Chromebooks are the answer to the question: “What’s the point of an operating system if I do everything through my web browser anyway? Why not make a computer that just opens a browser?”

Your choice of distro is probably less important than your choice of DE. Chromebooks vary quite a bit in their specs–many are low-end hardware, but some are quite impressive. With decent hardware, I’d recommend Mint with Cinnamon DE as a good starter. For lower specs, you could try Debian with XFCE.

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I am a network engineer and have used Linux as my primary desktop os since 2000 or so. With the bona fides out of the way, I picked up an Acer Chromebook Plus from Costco for $250 and I think it’s a great deal for the money (it’s currently on sale for $200). It has 8 gb memory, 512 gb storage, 8 cores, etc. Most important, it has a native linux environment that lets me install Linux apps, including GUI apps in case you prefer other browsers like Librewolf over Chrome.

Is it the best laptop on the planet? No. Is it the best laptop you can buy new for $200? Probably.

They’re spy machines designed for children. They give them to all students in school and force them to do all their homework with them!

They were designed to be cheap laptop thin clients for google web apps.

You can run pretty much any Linux distro on a Chromebook even though you may need to jump through some hoops to get it to run. From there you can run any Google app in the browser. As for distro recommendations, Mint is great for getting started with Linux.

Ewaste with a web browser

If you’re getting one for linux be warned that it’s not as straight forward as regular laptops due to the unlocking process, sometimes non-standard hardware and the unique keyboard layout. If you do anything where you make heavy use of f-keys or delete it’s not worth it.

Also never buy one new, schools dump them by the truckload so it’s easy to get solid hardware at much lower prices.

Chromebooks are designed around coercing the user into the google ecosystem. Everything google based is seamless while everything else is a second class citizen.

I have a young relative who uses a chromebook for school. I bought the same model for cheap, and guided them through opening it up, looking over the internals, and putting it back together again.

I was going to show my fam how to wipe it and install linux, but then I came across the need for using google’s ecosystem (for a project I’m collaborating with others on.) I have a flip-phone that I use when I need to give out numbers, so I used that to make the google account. Basically I only ever log on to that google account on that chromebook, and only for that project, so it’s compartmentalized.

Rule 5. Locking.

I’m running ubuntu on it now which is fine, but I literally had to open it up and remove a screw to allow it to run another OS (on top of f*ing around with it’s bizarro shell to get the installer to run).

It’s not a secure system, but it’s cheap and it does what I want and it’s not google so - yay.

For web browsing and office applications, tbh spend a bit more and get a windows laptop and install Linux on it. Since Linux can do everything in a browser and not spy on you on an OS level. (I’ve just thought that maybe you can get a cheap chrombook and just flash Linux onto its ssd, but citation is needed for that.)

We got a lot of chromebook handmedowns from grandma, I wiped it and put GalliumOS on it, my kid is playing PuttPutt on ScummVM on it right beside me

Gotta say, the setup process was a pain in the angus. I miss the old Netbook days

Basically just a browser machine for people who only use a browser and/or web apps anyway. Wouldn’t recommend one personally but if it works for your use case then it’s great. Remember that the best software and hardware is whatever makes your life easier (or you like better, depending on your priorities).

find your specific model, figure out how to boot from USB. some require battery to be disconnected and power supply only, then plug battery and it will secure it again.