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Comment by madars | Hacker News Reader

Recent Chromebooks are extremely nice devices. For example, $299 at BestBuy gets you an Asus CM3401. It has AMD Ryzen CPU (with similar performance as 8th gen mobile i7), 1080p screen, and an M.2 SSD you can upgrade yourself. Downside is the weight -- 1.8kg (almost 4lbs) -- and that 16 GB RAM model costs extra. But perfectly good for using Crostini (ChromeOS's Linux VM -- you can run your favorite Debian programs, including those that use GUI, without reflashing your Chromebook a la Crouton).

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The used/refurbished market for Chromebooks is great for buyers, too. There's not much demand for used Chromebooks so you can get something quite nice for personal/kid use around $100-200.

Sure, but always check how long they receive updates. Chromebooks get 8 years of updates, 10 years for models released after 2021.

That's a pretty great policy - and such a stark contrast to "maybe 3 years of security updates if we feel like it" on Android (Pixels aren't the norm!).

I wonder what is the percentage of people that would even consider "run [their] favorite Debian programs..." on their Chromebook.

I set up the Linux version of Firefox on our company's Chromebooks so we could use client certificates (not available in the Android version available from Play Store).

It's super easy so I imagine any nerd with a Chromebook that wants more functionality that they can get from mobile apps would do it!

Yeah I have taken a $50 chromebook before and ran virtual box in it.

I don't know why they would buy/give out these crippled OS devices vs. just Windows/easiest option.

It's so easy that it's great for education. Want to teach somebody Linux? If they have a Chromebook, there's very little you have to go through to get a near-native Linux shell (you can even open ports!).

Can you run linux on bare metal on them ?

Sorry, no. See also: AUE.

It has auto-updates until June 2031 (almost 8 years from now), and you can reflash it to Linux after. Sounds like a pretty decent vendor promise for a $300 device to me. Windows/macOS don't promise me anything.

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