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Google Might Abandon ChromeOS Flex (zdnet.com) 59

Posted by msmash from the google-graveyard dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: ChromeOS Flex extends the lifespan of older hardware and contributes to reducing e-waste, making it an environmentally conscious choice. Unfortunately, recent developments hint at a potential end for ChromeOS Flex. As detailed in a June 12 blog post by Prajakta Gudadhe, senior director of engineering for ChromeOS, and Alexander Kuscher, senior director of product management for ChromeOS, Google's announcement about integrating ChromeOS with Android to enhance AI capabilities suggests that Flex might not be part of this future.

Google's plan, as detailed, suggests that ChromeOS Flex could be phased out, leaving its current users in a difficult position. The ChromiumOS community around ChromeOS Flex may attempt to adjust to these changes if Google open sources ChromeOS Flex, but this is not a guarantee. In the meantime, users may want to consider alternatives, such as various Linux distributions, to keep their older hardware functional.
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Google Might Abandon ChromeOS Flex More

Google Might Abandon ChromeOS Flex

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  • Plenty of Linux Distro's (Score:5, Informative)

    by LazarusQLong ( 5486838 ) on Tuesday July 02, 2024 @12:39PM (#64595295)
    As far as I can recall, there are plenty of Linux Distro's out there to extend the life of older hardware, so unless something in particular requires you to use ChromeOS Flex, I'd jump ship to one of them.

    • Re:Plenty of Linux Distro's (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Tuesday July 02, 2024 @01:30PM (#64595443)

      Linux on a chromebook is a shit show. You get a tiny slow emmc drive and hardware that's barely supported. Sleeping or hibernation worked 50% of the time. Sometimes it would wake up and not turn on the display. That was always fun. Sound did work with some kernel tweaks but setting the volume to 5% was ear splitting. And that doesn't get into how you have to flash the bootloader. Open up the chromebook, disconnect the battery, power up the whole thing, run the enable command, power it down, reconnect the battery and re-assemble.

      • thanks for sharing, I was not aware that that was the case.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by larwe ( 858929 )

        Open up the chromebook, disconnect the battery, power up the whole thing, run the enable command, power it down, reconnect the battery and re-assemble.

        I couldn't even get that far. The online instructions I've found refer to packages that have moved or changed names, and the install scripts fail.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by unrtst ( 777550 )

        As far as I can recall, there are plenty of Linux Distro's out there to extend the life of older hardware, so unless something in particular requires you to use ChromeOS Flex, I'd jump ship to one of them.

        Linux on a chromebook is a shit show. You get a tiny slow emmc drive and ...

        ChromeOS Flex isn't for Chromebooks.
        ChromeOS Flex is meant to be used on normal PC/laptop hardware. In particular, hardware that Microsoft Windows 11 won't support, like my 10yr old HP laptop with an i7-4700MQ. That much is NOT a shitshow and should work well.

        Running Linux on a Chromebook is a completely different topic, though I think it's worth noting that it's already running Linux if it's running ChromeOS. You can also use Crouton (or similar tools) to run Linux in a chroot side-by-side with ChromeOS on

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kriston ( 7886 )

        Don't forget to close the jumper to allow other operating systems to be installed.

      • Yeah but wasn't ChromeOS Flex meant for non-Chromebooks? Hence the "Flex"...

    • Re:Plenty of Linux Distro's (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Seven Spirals ( 4924941 ) on Tuesday July 02, 2024 @01:43PM (#64595495)
      They come and go. Puppy Linux is my favorite but suffers from lack of interest and updates. It's also more of a RAMdisk style distro than one meant for install (though you can install it). I'd put Slax in the same category with Puppy. Cool and all, but suffers from lack of updates and is meant as what I'd describe as a RAM disk distro. Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Linux Lite, and MX Linux are all Ubuntu variants that, if you ask me, don't really deliver on the promise of running well on older hardware. You end up with a lot of background daemons and other questionable desktop tools that slow the system down. AntiX is a bit better and based on Debian. However, the maintainers are political AF and very annoying. Bodhi Linux uses the Moksha desktop environment, which is lightweight and aesthetically pleasing but I still wouldn't run it on anything older than a core2duo. Peppermint OS says it's lightweight but the webapps it pushes are anything but. I'd avoid it on older systems altogether. Tiny Core Linux is a really good distro that keeps the promise and runs well even on a Pentium 233 machine. It's just not the easiest of all these distros for newcomers.

      Personally, I find NetBSD to be really effective and fun on older hardware, but it's not as user friendly as the Ubuntu or Debian based Linux distros meant for the same purpose. It's a bit easier to maintain over time, though, due to effective dist-upgrade strategies and the ease of swapping out Pkgsrc for newer versions.

      • For older or low resource hardware I found antiX linux to work well. No systemd and it doesn't even come with a logging facility by default. It runs great on those $25 thin clients like the Dell (Wyse) 3040.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Seven Spirals ( 4924941 )
          Glad you had a good experience there. I liked it at first, then got turned off by what I see as the project's political output. I just don't see what "Proudly Anti Fascist" has to do with creating a good Linux distro, but honestly I don't see any of that kind of tripe once you start the install or while using Anti-X. I like my operating systems as apolitical as possible, though it's not always possible, it seems.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Anonymous Coward

            Glad you had a good experience there. I liked it at first, then got turned off by what I see as the project's political output. I just don't see what "Proudly Anti Fascist" has to do with creating a good Linux distro, but honestly I don't see any of that kind of tripe once you start the install or while using Anti-X. I like my operating systems as apolitical as possible, though it's not always possible, it seems.

            Fellas, is it woke to be against fascism now?

            • My concern is less about being against fascism, and more about who gets to define what/who is fascist. Some subscribe to a communicative property of fascism to the point that we're all fascist. IE if you ever associate with somebody/something that is fascist, you are now fascist. Then take that back in the day, IBM and such cooperated with fascists...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dargaud ( 518470 )
      First time I hear of this Flex thing. Seems like a good idea, but what is it for ? PCs ? In that case Linux is probably a better choice. Old Android phones and tablets ? Then excellent, but how do you install it ? When the phone/tablet gets old and out of support, an option should pop up and offer to install such a replacement OS.

      • Re:Plenty of Linux Distro's (Score:4, Informative)

        by CohibaVancouver ( 864662 ) on Tuesday July 02, 2024 @03:38PM (#64595841)

        First time I hear of this Flex thing. Seems like a good idea, but what is it for ?

        It allows (allowed) you to turn old PC hardware into "Chromebooks."

        You copied a distro onto a thumb drive, booted the PC from that thumb drive and the installation process was seamless (Windows gets blown away).

        For kids like mine that are tightly wedded to the Google ecosystem (Chrome / Classroom / Docs / Sheets / etc.) it was pretty slick.

        I suppose you could do the same with Linux, but as I said this was seamless.

        Here's an ancient Dell I set up last year: https://imgur.com/a/x9FKq2F [imgur.com]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by unrtst ( 777550 )

        Yes, for PC's/laptops.

        In that case Linux is probably a better choice.

        Depends on the use case and user.

        For many casual users, ChromeOS flex would probably work out much better. Anyone that hasn't run Linux by now. Those that can't/won't do well with a full Windows install, sure. But also those that simply don't have an up to date Windows install (upgrading may not be feasible, and would at least cost money, and ChromeOS may serve them better anyway). As an example, my mother-in-law could benefit from a Chromebook (her Windows desktop hasn't booted up in

    • The problem I've seen over the years is that some Linux distros just don't get the support so they disappear. I have copies of several installs that are no longer supported yet I thought they were very good and I wanted to roll them out to my family. A year later, they closed shop and I'm left hanging. I was a big supporter of BEOS back in the day and ran it on most of my machines where I could. It was faster at boot, ran smooth and I could use all the basic apps with it. I thought it was superior to window

      • I read an article a few weeks back that someone was doing BeOS again... maybe as a hobby project, but still. You may be interested in googling it and seeing what is going on.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      None of them work as well as ChromeOS does for ordinary users though.

      The key thing with ChromeOS is that it is a limited set of APIs and most apps don't have any access to the underlying Linux OS, similar to how Android works. As a result all the crap that makes Linux suck is eliminated. Apps run in sandboxes. The user has a nice consistent and simple interface to work with.

      • thanks again, I was unaware of this, and had presumed that because it was based off of Linux to begin with, was just another distro...

        Never used it because... well, Google seems to be very, very, very focused on harvesting everything they can (it is their business model to be honest) and I am not a fan of that...

        Also, look at their algorithm for suggesting videos in YouTube. They are forever and a day suggesting shit that I would NEVER care to see. It seems they have figured out that I am a white, 64 ye

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          I find it your subscribe to interesting channels, do a few searches, and use the "not interested" button a lot, the YouTube recommendations eventually get to a hit/miss ratio of about 1:40.

  • Google is not a serious company (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ebunga ( 95613 ) on Tuesday July 02, 2024 @12:40PM (#64595297)

    They cannot be trusted for anything long term. I'm surprised they still offer search.

  • why does ChromeOS have to be so hardware locked?
    Doing this makes it hardware on places that need an basic OS (Not windows) but don't want to be locked into an small range of hardware.

  • Can't have that pesky environmentally friendliness when we can just add more bloatware to Youtube to get people to upgrade. Youtube used to work on Windows 95, Pepperridge farms remembers.

    • Youtube used to use codecs that could reasonably be decoded on a Windows 95 era machine, now it doesn't. That's progress, because the new codecs are much better. You can't use Windows 95 on the modern internet without getting owned anyway.

  • The Google Cycle (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Deathlizard ( 115856 ) on Tuesday July 02, 2024 @12:57PM (#64595355) Homepage Journal

    1) Google launches product.
    2) No one uses Google product because everyone knows it'll be dropped in 2 years.
    3) Google drops product in 2 years.

    Gee. I wonder why Google can't launch anything anymore...

    • mod +1googolplex so many Google related software and hardware that has had the rug pulled out from under in the past decades. G has a short attention span and has never outgrown that on a corporate level.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dargaud ( 518470 )
        I can understand trying things and pulling those that don't work out. But not everything has to bring heaps of cash in; some projects can exist just to bring in good will, particularly if they cost almost nothing. And there used to be a lot of such projects in Google's past.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tsqr ( 808554 )

      1) Google launches product. 2) No one uses Google product because everyone knows it'll be dropped in 2 years. 3) Google drops product in 2 years.

      Gee. I wonder why Google can't launch anything anymore...

      On the other hand, Docs and Sheets have been around for over 18 years.

  • Way back in 2019, there was a company called "Neverware" that offered a distro called "CloudReady" - Basically a version of ChromiumOS that would work on any system, especially old hardware. Google bought Neverware in 2020, and turned CloudReady into ChromeOS Flex, bring it in-house (and ensuring there was no ChromeOS competition out there). ChromiumOS and ChromeOS Flex did/do not support Android apps (like regular ChromeOS does), and Flex was always a red-headed stepchild in Google's ChromeOS lineup. So it
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Oh, you mean there's no money in it? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by silentbozo ( 542534 ) on Tuesday July 02, 2024 @01:29PM (#64595439) Journal

      My understanding was that ChromeOS Flex was a low cost gateway option for school districts to repurpose hardware they might have bought under a different contract (both Macs and Windows) but still maintain all the enterprise features of device management, managed profiles, etc.

      https://edu.google.com/intl/AL... [google.com]

      "Refresh your fleet with ChromeOS Flex

      Make the most of your current hardware with ChromeOS Flexâ"the fast, secure, cloud-first, easy-to-manage operating system for Macs and PCs."

      The idea being, once they got hooked on al the "nice" things of the Google (paid) educational enterprise infrastructure, for their next order of hardware that needed longer term support, they would buy actual ChromeOS hardware from one of Google's partners, further locking them into the ecosystem.

      This was less about being a tool for techies, and more about being easy to manage for school IT admins tasked with trying to stretch school IT budgets, and getting a foothold in to compete for longer term contracts.

      In other words, if they're closing this onramp, this portends bad things across their educational product line. Typical Google, but this is more than just shuttering yet another "free" distro.

    • ChromeOS Flex is attractive is because there's a LARGE corporation behind it. This gives some insurances companies want. For example: when something goes wrong, you get to call somebody and yell at them (assuming you have a support contract). If the problem is big enough, they'll probably come over and fix things for you (if you pay enough).

      Almost no Linux distribution has such a large corporation as google backing it. This means, when things go wrong, no person to yell at, and no on-site support; basically

  • Flex is based on an open source chromium project, anyways. Fork the bits available and continue on, if there's enough interest in it.

    • I tried it when it was called CloudReady - it was a good test to see what I was missing out on by not owning a Chromebook. The OS is slick enough that if I were gifted a Chromebook I might care to use it but OTOH, I wouldn't spend several hundred bucks on one.

      The problem was this Chromium OS fork wasn't 'finished' - it still had bits not implemented as a series of errata with every release. And worse, it wasn't exactly stable meaning I had to reinstall it several times. i.e. Chrome OS doesn't seem like it w

  • What the fuck are you all talking about, might? This is Google it's guaranteed to be canceled.

  • Actions to benefit the environment are not profitable.

  • Google Might Abandon [...]

    Fetch me my feinting couch!

  • Didn't find any hint of CF discontinueing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Schoenlepel ( 1751646 ) on Tuesday July 02, 2024 @02:41PM (#64595681)

    Yes, the blog post had a lot to say about ChromeOS getting a lot of Android stuff merged into it. But where does it hint at dropping ChromeOS Flex support? I don't see any hints in that direction. The fact that the blog post doesn't mention ChromeOS Flex specifically, doesn't automatically mean google thinks of dropping it.

    Dropping CF would be a sign of catastrophic stupidity on the part of Google. ChromeOS is able to compete with Windows in certain spaces, and CF is a good entry in the ChromeOS market. Have some old computers, on which Windows 11 won't be supported, or on which Windows is simply unbearable to run? CF can probably help. If you're happy, you'll come looking for more. Now, why would google axe ChromeOS Flex if it's such a wonderful entry point?

    Besides: CF is a good competitor of Windows; there's a huge corporation behind it with the resources to sway other large corporations into doing what it wants. If anything, CF is a good thing.

    The only possible reason why Google would discontinue CF is imho if Microsoft gave Google a huge lump of money in order to do so. Even in such a situation, I think Google would refuse simply because of how Microsoft behaves towards people installing Chrome (the browser) in Windows.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by larwe ( 858929 )

      Dropping CF would be a sign of catastrophic stupidity on the part of Google.

      Really? There have been millions of words written about how Google is composed of competing teams who get funding for CoolNewThing which is supposed to replace OldWorkingThing, but never quite does. They are legendary beyond any other company I can think of, for killing products that people liked.

  • Who had "four years" on their Killed by Google card?

    Too bad they didn't remain unacquired.

    https://arstechnica.com/gadget... [arstechnica.com]

  • No need for some halfarsed Google product for older non-Chromebooks at all. The weaker Chromebooks aren't fast enough to bother with.

  • Is Neverware Cloudready, the original from which ChromeOS Flex was forked, still viable?

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