what if I, for example, had a job in Google and I liked Linux so much I install Ubuntu on my Chromebook, would that be illegal/send me to prison?? Or, if I had the job, would I be kicked?? I like Chromebooks because they are so smol and nice. But I don’t know if it’s legal to install a Linux distro on it. Thank you!!
What about that could possibly be illegal?
breaking the DRM content and breaking the boot, which is illegal in my country :c
I don’t think anyone is going to come smash down your door because you installed Ubuntu. But I don’t know what country you are in and two years ago I wouldn’t have believed Iranian police would kill people over wearing a hijab. So I think you should do it, but I also think you should stay safe.
I think most chromebooks allow you to disable their boot security? some even allow you to re-enable it with different keys so that you can have a different trust anchor instead of google.
Installing Ubuntu isn’t breaking any DRM or any anti-piracy measures.
Unless your country is really strict about using devices exclusively as the manufacturer intended, but that’d be countries that also want to monitor everything you do. Hard to tell without knowing what country that is.
That said, I’m pretty sure Google is perfectly okay with people doing that. Even on the Pixel phones, they openly let you unlock the bootloader, and even allows you to add your own keys so you can relock the bootloader with a custom OS. They only care about security and people not getting a device from eBay full of malware. That’s why there’s a message during boot that’s either orange or yellow warning, to tell the users the device has been tampered with. But everything works fine otherwise.
A point that I haven’t seen in the other comments is to make sure you fully own the Chromebook. If it’s on loan from your school, or if it’s provided by your work, then you may be bound by some acceptable use agreement and therefore not allowed to modify the OS.
Stop feeding the troll…
why would I be a troll? I’m sorry, but I’m just saving money for a Chromebook, they are cheap and nice and I can use them for Python!!
Maybe I have mistaken you for a troll, but your behavior and recent posts on this community say otherwise as they are low-effort and look like bait. Asking questions is always a good thing, I don’t want to discourage you from that. Though you should keep the hypothetical, unrealistic ones in your head as they are contributing nothing here and only waste other people’s time.
It seems you are just young and naive judging from your profile picture, so here’s some advice:
Post less, and research/read more before asking anything. It’ll make you grow faster, not only as a developer, but it also teaches you to think things through better and so you can learn things easily in the future. (RTFM anyone?)ok thank you, I have been visiting Tkinter forums and guides and also how to download Flatpak, and that has been so nice. I’m very sorry for asking a lot but I want to be part of the community!!! n.n And by the way I’m not young, I’m 20 so I have lived a life c:
…You wouldn’t download a car?!
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
You wouldn’t shoot a policeman and then steal his helmet?!
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Crostini is an official feature built by Google that allows you to run Linux on a tightly integrated hypervisor inside Chrome OS. You keep a lot of Chrome OS’ security benefits while getting a Linux machine to play with.
That said, no, it’s not illegal to install a different operating system on your Chromebook hardware. They are just PCs, under the hood. You might lose some hardware security features though, e.g. the capabilities provided by integration of the Titan silicon.
If you had a job at Google, corporate IT would definitely not be happy if you wiped the company-managed OS and installed an unmanaged Linux distro :)
I’ve done this myself. It’s 100% legal to do. The only thing you need to be concerned about is if the distro you want to use is compatible with your Chromebook.
To jail with you!
Uh, you don’t have to work at Google on order to do that. Most Chromebooks can be unlocked to work with Linux with a little bit of work. And you wouldn’t be at risk of going to jail for that. Worst that could happen is you void your warranty. But it’s not a “real crime” or anything like that.
I don’t think it would be illegal unless it’s a Chromebook they lended to you directly to work at the company. If you went to a store and bought it your self it’s perfectly legal to throw ubuntu on that Chromebook.
Here’s where things start to get harder though…
Whether they will fire you… eh idk if I would take that risk. But if anything just ask the people working there for their opinion on it.
If the Chromebook is your property, you can do whatever you want with it, and it’s unlikely that anyone will notice or care. I assume you’re in the US, since you appear to be worried about DMCA encryption-related provisions. Don’t be. Even if it were 100% guaranteed illegal with all necessary precedents, Google has better things to do with its time than track down individual jailbroken Chromebooks. It isn’t like you’re going to be selling them in quantity or using them to facilitate ransomeware attacks or something.
However, I’d invest in a used laptop instead, since it’s likely to have more internal storage even if it lacks the !!shiny!! factor. Chromebooks are meant to store as little as possible locally, and that isn’t how a normal Linux works. I suspect you’d start to get data claustrophobia pretty quickly.
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Chromebook’s run on ChromeOS which is Linux based…
I know ChromeOS is Linux but I want Ubuntu, but if I’m honest, I would be ok with only using ChromeOS!!
Well, then the answer is obvious, no? You can, but there can be some compatibility issues. And changing your operating system is not a criminal offense. As far as Google internal policies, you would have to ask them.
