Software death dates sending school Chromebooks to the recycling bin | Hacker News Reader

Software death dates sending school Chromebooks to the recycling bin

mercurynews.com

32 pointstherover42 comments

Looking around on Google, I see that each child in Oakland has a cost of around >10k/year of education (https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statisti...). These Chromebooks cost $200, so $50/year with 4 year lifespan. This is <0.5% of yearly education costs. Definitely not the biggest source of waste.

You're technically correct: OUSD does spend more than $10k/student/year.

It spends >$25k/student/year: http://www.ed-data.org/district/Alameda/Oakland-Unified

So $50/student is only 0.2% of the budget.

The problem is that this 0.2% doesn't benefit teachers' unions.

Not the biggest source of fiscal waste but a huge source of e-waste which is almost impossible to thoroughly recycle.

The beauty of this (for Google) is that since Google is not the manufacturer of these devices, despite dictating their death date, Google doesn't have to count the massive e-waste problem they arbitrarily created for business reasons as part of their own carbon footprint.

I guess it's the earth that ends up Scroogled in the end.

The real surprise is a laptop lasting 5 years in a school environment.

Although individual Chromebooks are pretty low-powered, having a 2 core Celeron or equivalent and ~4GB of RAM, they consume relatively little power and could possibly serve as the backbone of some compute clusters.

In fact, power/performance of most Chromebooks is pretty competitive compared to a Raspberry Pi, and you can find a lot of Chromebooks priced less than a equivalent SBC like the RPi. Being x86-64, Chromebooks also are able to run a lot more software without the emulation that ARM processors require.

Here's an submission on just that, a Dell Chromebook cluster. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36871338

I myself had a small Kubernetes cluster of Chromeboxes for quite a while. I eventually upgraded to mini-PCs basically because they were so cheap at the time and were much faster, even though I didn't really need it.

>expired Chromebook will no longer receive the software updates it needs, blocking basic websites and applications from use.

The first part is basically any android device, now you know why!

>These updates depend on many device-specific non-Google hardware and software providers that work with Google to provide the highest level of security and stability support,”

What an utter BS!! How hard it would be for google to have an agreement with these vendors to support it for say 10years?! Also, I don’t think you would need such an agreement as mostly new software updates will be compatible with the new hardware unless major changes were made like a cpu architecture etc., you can still get an intel pentium cpu working fine with linux/windows, a fully functional OSes not a browser based one!!

How long should we expect vendors to support a device that may have retailed for $125-250?

At some point, if you want 10 years of support, you’re going to have to pay for it one way or the other.

When I paid $129 (including tax and shipping to my door) for my Chromebook, I was fine with getting a little over 4 years of updates from it. That worked out to be about $2.48/mo.

This is a business model problem, not a technical problem.

Software can keep running without being actively maintained.

What are you talking about?

What a strange devil's advocate.

Internet connected devices absolutely need active maintenance. Especially so for a device which will be used by children.

Google could have designed and licensed Android in such a way that devices would receive direct OS updates, with the manufacturer's custom garbage as a strictly separate layer on top of that. It's not a trivial challenge, but it's absolutely doable.

They didn't, and the result is a lot of e-waste and vulnerable devices.

The fact of the matter is that this electronic garbage is an externality that neither consumers nor Google had to pay for due to the planet being valued at $0. The sad part is that since our current generation won’t have to deal with this problem, we happily pass it on to our children and grandchildren.

>The fact of the matter is that this electronic garbage is an externality that neither consumers nor Google had to pay for due to the planet being valued at $0.

Actually in many jurisdictions, the government collects a e-waste handling fee at the point of sale, which partially or completely alleviates this concern.

>How long should we expect vendors to support a device that may have retailed for $125-250?

For how long they can but at least not to kill it like blocking the internet on a device that’s only usable with one.. let the community take it from there, I’m sure some bright people will find a way to have a usable minimal linux distribution for such devices, and I’m sure a lot of less fortunate countries would be happy to buy it.

Google isn't blocking the internet on out-of-auto-update Chromebooks. They just stop getting updates.

That means that as the software drifts farther and farther out of date, which in turn means that some things will stop working, but it's not a kill switch.

There already are native boot Linux distros for most Intel Chromebooks.

https://www.wikihow.com/What-to-Do-with-Your-Chromebook-Afte...

The schools may decide that the costs or risks are not worth it to run unsupported hardware/software in their environment, but Google isn't turning them into doorstop as some people on this thread seem to be implying (or believing themselves).

>They just stop getting updates.

And stopping the updates will block them from the internet, at least that’s per the article:

>Chromebook will no longer receive the software updates it needs, blocking basic websites and applications from use.

>That means that as the software drifts farther and farther out of date, which in turn means that some things will stop working, but it's not a kill switch.

So basically just like an android device, after 2 years you’re on your own? Better than a killswitch obviously but it also means that it’s just a software pre-determined obsolescence and had nothing to do with google claims that’s it’s “hardware vendors issue”, because just like android hardware, a lot received non-official support from different developers for years after untill the hardware became a little slow to keep up with the bloated system.

>And stopping the updates will block them from the internet, at least that’s per the article:

My guess is that eventually the browser will be outdated and sites will eventually break, but in my experience you have years until you start running into sites that use the latest and greatest features with no polyfill.

Yeah, that's disposable technology, and, guess what, that means you're the bad guy.

I'll wager that I'm going to use this Chromebook for a longer total duration (days from purchase to disposal) than you'll use your current phone.

The proper comparison is a laptop. Phones inherently take more routine physical stress and accidental damage by virtue of how they're carried and used.

Also, phones are where this hardware update treadmill cancer started. I only stopped using my last phone because carriers unilaterally obsoleted the model and banned it from their networks.

I'm still running kitkat. I don't think you will win this bet.

Well, my phone is three years old, bought after the old one broke, and my laptop is 13 years old, so you make your own judgement.

The math you're sharing makes sense - still, the useful utility is there. It's still working hardware, and if linux can keep that equipment running on it's own, it's hard to imagine why Chromebooks couldn't keep running.

Maybe it's worth preparing them with an alternate distribution that will get updates for much longer.

Companies like Google talk a good game (progressive (lower case) environmentalism, etc.) but like ESG it’s all a ruse.

They sell disposable devices with built-in obsolescence. They like to pretend they care —they only care about their market position and profits. The rest is just a way to get there.

And to just not throw Google under their bus, look at Apple (and Google too) if you think they care... look at the labor practices they condone --just like Nike. If it's overseas, I guess it's not happening. Sure, they treat Engs very well stateside because (for various reasons, including market) they must --not because they want. But then again, "we" condone it and encourage it by buying their goods and services knowing full well the reality on the ground.

100% agree!

Built-in software death dates sending 1000s of schools’ Chromebooks to the bin - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36863095 - July 2023 (3 comments)

Parents, environmentalists to Google: stop Chromebooks from expiring this summer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36857506 - July 2023 (174 comments)

Software ‘death dates’ are sending schools’ Chromebooks to the recycling bin - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36857208 - July 2023 (14 comments)

Colorado bought Chromebooks to get kids through Covid. They’re already near EOL - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36114532 - May 2023 (11 comments)

Colorado districts built up a supply of Chromebooks. Some are nearing their end - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36083380 - May 2023 (25 comments)

Chromebooks' short lifespans are creating 'piles of electronic waste' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35685576 - April 2023 (1 comment)

Schools bought millions of Chromebooks and 3 years later they’re breaking down - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35667547 - April 2023 (163 comments)

Design quirks, limited parts, and other ways Chromebooks frustrate repairs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35666832 - April 2023 (89 comments)

Chromebooks Are Trash (Literally) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35649281 - April 2023 (15 comments)

The sad part is that it's literally only OSS operating systems left that can be used indefinitely now that Windows cut the mustard with Windows 11. The fact that Windows could run on just about whatever you threw it on was one of its biggest advantages and that's now gone.

Linux fits the bill

> Windows cut the mustard with Windows 11

I think that phrase means nearly the exact opposite of how you used it. (Or, alternately, I really don't understand what you're saying about Win11.)

"to be of high quality" or "to reach or surpass the desired standard or performance"

Maybe they meant Cut and Run?

I like to say “Doesn’t Pass the Mustard” just to annoy people

> I like to say “Doesn’t Pass the Mustard” just to annoy people

I want to make a joke based on Grey Poupon commercials, but your screwy phrase keep messing me up. Well plaid, sir.

I don't know if you're being coy or just poking fun at the cheese/mustard confusion. At least it wasn't a revealing slip: a woman was once telling me that her husband wasn't fussed by something and said that "eh, it's no hair off his back".

Odd, I've always used it to mean removing everything that doesn't meet expectations. I've got at least a few people who agree with my usage.

https://www.matuzo.at/blog/html-boilerplate/

> I’m cutting the mustard at JS module support. If a browser supports JavaScript modules, it means that it’s a browser that supports modern JavaScript, such as modules, ES 6 syntax, fetch, etc.

https://decadecity.net/blog/2014/03/06/cutting-the-mustard

> The phrase "cutting the mustard" was coined by the BBC responsive news team to describe a technique of setting a minimum standard that a browser must meet in order to get an enhanced experience. Browsers that meet this minimum standard are said to cut the mustard.

I guess this is the OG https://archive.li/ANEHs but my parents use this phrase so I would be hard pressed to believe this is where it came from.

I may be out of the loop, but can't schools just install Linux mint on these things and use them to teach kids python and *nix??

A Chromebook hardware wise is still eons ahead of what many older software engineers grew up learning on

> I may be out of the loop, but can't schools just install Linux mint on these things and use them to teach kids python and *nix??

Yes but that one kid quoted in the article thinks it's like Fritos.

If it's anything like my child's school district, the point of these devices has nothing to do with learning computing, they're for access to google docs/slides/classroom for homework. For some students it's their only tool for online research.

They're centrally managed by the school district's IT department, and I imagine if they are unable to be serviced it may be difficult to keep them managed for both school and software policy reasons.

I hope Louis Rossman will talk about this.

Makes me want to build a rpi laptop.

Schools should move to cheap laptops, replacing the OS with ChromeOS Flex. It’ll take much longer for them to end up in the garbage

Chromebooks are mostly cheap laptops with unusual keyboards, and can run ChromeOS Flex if you open them up to remove the write protect screw and enable uefi booting (might need/want to update the uefi partition in the firmware, too)

https://archive.ph/YWxqV

To avoid e-waste, cheapest possible device is the worst one, but this is what edu wanted.

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