mcc
"With a software death date baked into each model, older versions of these inexpensive computers are set to expire three to six years after their release. Despite having fully functioning hardware, an expired Chromebook will no longer receive the software updates it needs, blocking basic websites and applications from use… [Pictured] A pile of Chromebooks with expired software sit in a classroom at Montera Middle School in Oakland, Calif" 142 comments
Gabriel Pettier
@mhoye @mcc yeah software maintenance is expensive, so when you sell for cheap, you certainly plan for shorter lifetime/support, to make the economics work. They could keep making the updates work for these models, but making it harder to develop features for newer ones, that are making money now. Models being obsolete means code specific to them can be deleted, and newer code don't have to be compatible and tested on them. Apparently users don't find the free software alternative suitable :/. 
dpflug
@tshirtman @mhoye @mcc We could be running free software as the default. If it's preinstalled, normal users barely bat an eye. Ask me how I know. Industry giants come in, offer "a good deal". Support agreements get drawn up, often with morsels of regulatory capture thrown in. In exchange, they get another generation trained on their systems. Community efforts pick up maintenance on many of these old devices. A pittance of federal budget would more than cover it. Instead, we do this.
woolie
@dpflug @tshirtman @mhoye @mcc free software has substantial maintenance costs in the form of labor, just like any other software.
dpflug
@wooliex @tshirtman @mcc You're right. I'm muddying the waters by bringing in-class usage into this. There are good discussions to be had there, but this is about e-Waste. Pictured is a big block of laptops that could be given a second life and be useful to a community. Instead, most are probably destined for landfills. That's all of our problem. Anyone nearby pays that bill. Shipping it overseas is just making it someone else's problem. The bottom line isn't the only line. 
Glyph
@mhoye @mcc it’s irresponsible to allow children’s information to be stored on network-connected devices that are years out of date on security patches. while one could argue that we should mandate longer lifespans, that the software should be maintained for 10 years instead of 3, the idea that we should allow arbitrarily decrepit computing devices to be used indefinitely is intuitive but also dangerous.
Glyph
@mhoye @mcc while searching the web for examples of RAT attacks on kids by way of example of the severity of the risk here, all I can find is lawsuits and enforcement actions against *school districts* violating students’ 4th amendment rights by secretly recording their webcams and screens with “legitimate” MDM access, so, just, fuck all of this, maybe the conclusion I should actually come to is that schools should not be allowed to have computers, just give kids cash to buy their own devices 
meejah
@glyph @mhoye @mcc Even experimenting on the school level with allowing / encouraging / helping students to turn the "expired" devices into open ones by running open operating systems on them isn't allowed in my district (#yyc #YYCbe ). Although individual schools fund device purchasing (often through parent fundraising) they are re-possessed by the school board upon expiry. 
SaftyKuma
I can understand the argument for school provided computers. At the dawn of the PC era, students from well off families did have a legitimate advantage by being able to afford a home PC. At the same time, yes, the admins of these devices have abused their access and I don't like training students on devices that treat them like Serfs of Google.
Glyph
@SaftyKuma @mhoye @mcc the schools are set up for failure here. they have budgets which means they cannot hire competent admins except those who will work for charity, their equipment is perpetually outdated, their deployments are highly adversarial (nobody's more motivated to attack student devices than other students), the environment is stressful and political… none of the solutions are tech, it's all policy and organizing. which, as a tech person, is a bit depressing.
DELETED
@glyph @mhoye @mcc And, of course, the lack of a stable interface is a political choice: https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/stable-api-nonsense.html 
Danny Colin
david :apartyblobcat:
@mcc hope some of them are using x86 so they can be repurposed, maybe as a smol Linux laptop for occasional use. ARM tho? Nah 
david :apartyblobcat:
@ellenor2000 @mcc I have an ARM Chromebook, it can run arch linux arm, but the trackpad doesn't work and there's no graphics acceleration
dpflug
@daviddd @ellenor2000 @mcc To add N+1, I've got an ARM Chromebook that works fine in Linux. Bit slow, but it was worse before the switch. The architecture isn't as relevant as the specific model. 
ocdtrekkie
@mcc What's truly beautiful about this (from Google's standpoint) is that since Google didn't manufacture this massive pile of ewaste, it gets to claim to be a green company. 
Dulanyheimer in IMAX
@mcc These convert to Linux laptops very nicely. How much would schools save by converting them instead of buying new hardware? 
Faux around & find out🦊🍸
Dulanyheimer in IMAX
@camstonefaux @mcc That certainly solves the expiration date problem! The article highlights a few ecosystem issues (parts availability and price, software) - feels like these are all solvable? One Laptop Per Child, Version 2.0?
Faux around & find out🦊🍸
Dulanyheimer in IMAX
@camstonefaux @mcc 100% agreed. My guess is that it's an IT security/liability thing. It's an unpatched threat surface, so it puts the rest of the network at risk if it's not updated.
The Blobject Fish
@dulanyw @camstonefaux @mcc From my POV it's just the smartphone business model applied to computers. Designed to fail, it'll be obsolete in a few years when it can't run modern apps even if you can still make calls etc. Planned obsolescence to keep people chasing the newest thing.
Dulanyheimer in IMAX
@blubfeesh @camstonefaux @mcc Absolutely. And electronics (on average) don't last forever. I just wish something that schools are pouring *billions* into lasted longer than a few years because of *software*.
Faux around & find out🦊🍸
@mcc @dulanyw @blubfeesh Heresy! Next you’ll want it to be an upgradable frameworx laptop…. hold on a minute… did I just say what I think I said?
The Blobject Fish
@camstonefaux @mcc @dulanyw Legit considering one if I ever come into money again lol Do wish it came in colors other than silver though, maybe if they get popular enough eventually they'll see a thriving aftermarket like the Steam Deck has.
The Blobject Fish replied to Faux around & find out🦊🍸
@camstonefaux @mcc @dulanyw Gimme' the 13 with a see-thru blue casing iBook Clamshell style... :P
Gabriel Pettier
Dulanyheimer in IMAX
@tshirtman @mcc It wasn't clear how hard they were really looking. I just put Manjaro on a 2018 Samsung Chromebook 2 and it rules. The process isn't simple, and involves software named like "Mr Bob's Chromebook Unfucker" - but, again, feels like a solvable problem.
Gabriel Pettier
@dulanyw @mcc maybe i should find such a machine for cheap (shouldn't be too hard if they are unsupported) to see how it goes, though it's unlikely to be better than even my aging thinkpad, so it would be more like a project than anything useful 😅. But good to know that there are decent solutions, it's quite sad to see working hardware get destroyed instead of being useful to people.
Dulanyheimer in IMAX
@tshirtman @mcc I've seen some units on Woot.com for around $60, and I'm sure Craigslist and Ebay likely have some good deals, too. The instructions on the GalliumOS website will get you through reflashing the BIOS - and then you can install whatever distribution you want. It's fun (in the "installing Linux on a non-Linux computer" sense of fun)!
Puzzled2 🇨🇦 🇺🇦
@tshirtman @dulanyw @mcc You mean the users who don't pay to use them? I convert my old Windows laptops to Linux when they get bogged down with Windows. They feel like a new computer on Linux.
Gabriel Pettier
Orion (he/him)
@tshirtman @dulanyw @mcc Most people hate a new os at first. That’s nobody’s fault. You just push through.
Rainwolf /ᵔᴥᵔ\
@mcc why would Google be selling them to schools at all if they have that short a shelf life?
Rainwolf /ᵔᴥᵔ\
@glassbottommeg @mcc wouldn't there only be so many rounds of that before the schools get tired of having to replace the laptop so gosh quickly and buy something else?
Kyle Davis
@mcc Piles of disused chromebooks accumulated or sent to e-waste while people were reselling Raspberry Pis for 3x-4x the cost. A huge amount of use could still be had with even bare boards out of these devices, instead folks are buying new SBCs. They need a re-use plan from the get go. 
Raptor :gamedev:
@Difegue @mcc it's SUPER easy, just turn on "developer mode" from the menu and reboot, it'll boot from usb or SD card like any laptop after that, you can install a new OS or just run from the card. They're pretty much guaranteed to run linux well too since the default software is literally linux booting into chrome fullscreen.... While I don't like google this whole thing sounds like someone in Oakland just wants an excuse to buy new laptops (software "expired"???wut..it's a browser..)
The Suplexicon
@mcc Isn't there alreadya silicon/rare-earth parts shortage as it is What a fucking waste of time and energy and materials. 
Mark T. Tomczak
@mcc I remember a local company that would refurb Apple hardware for classrooms. I haven't looked into it---i wonder how locked down the bootloader is on modern Chromebooks? 
The Doctor
Future Sprog, XP
@mcc Most of the Chromebooks were purchased about 3 years ago and they’re showing “final update” alerts. Now websites are no longer validating because the Let’s Encrypt certificates are signed by an expired root and they don’t have the new root. Perfectly serviceable laptops but Google just needed to kill something and so they killed working Chromebooks.
ocdtrekkie
@futuresprog Ironically, the best way to ensure you have a long Chrome support life is buying a Windows PC. 
Christopher Mackay 🇨🇦
@mcc and Apple’s the company people accuse of built-in obsolescence. 🤦♂️ @linux_mclinuxface
Mike Sturm :fedora: :python:
@mcc This seems like a great opportunity for the Linux community. It would be great to have a #foss alternative OS - perhaps an immutable OS that is similar to ChromeOS but bundled with Firefox - that could be installed on these old machines. Even if the schools did not opt for them, a machine with an updatable OS could be sold or donated instead of winding up in a landfill. 
Sir Input [CA]
@mcc What a total waste. Of course, the school districts *could* be using a free software solution built on a Linux-based system that would easily last 10+years, but that doesn’t grease the political machine appropriately.
Orion (he/him)
@mcc Somebody somewhere has figured out how to put Ubuntu on those. Just got to find them.  
Mike :nixos:
@mcc I really want to find a way to get a batch of these and jailbreak them, Linux them and give them out here 
FinalOverdrive
@mcc With a little hacking and finagling with low spec os's, they could be made into servicable computers again.
Nullstring 🏴☠️
@mcc we should shove tech corporation executives and shareholders into a fucking volcano until they stop doing things like this. or better yet, make them work in the ewaste burn pits until they learn their fucking lesson.
ozlo fox
@mcc
Ghostsheetz
@mcc They should learn to install Linux and then keep the laptops once they do. Reducing waste is one of the core principles of Linux.
moralrecordings
@mcc real frustrating to hear people miss the main point. In the context of a school district, they've bought into GSuite, they need hardware that can be MDMed through GSuite, Google decided they're fine with forcing them to buy new hardware. Nothing about the hardware has changed enough to warrant this, they just want the money. Being flashable to open firmware is insurance against regulation; school districts can't do it because there's no MDM and the whole point is MDM!
Amy (she/her/hers)
@mcc@mastodon.social and google makes it intentionally hard, especially on newer chromebooks, to run other OSes to get around this problem...  
Kevin Karhan :verified:
@mcc THIS kind of #ReducedLifecycle should be outlawed! I can understand when manufacturers want to #EoL a #device (tho espechally on #ChromeOS / #Chromebooks the excuse of "too old hardware" rarely flies), the fact that these are literally turned into #eWaste due to not being unlockable and thus refurbishable (just like any other laptop) is basically an asshole move against both owners (that would otherwise get some $ from refurbishers) and the envoirment!
deltatux
@mcc Many #Chromebooks are supported for 5-8 years from the model launch date, it's important for purchasers to make sure that they're buying the latest batches to ensure that you get the most use out of them before it becomes e-waste. For many of these Chromebooks due to their low power hardware are well out of date and too slow by the time their software updates expire. 
Niclas Hedhman
The peril of relying on updates from a commercial company and (effectively) proprietary software.
Steve Herrick
@mcc This makes me so angry! It's bad enough that hardware wears out as fast as it does, but this hardware hasn't worn out! Each of these computers could continue operating for another 3-5 years with Linux. If the schools don't want them, give them away to a local library, a nonprofit, a tech club, Food Not Bombs, a prison, or random people on the street.  
F4GRX Sébastien
@mcc this could be an outrage. Google should be sued for this waste. Can these be fixed with third party software? 
Григорий Клюшников
Despite the popular opinion, software doesn't have to constantly receive updates. Software can have a "finished" state. And since most software developers don't want their products to be finished, you can decide when you've had enough updating and pick yourself a version you want to stay on. For most intents and purposes, you can stay on an arbitrarily old version of an app or OS if it already works for you just fine.
Sukima (Wiket)
@mcc @Sonic_Little Since there is an excess of the same hardware would it be possible to start a volunteer effort to support a Linux distro dedicated to security updates and drivers for that specific hardware? A community effort that allows older systems to have a new life while still getting security updates? We have charitable organizations why not open sourced projects to do the same? |
Gregory's Server
@mcc this should be illegal.