I think that's a good balance. Someone in a different comment mentioned that ipad/chrombook generation don't even know what a file is. By doing this kids will have Chromebooks for most of their work and internet access (regardless if you can afford a computer or not), while having the computer lab for learning more advanced stuff.

@@hubertnnn in my basic JavaScript class half of the people didn't know how to turn on the computer. They just kept turning the monitor on and off.

​@@Brick_Soupi'm working as a IT tech and i'm always shocked by the tech illiteracy of some people in my Generation. One person wasn't aware that you could just plug in a DVD drive via USB and burn a disc. They only ever used "The Cloud"

​@@Brick_SoupI remember doing that when I was about 7 years old and didn't know a thing about computers. It's off-putting to me that so many people just never move past that.

At my local high school there are many different computer labs. If they are in a class that requires using autocad for example, those desktops are higher end with discrete gpus in them. Every student has a chromebook for tasks it can handle which is the majority of the curriculum.

The best ads are not ones you can buy.

I got an actual ad when I clicked the timestamp

Same lol

thought the same^^

Pavlov strikes again

It isn't changing.

It's just a shame that they switched to Google's services instead of FOSS. I guess this shows how important corporate backing and support is when dealing with large organizations.

Google Recently started charging my old college and so I lost my .edu email. You can never trust that cloud services will always be free.

wtf is FOSS? ​@@andrejsk6211

@@andrejsk6211corporate backing isn’t necessarily the issue, it’s just that the nature of foss is developer efforts are being split 1000 different ways which while great for new ideas is not great for supporting any one particular software/suite at scale. IMO the closest competitor to the Google office suite would be libreoffice, which I personally do use in my professional life alongside Microsoft office but googles software is really nice and simple for students below college level. I can see why schools would pick Google.

I am actually thinking of doing the same thing. I think a Chromebook would be great for travel for my essentials rather than relying on my phone all the time. The battery life and so on and the fact they are light to carry seems perfect for this.

So you're one of the special lucky people who had the privilege to own an original prototype cr48 cb! That's so 🇩🇪!

To be fair it's probably better than the eWaste HP laptop my stepdad bought in 2016. Windows updates can't run because the amount of eMMC storage on the laptop isn't enough. It should be illegal to sell products like that.

@@Gatorade69 Agreed, that is close to criminal in how such devices are marketed and sold.

​@@Gatorade69Put Chrome OS Flex on it. This salvaged a 10 year old Mac Mini I had kicking around that had basically stopped useful.

@@boothjop Thanks for the recommendation. The keyboard on the laptop doesn't work on it anymore but it was one of those laptops that you could turn into tablet. I'm actually trying to build my stepdad/mom a new PC right now with my old spare parts, he just needs to get a GPU (he doesn't game and the CPU doesn't have integrated graphics), a CPU cooler and a case. Believe it or not they are finally getting internet in their area. Also I have a really old Mac Mini so I might look into that.

That's how I use my Chromebook as well. Every once in a while I charge it, otherwise it sits on the living room table ready to burst immediately into action when I need it. I also carry it with me on travels, because it's so lightweight and has a 360 touch screen. I thought about a used MacBook, but it wouldn't have a 360 touch screen.

We may be very slowly migrating over to Chromeboxes for staff device. I'm an IT tech for a school district. Students already use Chromebooks, but teachers use Windows devices. We installed new interactive displays over the summer and they have a Chromebox attached to them. Some teachers love them because they're much easier to use than their Windows device and others struggle with the login screen.

YES! They are amazing! It's been the best OS that I have ran personally and professionally since forever. It's just too, too good.

Really? Because I can do everything I can do with a chromebook, on the Chrome web browser, but I can't do anything I can do on Windows on a Chromebook. Most people do still have Windows computers, even if they have a Chrome tablet or Chromebook. And Windows became better with WSA and WSL so Android apps can be run natively, and you can run Linux right in Windows, only without the GUI.

@@iamfreeareyou681 windows is just better for everything

AI comments are going extreme nowadays. Time to visit the library.

​@@iamfreeareyou681 you forgot about the price boi, chromebooks just aren't competing with you 1000$-2000$ish windows machine

Face palm, these things are absolute rubbish a fast race to the bottom such as e books were and are. But hey keep sprooking for likes

​@@burrfoottopknotI did windows on one of these machines for my friend and considering the specs, it was running like native windows 10 (ya I got win10 on there)

@@Unknown-64209 i have seen family members with them also and customised the operating system with as you stated and it still ran like a slug, the cost of the chrome books are also ridiculous considering the rubbish components they use. but yeh because some tech tuber (who relies on you tube / Google as a main income has no conflict of interest) said it's good..

I got my mom a Chromebook in her 70s as well! She kept getting viruses on Windows, her Linux machine was too slow (not linux's fault) and all she really needed was a browser most of the time anyway. It was perfect. Every boomer and child needs one.

@@speedracer2please noway you gave poor lady Ubuntu before

you should have bought her a framework laptop with Linux on it so she learns Linux lmao

​@@Spherazah yes, especially the version that you need to assemble yourself.

@@Spheraz Why not install LFS Linux?

Anyone commenting on here doesn't have tech-inept family lol. My grandma has a cell phone, but she leaves it turned off and at home ~always, it's because she doesn't feel comfortable using it. If she approached me asking for help choosing a laptop, 10000% it would be a chromebook. I could set up Linux, as I did when I was 16, but Chrome is just soooooo simple for the end user.

​@@KeepTheKitLow yeah and Linux has the issue of being annoying to set up in a way that's resilient to anything someone could do to it. Like I could set up all kinds of locks and such (hell, even do what the SD does with r/o locking the OS partition) but at the end of the day I'm spending less time and money to buy gramma a Chromebook. And a Chromebook has closer feature parity with their phone, unlike with any generic Linux distro. You can (probably) get Adobe Reader on a Chromebook because they have an Android app for it, while with Linux you're SOL unless you want to spend time setting up wine just right, which would be time where gramma wouldn't have her computer.

You're right. My dad was tech savvy guy younger, but he's getting old and memory is getting problematic. Also as nowdays he uses computer daily, like 99% of stuff he does seem to be watching documentaries, reading news and emails. So he has essentially grown to use....Browser. I've seriously been considering to buy him some good Chromebook as gift as he many times seem to have issues with like Windows settings when he plugs laptop into external display. I really dig the idea of them. It's not for me, but to be fully honest I think I could live with one too, though obviously would have to ditch like 3D cad programs to quite severe extent.

What is a PC laptop?

​@@jothainYou might not have to ditch 3D cad work if you unlock Linux capabilities of chrome os and use something like free cad.

@@rohithkumarbandari I suppose, though I'm not quite "there" with quality of FreeCAD, yet.

@@jothain Fair enough, there is also libreCAD, QCAD and NanoCAD if you still wanna try. Though I agree that autoCAD is pretty powerful.

Many countries in the world are transitioning to homebrew linux distros for schools - for example in Moscow they have their own linux distro for schools that uses KDE and a bunch of productivity apps. They added this to school laptops and its a distro run by the city government, so it gets support for schools. Quite a good product actually and many young kids will grow up using linux at schools. Chinese schools are also doing similar stuff. I think MS is shooting itself in the foot.

just put mx linux kde onto an i3 chromebook lol and now you have 15+ years of support

same lol

Same lol

i had another window on top of chrome so it was even more convincing

dude it actually scared me 😭

Looks like everyone's just letting Linus talk as a background noise. 😅

He really does look the same. Some people just don't really age from 18-45ish, usually men. Meanwhile some other people look like a completely different person when they're 10 years older.

Why would you subject a girl to that?

@@xwiick???

Not a pretty sight is it. @@Platinum199

@@xwiick??? Why are you bringing in gender???

They can be excellent if you buy decent ones. Buy the really low-end devices and you'll quickly see how painfully slow some of them are.

@@JJFlores197 yes but you cant expect good performance from cheap products right? Thats why they are cheap

If you had to use a registry hack to get Win 11 installed then expect it to run like garbage. Also 8GB for Win11 is like 4GB for Win 10; only good if the only thing you do is use the browser or very basic programs.

@pugdev4 your "pretty fine" is worthy of concern.

​@@someguy9175It is possible if you get rid of a lot of the junk and bloat. Tiny11 runs pretty well on older computers with hard drives.

​@@someguy9175yeah ikr. I can use windows 11 but 10 is much faster

Install Tiny 11, even Tiny Core 11 to run Windows 11 on old computers. Then Windows will really fly! 😊

the problem is FOSS doenst pay the schools, a company does, schools around the globe and ESPECIALLY in america are underfunded, any bit of extra income helps, and when Google comes in and says "hey well save you hundreds of thousands of dollars if you just agree to sign up exclusively for Chromebooks and Google apps" the schools take that agreement

@@flamingscar5263 its not even about paying the schools, it's about the support

I have no issue with FOSS however I've found that a blend of FOSS and commercial software is required as quite often there isn't a FOSS equivalent or the equivalent isn't compatible with commercial software. Then there's the issue that FOSS development is glacial as most people aren't donating to the developers which means those developers can't commit enough time to improving the FOSS. I've seen it first hand as a software developer myself, some software I wrote and made free had to be discontinued as not a single person ever donated to its development but they did create a "wishlist" of over 1100 things they wanted added to it. My answer was "here's the source code, do it yourself, I need to afford to live, I can't function without money and can't commit to continuing developing something that doesn't generate revenue, I'm a solo developer with only 12hrs to work each day". Ever since I changed to writing only closed source software and requiring users to buy either annual or perpetual (version locked) licences, I was able to spend all my time programming and improving my software. The key is to create software that has very efficiently written code that lets the program be as small as possible (i.e. lightweight - many programs are many times larger than they truly need be), as user friendly as possible, that has simple and clear documentation and that any licencing is painless for the end-user. I use a protection system known as "IntelliLock" to protect my software. Users of my software simply install their valid licences by clicking a button in my program to select a licence, by putting the licence file next to the EXE or by double-clicking the licence file as the custom extension is associated with my program so it automatically installs. I know that some people do donate, the problem is not enough do. If people want good FOSS, then the whole end-user culture needs to actively encourage donations to developers. There's a hell of a lot of work that needs to be done before FOSS software can reach compatibility with commercial software. For example, FreeCAD which is great has basically zero compatibility with its commercial equivalents, meanwhile Alibre Design can work with most commercial CAD formats natively and at a fraction the price of SolidWorks. I see the same thing with video editing - ShotCut is the best FOSS NLE video editor but its not 100% compatible with Resolve or Premier.

While as a Linux user I agree with the spirit of your comment, unfortunately that's not how it works because money. If it's not Google then it's Microsoft (as is the case in the UK, where schools require students to have MS services like 365 and OneDrive). The power of lobbyists is strong, and Google's option at least is more FOSS friendly than Microsoft's.

@@TadeoDOria Microsoft doesn't require students to have Office365 or OneDrive - either they connect to the schools volume licencing whilst connecting to the schools Windows Servers' domain or they run Office Home & Business or LibreOffice. Instead of OneDrive, schools allocate a 25GB part of their network drives to their students and yeah its remotely accessible. Not a single school in AU, NZ or the EU requires students to have Office365 of OneDrive. Even in the UK, one can use Office Home & Business and doesn't require OneDrive - Google Drive or any other alternative is perfectly fine.

im older i remember getting a first apple for typing in freshman year.

Yep, i remember 37.

It's funny. I also don't remember what the computer that would always be in the back of every classroom was used for. At least not for the earlier years of primary school. Now I'm younger than you, but in grades 7-8 I remember there were now multiple computers in the back, instead of just one, and I do remember those were used mainly for rehearsing and practicing subjects.

yeah, any place with 40+ employee will have windows desktops, and active directory. or struggle with everything.

Sure, for now, but I wouldn't be surprised if that would change in a lot of places. I mean a lot of Microsoft Office can be done online today, so there may be ways past it.

My university was Debian all the way except for a few Windows PCs in some , of the XP category, to run legacy softwares in some pratical labs. But it was a STEM oriented one.

In another 10-15 years, those elementary kids who used Chromebooks in schools may drive the change to something like a chromeOS instead of windows in the workplace

Google Sheets is way better than Excel.

Didn't expect a comment from fedora channel here. You didn't do shameless auto promotion, then I'll do that for you. It's probably the best os for laptops. Macos and windows included (tho I haven't tried pop yet).

Hey, you're supposed to run my laptop. How did you get out?

@@Stay_away_from_my_swamp_water extra promo: the immutable OS variants, Fedora Silveblue/Kinoite are probably better for new users because they stop you borking your device (or at least let's you easily roll back changes if you do manage to break something).

​@@Stay_away_from_my_swamp_waterTotally agree. Fedora is great for my laptop and I need to take the time to swap out of Ubuntu on my server and desktop.

I think I went too schizo, im seeing my distro in LTT's comment section!

I still have no use for a touch screen on anything other than a phone or tablet.

​@@davidfrischknecht8261cool doesn't mean having support is bad. However I think that's thanks to Linux people not Google.

Support is always cool yeah but touch on a laptop is such a UX warcrime..

​@@davidfrischknecht8261One thing I like is zooming on webpages actually zoom instead of just making everything bigger

I need to use macrium reflect, batteryinfoview, flightgear, other browsers, iTunes, and other software and you can’t and the program compatibility sucks, and windows has more software support. Windows is way more customizable and chromeos has a way worse file explorer and you have to relogon every once in a whole after you sign out which requires time and worst of all it requires wifi, so sometimes you’re quite literally locked out of your laptop. Also chrome books have horrible upgrade ability and literally the only thing you can upgraded is the wifi card. Chromeos also doesn’t allow icons on the desktop so quite literally is wasting 95% of the space on login for just a wallpaper. Literally the only thing good about chrome books is the battery life and MacBooks already do that better and with better performance. Windows is way more versatile and capable, admit it. A chrome book is just an android tablet with a keyboard. Any 150 dollar thinkpad or elitebook quickly outpaces a 150 dollar chrome book easily. And imagine naming an OS after a browser. 😂😂😂

As the sysadmin I've adopted the same philosophy at my workplace, and have observed the same results. Most people opt to use the same as what they have at home though we don't force them, they can choose any platform they feel they'll be most productive on. Don't have any ChromeBooks yet but we'll easily be able to accommodate it, we're already a Workplace shop.

Thank you for this. Ivw been considering a Samsung Galaxy S9 tablet, but I already own a good Chromebook and I was wondering I'd the yabmet could replace the chromebook eventually since I don't think that I'd need both. My Chromebook is a workhorse, though, and I wasn't sure that the tablet would be as useful.

@@daniadiaz1658 the only issue I have with Duet 3 Chromebook is the weak SoC. Opening a PDF file with hundreds of pages is a pain. It's slow. But editing text and watching KZfaq video, Duet 3 is just fine.

It’s not worth it lol

Yeah I don't understand how you could get kids to listen with a laptop in their face. You'd have to be using software that takes over hardcore (locks out popups and other SW from foreground)

@@DAG_42 Chromebooks have a fairly decent firewall system and I can absolutely see some schools configuring it to only be able to access Google + a few educational sites.

@@DAG_42 the problem of getting kids to pay attention isnt a new one that laptops suddenly invented, if we jump back before even smartphones were a thing youd have kids drawing in their notebook instead of paying attention, reading comic books under the desk, sneaking in a game boy, and really doing ANYTHING but actual school work, hell when I was in school Id stare out the damn window and count the birds flying by instead of doing my work because somehow THAT was more entertaining

@@flamingscar5263 You are right to some degree. But, laptops and phones for that matter do present a whole new layer of distraction because they are dynamic.

yes and.... good teachers learn to adapt, most were not given the time and tools. My whole school had one 28.8 connected PC when I was in late middle school and by high school we had the whole lab running on one DSL connection. Ideal? No, but more useful than a set of Britannica that were published in the 80s. Within two years of me leaving the school had two dedicated distance learning terminals with full video. I think the bigger thing is that there is a generation of kids who don't see windows as the default, and for a lot of industries that don't "need" to be on windows, and would actually be better run on custom OSes and intranets, these kids are actually way better equipped to adapt.

If the tools become more available - the way Linus mentions - nothing stopping anyone from just throwing ChromeOS on a beefy gaming rig and having that single-ecosystem experience again.

yeah, all my "thin-client" uses can be easily done by a chromebook. still some issues with ARM devices, wish companies put better chips in them, but getting 10 hours of battery out of a $200 laptop/tablet is pretty nice overall

Steam fro Chromebook is Arch

@@maxisbac chromeos itself is Gentoo

@@yuryzhuravlev2312 what the hell is Gentoo? Ok, I looked it up. Thanks. I didn't know that's what they called the distribution system.

Chrome OS was based on Ubuntu but now moved to Gentoo. They do use ubuntu terminal for their linux environment probably because it's software compatibility and easy to use. Edit: was it ubuntu or debian terminal? Idrk who even cares

@@maxisbac His "also" applies to the virtual machine: Steam on Chromebook runs in a VM, which I believe is true.

Your calling it e-waste even after watching the full video.

I would guess its something more like docker or chroot as the kernel would be very similar.

You can access the underlying Linux os on Chromebooks and get root too, you just put it in dev mode and have access to it. The only downside is that it emits a pitch noise when starting and you have to take care of some updates. It has a package manager since it is based on debian.

​@@mrcrackeristit is a lxd container, it runs crostini (debian)

Yes it's a command similar to that and I know it exists, but I haven't found much use for it

If you want to do Linux stuff without the Crostini VM, you would have to put the Chromebook in Developer Mode (press Esc+Refresh+Power, followed by Ctrl+D on recovery screen). Developer Mode is not recommended by Google however, and you will receive an annoying message upon every reboot that you have to dismiss with Ctrl+D.

That is crazy that they where still using XP. I guess not too crazy but it must have been pushing 10 years old by the time you got to use it. I'm older and it was basically dell desktops up too 12th grade.

Windows 10 will probably be around for a long time in order to support decent hardware not compatible with with Windows 11.

It's still all Windows though.

My schools as a kid all had Mac computers, either the classic CRT iMacs or newer flat ones. I was happy the one time I got to use the Windows XP machine in the computer lab because it wasn't a Mac. By high school, every student got a Windows 7 laptop, and we kept those through the entire 4 years. The grades after us got Windows 10 after we graduated because they were finally transitioning to it in 2017 or 2018. I'm college all the computers ran Windows 10, though I kept Windows 7 on my laptop through 2022 because I didn't have the right hardware for Windows 10 yet. It's crazy to see the upgrade paths through life.

Dude, I love Windows XP, my first desktop was XP

You can also remotely control your pc great

Wait hold up how did you manage to install kali on arm based chromebook? Is there anywhere I can read about this?

@@user-28qhfk65 OffSec provided disk images that could be installed on the old Samsung Chromebooks. The original documentation I used doesn’t seem to exist anymore. The Kali Linux site has documents a similar procedure that _might_ work better because it is cross compiled from source.

@@user-28qhfk65 Look at their download page there is an arm section. I'd assume they used the RPI 5 one since it's 64 bit.

@@user-28qhfk65presumably it was back when you ran Linux under crouton on chromebooks. You could use any Debian-based distro. I installed kali on one years ago, although I ended up just using vanilla Debian.

Kali Linux is meant to be used for security researching and pentesting, I suggest you to try Debian

A bit ironic since they're Canadian

They only ship in USD countries.. that doesn’t mean you cannot use a middleman for international shipping for about $50 extra .. There are tons of companies that let you ship to them and they then ship to you (i know about those from JP only imports)

As it should be. Did you see the prices and thought it was CAD? 😂

Que picardia

@@kuromiLayfeIf they don’t sell products to non USD countries they are US (and friends) only.

Now that's impressive. Sounds great not getting support calls lol ❤

As a software developer, I'd say that sensible options for mother-in-law are iPad and Chromebook. And I would personally consider Chromebook a much better general purpose computing device. Of course, getting a Chromebook without at least 1080p IPS touchscreen would be a big mistake. Something like Chromebook Duet 5 may be a bit expensive compared to cheapest units but it has 1080p OLED touchscreen, 8 GB RAM and 256 GB SSD. Basically the only con-side is eMMC storage instead of faster NVMe interface which will slow down launching new applications a bit.

Was thinking the exact same thing! If my grandparents would need a new laptop I actually think I would go for a Chromebook. Haven't thought about it as an option before, but this video had made me at least consider it.

@@ajbp95 Have recently had similar with elderly aunt and uncle that aren't tech savvy, but was going back over the type of stuff I used to set up for an older friend that was similarly not-techy. Stuff like recovery partitions with Acronis. The upside for the friend's laptop, was that he never went on the internet, so most of the problems with his was just stuff like losing desktop links or folders getting dropped into other folders. For aunt and uncle, I'd need learn and test a number of internet safety things like parental controls, and teach about them, which doesn't sound like fun at all on Windows.

This is about the only good use case for one of these garbage devices.

Wait thats actually genius

Which remote software do you use? I've been looking at this same use case to remote into my home workstation from the road.

​@@Dubmaster3That and Android apps

​@@troublebotchromeremote desktop

Graduated in 2016, and we only used a small number of school owned chromebooks for occasional lessons in like my math classes. Every other class I had still went to the library or nearest computer lab to do other computer-based assignments or essays.

You see far fewer repairs for google crap because ppl just buy another one. I'm in my 40s and been in the industry for over 20 years. Was building liquid loops before Linus was even a name and still reviewing camping equipment lol. We're about to see a technical leap to tiny network devices with almost no footprint. Geeksquad is a cancer that comes only before this shift kills out an entire industry. Why is the US paying for a true WWW? Why is Microsoft buying a nuclear power plant? Why is graphine and heat wicking chips in production? These 0 client devices will allow big companies to retain ownership of EVERYTHING and reduce cost of devices as well as be more environmentally friendly. Better start expanding your education.

Except they mis-spelled it… 😂

Still have 2 of them 😂

Why would you need more than one of those?

@@iamspencerx my brother and I both applied to the cr48 beta program and they accepted us both he said I could have his

The Duet has an ARM MediaTek chip so upgrading it is limited for now but once Google ports Google Flex to it, it will give them a renewed lease on life.

Can definitely work. Parsec-ing in from elsewhere might be a bit high latency for anything serious though? So I've heard, anyway. I'd have to ask my friends, who Parsec into my server PC from other countries lol

it takes 800 dollars for a windows machine to do the same.

The hate comes from google utilizing chromebooks to establish even more of a monopoly, and the fact that their OS can leave people who have only used chromebooks rather hosed when they try to graduate to a normal device.

My Lenovo Chromebook does everything that I require. They're amazing value for money.

@@spookyweeb5563 10 years ago I got a thinkpad t440s for $850 shipped and it is powerful enough to do all the engineering programs I've needed for school and everything else over the years. it's still my laptop today. the chromebook would not have worked for what I needed

Honestly I bought mine specifically to put windows on it, but after running chromeos a few days I was hesitant. It's very streamlined, snappy and user friendly. The android Integration is also light-years beyond windows

Are using Ubuntu for your LDE or you changed it to another system?

100% agree...

Ok let me introduce you to non persistent storage linux installs. You can have your machine always come back to the preconfigured state after a reboot

Sorry I'm missing what you're getting at here?

I'll take the hours on a window pc. Job security is number one.

That's fair plays, I still manage both Windows and Mac devices alongside ChromeOS ones. Just every time I'm working on a Windows device I end up wishing I was learning something, configuring a new platform, messing around with the network etc etc

Hear me out here, how about we run the most basic of os on the lowest spec device that can only connect to a cloud hosted vm which can scale for any use you need, be it simple spreadsheets up to 3d rendering, for the low cost of £69.99 per month

Why would you install windows in chrome book ? My god !

@rohithkumarbandari For $220, it's a quad core 2 in 1 touch screen, and hptuners (car tuning software) only works on windows. I was fine with chromeos, but I like it better with windows. I couldn't find a windows machine with touchscreen for anywhere near the price

​@@oscarsh2909 Apple data mines the hell out of its users. It just doesn't sell the raw data to third parties.

Chromebooks are literally the best non-Linux option when it comes to privacy, as long as you don't use the Google Apps.

@@oscarsh2909 Put the Copium bottle away. Drugs significantly increase the risk of cancer.

​@@Glornakthat's still a hell of a lot better, though we should all just be on Linux.

Google sells ads, not your data. Your data is their crown jewel, their most prized possession -- information they have and with which they can serve intensely targeted ads to users. I can't imagine they'd give up that market edge that lets them sell circles around competitors. Google is an *advertiser* not a data salesman.