This is inspired by Kenneth White’s $169 development Chromebook. This is mostly just some updates for 2019.
Last Black Friday, Wal-Mart had a Samsung Chromebook 3 for $99. It’s powered by a dual-core Intel Celeron with 4GB RAM, 16GB SSD, Bluetooth, 802.11n, SD card slot, two USB ports, webcam, and 10+ hours of battery runtime. I thought it would only be good for doing browser-based activities in CoderDojo, but it’s grown on me as a tablet replacement. Now, I’m hoping to even replace my notebook.
Following White’s advice, I made a Google account just for the device, but ultimately decided to go back to using my personal account because I wanted access to my Google Play purchases. But like White said, I can always Powerwash and use the device account when I travel to potentially hostile environments.
I changed my authentication to be through a hardware key (and Google Authenticator as a backup) which turns out to be very easy to use.
I’ve more or less gone with White’s guide in my build. In addition to his goals, I added a few:
- Docker: I’m looking into this, but it looks like I might need a 32-bit x86 version to run under Termux.
- ADB: I’m not even close to getting this working yet.
Some things to note:
- It takes some getting used to Termux’s long-press on touchpad to copy/paste. There’s no CTRL+C/V options AFAIK.
- If you store data in SD card, remember that it’s not encrypted by default.
