Google Will Officially Support Running Chrome OS On Old PCs (engadget.com) 63
This week, Google acquired a company called Neverware that allows users to turn their old PCs and Macs into a Chromebook with its CloudReady software. Now, Google is planning to make CloudReady into an official Chrome OS release. Engadget reports: When that happens, Neverware says its existing users will be able to seamlessly upgrade to the updated software. Moreover, once that transition is complete, Google will support CloudReady in the same way that it currently does Chrome OS. In the immediate future, Neverware says it's business as usual. The Home Edition of CloudReady isn't changing, and the company says it's committed to supporting its existing education and enterprise customers. Moreover, there's no plan to change pricing at the moment, and Google will honor any current multi-year licenses.
Not only does this acquisition make a lot of sense from Google's perspective, but it's hard to see a downside for CloudReady users. The fact the operating system wasn't officially supported by Google was one of the few downsides to the software. It meant you couldn't install Android apps on CloudReady devices, even though it's based on Chromium OS. With this acquisition, support for Android apps becomes much more likely. Direct support from Google will also make the software more appealing to schools and businesses since they can get help directly from the company if they have any technical issues.
Not only does this acquisition make a lot of sense from Google's perspective, but it's hard to see a downside for CloudReady users. The fact the operating system wasn't officially supported by Google was one of the few downsides to the software. It meant you couldn't install Android apps on CloudReady devices, even though it's based on Chromium OS. With this acquisition, support for Android apps becomes much more likely. Direct support from Google will also make the software more appealing to schools and businesses since they can get help directly from the company if they have any technical issues.
Why not use Linux Mint ? (Score:4, Informative)
or similar and have a full choice of software that continues to work when the Internet connection is poor and without Google inspecting the contents of files that you create and seeing what you do.
Re: Why not use Linux Mint ? (Score:1)
Re:Why not use Linux Mint ? (Score:5, Insightful)
or similar and have a full choice of software that continues to work when the Internet connection is poor and without Google inspecting the contents of files that you create and seeing what you do.
Slashdot users, including myself, will absolutely do that. In fact Mint is my personal favourite distro. But ChomeOS on an old PC is pretty much the ultimate in Momputing.
More choice is almost always a good thing.
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Yup, this was my use case, too. My Dad used CloudReady on an older PC until he passed away at 98. It was just a browser, and that's all he used. There was nothing else for him to do. It just worked and there was no "upgrading" or OS concerns. My mother-in-law is in her 90s and still using it the same way.
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Yup, this was my use case, too. My Dad used CloudReady on an older PC until he passed away at 98. It was just a browser, and that's all he used. There was nothing else for him to do. It just worked and there was no "upgrading" or OS concerns.
My father-in-law passed away four years ago, in his mid-80s. I had been supporting him for years and had tried various things, finally settling on a Linux distro of some sort (I don't recall), but with a manually stripped-down and locked-down UI so he couldn't screw anything up. Something like ChromeOS would have been perfect for him.
The funny thing about this case? My father-in-law was a retired full professor of Computer Science. He worked as a full-time programmer for some years in the 70s and taugh
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> I know plenty of women who use Apple, not one who will touch a Chromebook.
Interesting brag about your wealthy social circle.
I have some older PC's that might get this to donate to some folks at the park down by the river. They may not even complain about the lack of an Apple logo!
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Yeah, in my experience Mint runs fine on Mac hardware. And I'm sure it's fine on PCs - they aren't usually an issue.
I've got my 2015 MacBook Pro dual-booting w/ Linux Mint and macOS, actually, using rEFInd as the boot manager. Mint doesn't seem to have any issues with any of the hardware.
Arm hardware (Score:2)
I've got my 2015 MacBook Pro dual-booting w/ Linux Mint and macOS, actually, using rEFInd as the boot manager. Mint doesn't seem to have any issues with any of the hardware.
Too bad that Apple decided to drop using standard (such as UEFI on their x86) on their new M1 ARM laptop, having instead to use the same kind of custom locked bootloader as their iPAds.
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I've got an Intel Chromebook that I put a new SSD into and loaded with Linux Mint. Which makes this story ironically funny to me.
I'm trying to imagine someone that would ever consider loading a Mac up with a version of Chrome OS. I just can't fathom it.
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My K12 inner city school district did a beta test at a building with Neverware like a year ago. Why? Because we already have shittons of Chromebooks and being able to have 1 homogeneous environment where we could potentially impose the same policy settings etc is way easier to manage, and would have potentially allowed for a new life on things like old Streams that would otherwise end up in the recycling.
I wasn't part of it, all I can say is we ended up not doing that and just replacing everything with Ch
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Nah, just install Linux or BSD. (Score:2)
Re: Nah, just install Linux or BSD. (Score:1)
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Re: Nah, just install Linux or BSD. (Score:1)
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Re: Nah, just install Linux or BSD. (Score:1)
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Re: Nah, just install Linux or BSD. (Score:1)
Re: Nah, just install Linux or BSD. (Score:1)
The problem is also the solution (Score:5, Interesting)
> the problem is that the browsers today are full OSs
Indeed. And why run two operating systems when you only use one? That's ChromeOS.
My wife ran Linux on her desktop and she liked it fine.
She didn't miss Windows at all. Everything she does works the same under Linux, 99% of which takes place in the browser. At some point she got a Chromebook, which I installed Linux on. It was set up dual boot - she could use either Linux, which she was accustomed to, or ChromeOS which provides the browser, Google Docs, etc.
To my surprise, she never had any reason to boot to Linux. ChromeOS fit her use case perfectly. She particularly liked that it started up instantly and the battery would last all day.
Like you said, the browser is pretty much an OS, why run two operating systems, one within another?
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The main problem with ChromeOS is that is uses the cloud for almost anything, even runnnig simple tasks (and one needs internet to do it): offline computing is almost impossible... (not talking about the privacy stuff...)
My 70 year old mom too...
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It is indeed cloud native. You can use Google Docs offline, you can't use Facebook or Slashdot offline on any device.
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The main problem with ChromeOS is that is uses the cloud for almost anything, even runnnig simple tasks (and one needs internet to do it): offline computing is almost impossible... (not talking about the privacy stuff...)
Nonsense. I use ChromeOS offline all the time. Many of the key apps need to be configured for offline usage, but once you've done that (which usually only takes a couple of clicks), it works great.
Re: The problem is also the solution (Score:1)
So close (Score:2)
Re: So close (Score:2)
It's called Chrome. The rest is just window dressing. Imagine it in your head if you thinkbit makes a difference.
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This is a project for old PCs. You can already run real Linux on your old PC. Why do you want Google to make yet another Linux distribution? And if you wanted an old PC, why did you buy a Chromebook?
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There's nothing evil about pushing a simplified OS rather than a linux desktop. Google is about web apps, not desktop apps. And with ChromeOS, they've more or less demonstrated that a large portion of computer users don't need a desktop OS. And that's a good thing. If nothing else, it has insured that Linux (and MacOS, and Android and iOS) are now and forevermore on an equal footing with Windows as far as new applications are concerned. You don't have to use ChromeOS, but the success of ChromeOS has ma
This is amazing news (Score:2)
Congratulations to Neverware. They let me revive my perfectly working old x86 Chromebooks.
I hope they will also let me revive old ARM Chromebooks sometime soon, too!
Google support... (Score:2)
... once that transition is complete, Google will support CloudReady in the same way that it currently does Chrome OS.
Oh, you mean poorly, with only out-of-date web pages. Thanks, Google...
Nice rose colored glasses you have there! (Score:2)
Yet more hardware confined to Big Tech walled gardens.
Some collection of states have begun to challenge Google's supposed monopoly, but I'm way too much of a cynic to pretend that that is anything more than a government shakedown and I'm old enough to cite proof of that view off the top of my head.
Lol (Score:2)
So who is forcing you to use it?
I guess it'll stop working China then (Score:2)
...if it works at the moment, that is. I've not tried it.
Pixel? (Score:2)
Does it support the pixel that Google don't support?
Chrome on Old Chromebooks (Score:2)
The most annoying thing with Chromebooks is that once they hit a given age, they stop getting updates, even if the hardware is perfectly capable of running the latest version. Just like with Android, Chromebook updates are prepared by Google, then pushed by the vendors with whatever drivers are needed. In most cases, continuing to put out updates would be trivial, but the vendors cut them off the day they're allowed to to encourage sales.
By switching over to this, Chromebooks can continue to get updates u
Well that's unfortunate (Score:5, Insightful)
Add full Android support. (Score:3)
A Linux desktop OS with full Android compatibility could be a Windows killer.
An Linux/Android PC without the stupid restrictions imposed by phone manufacturers could be a wonderfully versatile machine. Google gets its data (except for skilled users who put root to good use) mining and more Chromebooks dodge the landfill a bit longer. Android x86 and emulators aren't there yet.
External GPS passthrough to Android would be nice too but with phones owning the nav market I doubt we'll see that.
Re: Add full Android support. (Score:2)
In don't see what stops you from running x86 AOSP in a VM that really just translates the hardware interfaces so it doesn't fight over them with your real OS.
A few scripts should give you all the integration you need. Startup, clipboard, file access etc. You can copy that stuff straight from scrcpy, which does it all. Or just use that.
Of course, ideally you would convert AOSP's Java stuff to run on regular Linux. But adding a few Android-specific kernel config settings and some user space stuff would make i
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That's kinda what BlueStacks does. Give it a try.
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I don't see the point.
Everything Android has to offer, is a shitty cumbersome version of something I already have on my Linux system.
Lots of what I run on Android is the same thing I already run on my Linux system. I do it through Termux, mostly. Sometimes I have used Linux Deploy on rooted devices, but even on my rooted phone I am just using Termux right now. It installs the same software you would run on Linux normally. You can even run X apps using Xrdp, or Xvnc.
If I need raw performance I'm not running anything on my phone. But often, I don't need that.
As for running Android apps on Linux, some of them are pretty nice. It could be qu
I will support that too. (Score:2, Informative)
1. Install Ubuntu.
2. Install a browser.
3. There. Done. Even got an actual OS for actual brain users.
Every single person on this site can offer such support.
Such generosity. Much innovation. Wow.
Leave the driving to us! (Score:2)
Man, I didn't buy a computer to think for myself. I bought it to get shit done. Get a Chromebook and relieve yourself of the unnecessary burden of being your own sysadmin.
It's like the old Greyhound slogan: "Leave the driving to us". There is a certain freedom in not having to do everything the hard way.
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There is a certain freedom in not having to do everything the hard way.
Which quite often leads to the freedom to do everything someone else's way.
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Have you ever tried this with a non-technical relative? It doesn't go so well... Unfortunately Ubuntu requires tech support. Since getting my mum a Chromebook the only time I've had to do anything is when her router died.
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Don't worry, your religious idols are safe. There is no 68K port of Chromium.
Have you tried it? (Score:5, Insightful)
My reborb MacBook Ironic (Score:2, Funny)
Apple in their wisdom dropped support for my perfect MacBook Air two or three years ago.
I've since been running fully updated Win10 and Arch Linux on it.
Oh how nice to turn in into a Chromebook too.
Fuck you Apple lol
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Now do old Chromebooks (Score:2)
Now they just need to support the old Chromebooks. It'd sure be nice to get this for an old out of support ARM Chromebook.
hopefully will mean better open source drivers (Score:2)
Hopefully this will mean Google will contribute open source improvements to Linux's drivers for older hardware so Linux will generally run better on old hardware. Revitalizing old hardware is really a good target for Linux
Missing from summary: (Score:2)
How "old" are we talking, here?