Install Linux and have updates for the Rest of your life. And more performance.
Edit: typo
deleted by creator
i hate that this is now the future of computing
thankfully, once you get a proper UEFI bios on it, it’s free, forever.
But yeah, i agree, total bullshit how much work they put into not using UEFI from the get go lmao.
False. They’re dropping support for 20+ year old cpus like it doesn’t even matter!
Big tech wins yet again. Soon you’ll need at least a Pentium 1 to run the Linux kernel.
That is real enshitification!
In practice, you tend to need something not too out of date. Just about any distro ships with internationalization support, and the fact is that it takes a lot of RAM to do that. A Pentium 1 may not support enough.
I did an install on a Pentium II a few years ago. I used Debian 2.2. Since I had used it back in the day, it seemed easier than finding something more modern that would work.
In reality, only some Pentium 1 compatible motherboards can support enough ram for you to actually run Linux on a Pentium 1. Even if you don’t run into ram problems, you’ll run into bios related problems. I would suggest anyone trying this in 2024 to not even attempt it unless you can get a socket 7, and preferably a later socket 7 motherboard at that. The closest thing I can come up with to a reason not to drop support for 486 (the cpu before the Pentium 1) is that a 486 is a lot more possible to put on a custom pcb than a Pentium 1. Some of the more basic arm cpus aren’t even as powerful as an upper tier 486 (but better arm cpus aren’t that hard for hobbyists to get). Anyone die-hard enough to want to try to run Linux on a fully custom made computer like that would have better results using an arm or risc-V chip instead.
I am curious why they’re dropping support for 486 but not Pentium 1, pentium 2 and anything not capable of SSE1 or later. mmx isn’t even that good but I guess gcc does technically support it.
I wonder if they’re going to drop 486 support in gcc as well. It can still compile for 386. You have to seriously strip down the kernel to run Linux on anything that old. Maybe 486 users (all 2 of them) should switch to Temple OS.
You may find this interesting:
Ubuntu is nearly 20 years old so we wanted to see how the first versions compare with the upcoming LTS. Unfortunately installing Warty turned out to much harder than we thought it would be.
Do you want to maintain that?
You can still run it. It’s just slightly more inconvenient.
I don’t usually like all the Linux posts on Lemmy, but this is 100% the correct answer here. The computer will likely run a lot better if you do everything right!
It already has Linux, that’s the issue.
This device looks to be supported by the custom firmware project over here: https://mrchromebox.tech
Basically it allows you to replace the stock firmware and just run regular ol’ Linux, entirely replacing ChromeOS.
There’s also a pretty good video outlining most of the process here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6oyqrrXTLM
Running xfce4 Fedora brilliantly on an old Dell Chromebook thanks to this, fully recommended!!
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=z6oyqrrXTLM
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Good bot
I’m pretty sure two gru_bob and gru_kevin have Libreboot support. I forget the name of the exact laptops, it should be in their documentation
A chromebook? You can install Linux then.
Asus 202c from 2016. They’re EoL, so they don’t get chrome OS updates. Which means the Play Store is also outdated.
Overall, they’re pretty nifty. Battery life is still solid. Keyboard and case is pretty durable.
I actually have a few of these chromebooks! (You can buy them from schools) I’ve reformatted one with Linux. Another is Chromebook + side loaded for coding. This one is just for browsing and taking notes.
But just the thought that some old person buying a computer and going, “Lemme pick up these Google Things that are $100” only to end up with these errors makes me sad.
Maybe an unpopular opinion around here, but getting 8 years out of a $200 laptop is a fucking steal.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect more.
Had this been a $1200 laptop, the expectation would be different.
give it the mrchromebox treatment, and then install linux on it. Good shit.
Now my chromebook is an extremely low power idling node for anything i need it to be, with incredibly like UPS standby times.
Fuck chrome
I’ve got this huge fancy samsung tablet from 2015. It’s made to be like a table top display. Has a mount on the back to keep it standing up.
It can’t really do anything now. The android version on it stopped being supported by anything. No youtube or Netflix or nothing. There was a bit of homebrew effort to get root and a newer version of android on them about 4 years ago, but it kind of fizzled out. Now it went from a great portable streaming mini TV (what I used it for, anyhow) to e waste.
ARM linux distros, phone nixes, nothing?
Nope. It’s essentially a samsung tablet with about 2014 samsung tablet specs, only way larger screen. They were made more for retail stores to have set up for customers than for consumer sales, almost. Basically, they missed their mark, so not many were sold. Imagine back in 2015. A nexus tablet was like $100. These things were $600. Galaxy View 18.4" tablet.
There was a custom that I had found from like 4 years ago, but when the project stopped it was still left with a lot of issues/bugs.
Praise be to our lord and savior the UEFI Forum, that we might not all meet such a dismal fate.
Something something linux profit?
Linux and Firefox would get updates!
Firefox won’t for much longer. Or at least not without significant spyware installed. I’m hoping it gets forked before the new CEO can do too much damage. Sucks that it will split the community with such a small user base already. But I guess that’s the point.
What are you smoking
Is Firefox an option?
Yep! That was my next action! :-)
there crappy things are basically made to be thrown away, they’re not even supposed to outlive their software support range.
Probably every comment but install linux
If I was you… I’d…nah, nevermind
Arch. Arch! ARCH! /pumping_fist_like_Arsenio
Does it still supported by Chrome OS Flex?
