Interesting thread. About ChromeBooks: I once tried to install Linux on a ChromeBook that many others had success with. It didn't work for me and I never got back to the project. But that was many years ago -- the hardware wouldn't be very useful these days. I have a couple of ChromeBooks - by design, the inexpensive ones are underpowered for Linux use. generally: slow processors, little RAM, slow and small disks (eMMC usually). Still, it is usually enough to actually function. - if you can, choose one with UFS over one with eMMC. Same idea, but faster. NVMe is better still. - the expensive ChromeBooks can have nice resources but they are usually not cheaper than similarly resourced Windows devices. - they can run most Android apps. Unfortunately, performance seems a little slow. - they can run debian-variant Linux in a shell. This option is part of ChromeOS now. I've found it quite useful. It takes quite a bit of the precious disk space. - ChromeBooks come with a commitment for firmware upgrades for many years, spelled out. Much more than most Android devices. This seems to be because the license Google gives the manufacturer requires that. A side-effect is that many SoCs for Android cannot be used for ChromeOS. <https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366> - if you run Linux on the bare metal, you probably cannot go back due to security restrictions. I'm not sure of this. - running Linux on the bare metal takes following a slightly tricky recipe, slightly different for each model. I imagine that this is only practical on x86-based machines. Don't try this on a model without a recipe -- too much pioneering. I find it easier and more rewarding to run Linux on machines designed for Windows. Windows is so fat that the resources are generous for Linux. The firmware environment standardized for Windows almost always works for Linux. I will admit that the Windows Netbook world has shrunk a lot.