Follow-up question: if i got a Chromebook and wanted to put a distro on it that does what ChromeOS does, what distro would you reccomend? Just to be clear, I strongly dislike Chrome but depend on Google apps for my schoolwork and my job, which is why I’m looking at a Chromebook at all.
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Ewaste with a web browser
If you’re getting one for linux be warned that it’s not as straight forward as regular laptops due to the unlocking process, sometimes non-standard hardware and the unique keyboard layout. If you do anything where you make heavy use of f-keys or delete it’s not worth it.
Also never buy one new, schools dump them by the truckload so it’s easy to get solid hardware at much lower prices.
Chromebooks are designed around coercing the user into the google ecosystem. Everything google based is seamless while everything else is a second class citizen.
I’m running ubuntu on it now which is fine, but I literally had to open it up and remove a screw to allow it to run another OS (on top of f*ing around with its bizarro shell to get the installer to run).
It’s not a secure system, but it’s cheap and it does what I want and it’s not google so - yay.
Chromebooks are the answer to the question: “What’s the point of an operating system if I do everything through my web browser anyway? Why not make a computer that just opens a browser?”
Your choice of distro is probably less important than your choice of DE. Chromebooks vary quite a bit in their specs–many are low-end hardware, but some are quite impressive. With decent hardware, I’d recommend Mint with Cinnamon DE as a good starter. For lower specs, you could try Debian with XFCE.
Cheap internet browsing within Google’s sphere.
At least that’s what mine was for when I had one. It had minimal storage space, hardly any RAM, etc. it was a web browser with a keyboard.
Which was what I needed at the time and I didn’t have a lot of money.
I don’t have any insights though into your follow-up question
