I just bought a much older Acer c7 Chromebook (intel silicon) to install native Linux as an experiment, it's been fun. I wonder do the modern ones allow this or are they more locked down? I'd love to have an ARM based Linux machine without remortgaging my house
The difficulty with ARM Chromebooks is firmware/booting and driver support. With x86 models you can generally just flask mrchromebox's UEFI firmware and you're set, but ARM doesn't really have an equivalent (yet?). I'd suggest starting from https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Category:ChromeOS to find something well-supported.
Now that said - one of my main computers is an ARM ex-Chromebook running postmarketos that cost $99 new, so it absolutely can works:) You just have to pick hardware that's had its quirks ironed over.
I've got a https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Lenovo_IdeaPad_Flex_3_Chr... ... For the record, I don't recommend this exact model for most people. Audio never worked (for some weird reason that probably boils down to alsa settings) and the touchscreen isn't working right now. Weirdly this doesn't matter for my uses, but obviously that's not great. If I was buying one today I'd skim the wiki to find something that lists everything supported and maybe ask in Matrix if anyone can confirm.
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I just bought a much older Acer c7 Chromebook (intel silicon) to install native Linux as an experiment, it's been fun. I wonder do the modern ones allow this or are they more locked down? I'd love to have an ARM based Linux machine without remortgaging my house
The difficulty with ARM Chromebooks is firmware/booting and driver support. With x86 models you can generally just flask mrchromebox's UEFI firmware and you're set, but ARM doesn't really have an equivalent (yet?). I'd suggest starting from https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Category:ChromeOS to find something well-supported.
Now that said - one of my main computers is an ARM ex-Chromebook running postmarketos that cost $99 new, so it absolutely can works:) You just have to pick hardware that's had its quirks ironed over.
Which specific one did you go for?
I've got a https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Lenovo_IdeaPad_Flex_3_Chr... ... For the record, I don't recommend this exact model for most people. Audio never worked (for some weird reason that probably boils down to alsa settings) and the touchscreen isn't working right now. Weirdly this doesn't matter for my uses, but obviously that's not great. If I was buying one today I'd skim the wiki to find something that lists everything supported and maybe ask in Matrix if anyone can confirm.