On Tue, Jul 25, 2023 at 5:07 PM Anca Mosoiu via sudo-discuss
<sudo-discuss(a)sudoroom.org> wrote:
Are these flashing tools that can help upgrade
soon-to-be EOL'd Chromebook hardware? I read this article today about how something
like 40,000 computers at OUSD are going to "expire" because Google doesn't
want to support the hardware w/ their ChromeOS.
Could they be updated w/ a secure Linux version?
Sure, there's no technical reason why not, but I think it would take a
full time team to get that many in a usable state. If schools across
California are trying to avoid spending $225M on new devices, that is
a business opportunity for whoever can develop a process for it. You
would need at least:
* People to create & maintain working builds of chromiumOS or a fork,
and automate that
* People to interface with all the school districts about their
particular needs, and communicate back
* People to actively develop all the software components to keep them
"up to par"
* People to flash firmwares all day
Tragically, it seems like someone did exactly this in 2015, had some
mild growth and success, and then Google bought them out. All their
devs "joined the main chromeOS team" and of course now their only job
is to make Google money and we're back to square one
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neverware