They are generally unlocked, you can easily get into developer mode and flash a new coreboot bios on most of them: https://mrchromebox.tech/#fwscript Once flashed they can boot right into Linux natively and are a regular old EFI booting laptop. You will never be able to run ChromeOS on it again though (and could perhaps permanently brick or destroy the device) so it's not something Google is going to tell people to do.
yup. this "arent built to last" quip feels like a reinforcement effort from on high to ensure planned obsolescence doesnt encounter any defeat along the way. total malarkey.
I run arch on a couple of chromebooks with wayland. the install path was pretty easy because under the hood these things are just computers. They last as long as you want them to because you decide what they do, not Google.
Yep and Linux usually runs perfectly well on Chromebooks since chrome OS is based on it so you rarely get weird bleeding edge opaque binary driver peripherals. My Acer Chromebook runs Arch too and everything works out of the box--wifi, sound, media buttons, etc. It's way better than getting Linux on a super cheap Windows laptop IMHO.
Wait. The whole reason that ChromeOS works correctly is because they are not doctrinaire about binary drivers. ChromeOS has working touchpads and working wifi and working webcams due to their acceptance of the need for vendor blobs.
Yeah but the peripheral has to have a Linux driver or support, and for a cheap laptop a manufacturer is definitely not going to hire someone to custom port a Windows driver to Linux. They're going to pull something off the shelf that already works with Linux.
But things like MIPI cameras don't work in any Linux other than ChromeOS. The open source partisans are still faffing around with their obsolete APIs, while ChromeOS discards the political aspect and just ships Intel's blob. That's why machines like the Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen 10 are not on the ChromeOS Flex certified models list, and their webcams don't work in any other distro either, but there are tons of Chromebooks with MIPI cameras.
It sounds like Intel is dragging its feet releasing an open source driver for those cameras. But as usual if you use a bleeding edge distro like Arch it's just mashing in a few AURs and you'll have support: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=280559
The firmware's already open source, and you can reflash it by either opening the device to remove a write-protect screw (for older models) or with a debug cable. https://mrchromebox.tech/ has UEFI firmware for many models, and many also support BIOS boot without needing to remove a write-protect screw or use a debug cable. Also, all support running custom Chromium OS builds via the usual ChromeOS boot mechanism.
It's no different than the risk of upgrading your motherboard's bios. If the update fails to finish writing (like if the power goes out during the update) it will leave the firmware in a broken state and won't boot.
Some systems mitigate this risk by giving you two different bios regions so you can write to one and leave the other pristine as an emergency backup if the update fails. Other systems put the bios on a removable chip so if an update fails you can pull it out and rewrite it with dedicated hardware or another working computer.
For inexpensive laptops that are built to the cheapest price possible and where 99% of users will never mess with the bios they don't include those kind of features. So you just have to accept the risk that you could destroy the machine if the update fails, and try to take reasonable precautions like making sure the battery is charged up and it's plugged in while updating the firmware.
And also, it doesn't change that in the case of ARM Chromebooks, they run one hard branched Linux tree from 5+ years ago (more if you're dealing with Mediatek) and nothing else.
I foolishly purchased my parents a "reconditioned" Google Chromebook from Lenovo.
The device was covered in black plastic sheets to conceal scratches and markings on the casing. When we activated the device, it was out of support.
I gave them a fresh HP Chromebook to replace it.
Avoid "reconditioned" Chromebooks.