy as a brand new device, would actually only have 3 years worth of support — if it was initially released two years prior.
However, on some of the earlier x86 machines, it is possible to install a more standard boot environment:
https://mrchromebox.tech/#devices
Because of "security" considerations, the process often requires disassembly of the Chromebook, and toggle of the RW switch (or disconnect of the battery in a specific way), so it's basically much more involved than simply installing Linux over Windows. (There's also a bunch of blogspam which incorrectly tells you how to boot Linux without doing any of the above mandatory steps.)
So, tl;dr: if you want good Linux support, you may as well buy a Windows machine than Linux-based Chromebook, ironically!
The arm chromebooks are pretty sad for support, the x86 ones are the way to go.