this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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It’s always better to buy the better thing. But, you can get a Chromebook for under $80 USD if you can operate on a 16gb disk. < $300 can get you a ton of features. This is obviously not for heavy tasks.
I’d love to know where to get a palette of them
If you're in the USA or Canada, take a look at https://www.govdeals.com/. A lot of government agencies auction off their old equipment on that site, including public school districts.
If you're lucky, pallets of 150 Chromebooks or other lower-end laptops can be had for $1000-2000 ($6-$13 each) plus taxes and fees. You have to arrange your own pickup though - none of the auctions offer delivery.
Not guaranteed to be in perfect condition of course - they were used in a school after all.
I saw the category “Tanks” and got excited…
Yeah, if you just need something to browse the internet and edit documents, it's hard to do better than a Chromebook. A lot of them have insanely good battery life too since they are so light on compute power.
I got one during my last couple years of university for around $200 that was so light you could hold it level with just your thumb and two fingers, and the battery lasted so long that I would sometimes forget to charge it after a whole day and it would still be good for the next day. I toyed with installing Linux on it, but at the time the experience was pretty horrible, so I stuck with the vanilla OS.
Ubuntu Budgie ran really well. It is an HP 11 G5, 4 ram 16 disk. Most things are pretty snappy, but with that low of ram and no space for swap, it’s advisable to do only a few things at once.
(if you’re really lucky, some models have NVME drives instead of soldered in storage)