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  DATE : 2025.01.07
  TIME : 17:42
AUTHOR : SNOWCRASH@SDF.ORG
  MOOD : RELAXED
 TITLE : CHROMEOS FLEX
 
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Ever get an itch for change? Last night I did. I've been playing
around with openbsd on an old T540p for the last six months
running the minimal i3 windows manager. It had been a nice stable
existence, I can't complain too much other than the occasional
head scratching moments trying to remember/learn how to do X, Y
and Z in openbsd.

But I was itching to move back to something a little more full
featured from the window manager perspective, so I decided to jump
over to GhostBSD, a more "desktop" optimized BSD. Install was easy
and the mate interface was pleasant and I settled into getting to
know it.

Something happened, I don't know what the search was, but I found
myself reading about ChromeOs Flex. What is ChromeOs Flex?

ChromeOS Flex is ChromeOs for Non-Chrome hardware, hence the
"flex" moniker. This piqued my interest as I have a ChromeOs
install on a surfacebook partition "pre-flex" that worked just ok.

What was shocking to me was that the T540p was supported
hardware. So I decided fuck it, let's give it a whirl.

It took more time to create the live USB than it did to install
the OS. And the result was a blinding fast OS. Boot times are
actually insanely fast. But out of the box the option to enable
the linux VM development functionality was greyed out. A few
google searches later and I found out the vitualization bios
settings needed to be enabled. For shits and giggles I re-enabled
secure boot as well. After reboot the option to instance the linux
vm (debian penguin) was not available and in no time I had emacs
installed.

Honestly, the experience so far has been pretty great. I find
myself wondering if I'm just ready for less as "more" when it
comes to tech. Time will tell.

-Snowcrash