On 2026-02-15 11:18, Colin McGregor via Talk wrote:
My computing is largely based around a classic style mini-tower and some Raspberry PI computers. But I sometimes need to take things on the road, for which I have a low-end laptop that originally came with Windows 10, and I replaced that with Debian GNU/Linux. When it comes to computing on the move, I see it as an accessory to my desktop, no heavy duty tasks. This mobile arrangement all works for me (your mileage might vary). When I was getting that laptop I ignored the Chromebooks as they didn't seem capable of doing anything other than ChromeOS.
Well, live and learn, below is a video about installing Linux on a Chromebook, Yes, there are some ... somewhat ugly hoops ... you have to jump through to get Linux on a Chromebook. Then you have to deal with the limitations of a Chromebook, limited RAM, sluggish CPU, and limited storage. Still, it can be done, using a lightweight Linux distribution, and well, knowing everything is limited. I am in no rush to replace my current laptop (it is running just fine for what I want to do), but next time I have to shop for a laptop, I will at least consider a Chromebook (at least as long as I am confident I can put a Linux distribution on the device). So, anyone looking for portable Linux on a VERY tight budget may want to consider this.
https://youtu.be/iydjjpvkoDE?si=FCYCCuNZBVQjUxsv ------------------------------------ Description: GTALUG Talk Unsubscribe via Talk-unsubscribe@lists.gtalug.org Start a new thread: talk@lists.gtalug.org This message archived at https://lists.gtalug.org/archives/list/talk@lists.gtalug.org/message/HNBZHVW...
I tried the Chromebook approach. I was tired of dragging a heavy laptop while traveling so I bought a cheap low-end chromebook at Best Buy for $99.99, a lenovo ideapad 3 11" chromebook, celeron-n4020 64gb emmc, 4gb-ram, 1 Kg weight! But I quickly got tired of Chromeos and fighting to keep my linux apps running, so I installed the coreboot bootloader over it, and then ran debian on top of that. I run Debian testing on a crypted file system. I would be annoyed if was stolen or lost, but at $99 I wouldn't be crying, and my data would be unreadable. My experience has been great, the laptop is very nimble. I was even prepared to use xfce on it but it runs KDE 5 perfectly fine! I run openoffice for my wife's travel notes, firefox, and thunderbird to collect mail from home via a wireguard vpn. And movies. -- Michael Galea