A tutorial and slight manifesto on reviving end-of-life Chromebooks. How to make them into autonomous servers, and why we need to rethink computing in the age of climate collapse.

Chromebooks came up a little after I worked for the big Garseholes as a translator typing monkey. I didn’t believe the hype anymore and never bought one. But this looks like a good option if you happen to have one sitting around.

  • Sleepy forest wizardEnglish
    4•10 months ago

    This is such a great read. I’m a long time raspberry pi enjoyer, but we do have so many sbc units out in the world discarded. I’d love to tinker with this.

    • schmorpOPMEnglish
      2•10 months ago

      I took a long break from my electronics tinkering because it always just seemed to be ‘use modular proprietary stuff for your DIY’ and ‘order Chinese bits for projects you’ll never build’ plus the mindless automation of everything. I will start turning whatever old stuff I have around into net-worthy stuff at some point (just started to learn about self-hosting, so treading slowly here).

      • @cerementEnglish
        1•10 months ago

        it won’t replace a Pro Micro for a mechanical keyboard, but a Chromebook could easily replace Raspberry Pis for 90% of what I see them being used for …