It’s a quiet Sunday morning and everyone is sleeping and I’ve been up for an hour or so. Watching some EU soccer on TV with the volume as low as possible I’ve also been reading my newsfeed. CES 2023 is either in full swing or the reporting is just catching up… I’m in the middle of a tech crisis and while my customers are hell bent on Linux I’m experiencing an OpenBSD rennaisance (OpenBSD 7.2).

As I got all wrapped up in my HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook and remembering how bad my Android experience was… I started to lean into installing OpenBSD on an old ChromeBook. So far so good.

I went into my home office and dug out the most likely candidate… a Google Chromebook Pixel 2015. When I opened the screen There was this icky gooey gelatinous ooze that was holding the monitor to the base. After I managed to peal them apart and clean it up a bit I started to follow the instructions to add some power to the battery and them boot into developer mode. The goo was just such a pain that I decided to give up and send that one to recycling. I don’t know where it came from but there was a lot of it.

So I pulled out another relegated Chromebook. This one was a Google Pixel Slate. Strangely the same keys to for developer mode did not apply so I decided to reboot into ChromeOS mode and see what happens next. Two upgrades later; from 98 to 105 then to 108; and two reboots. And the slate is up and running.

The gooey mess has been relegated to the trash and as I type this post I’m reminded how good the Slate’s keyboard is.

I’ve modernized the rest of the machine with my biometrics and VPN connections… and amy now sitting at the kitchen table instead of the office… with the game on the tele; Losing interest in the game after halftime as the one team scored 2 quick goals and they may just run away with it.

ChromeOS whether it’s a book or a box is still a better platform than Android not just because the keyboard is a first citizenbut because it’s more laptop than tablet. Granted the inverse is true too. Ideally I could use a better hybrid between Android and Chrome but the tech is not ready for that and it may never be. It may require a full reboot.