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Backups! Crouton makes those easy, but so does e.g. rsync.

Also, CTRL-D short-circuits the scary splash screen.

I know about the shortcut, but I couldn't lend the machine to anybody. Backups, yes, but it's still a massive faff reprovisioning the machine.

I agree, I don't know why they make it so easy to wipe everything. I was thinking of getting my son (8) a chromebook, install minecraft on it, basic Linux, etc., but that splash screen makes it a non-starter. It's almost guaranteed that a little brother will get his hands on it and wipe the drive within a week.

Likely because they never intended "developer mode" to be "develop on the device" mode, but more a "test the web app" mode.

ChromeOS is first and foremost a web terminal. That Google recently started introducing Android apps on there do not really change this, as most Android apps are just frontends for web services.

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