Re: [Dorset] Chromebook very very slow, /dev/root file system 99%!

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi Victor,

> > Model R11, circa December 2015, with a 1.6GHz quad-core Intel
> > Celeron N3150 CPU.  Is ChromeOS release R44 the latest update?
>
> Wow.Not sure where you got that information from, I didn't see it in
> my post!?

There was a mention of ‘Google Cyan’ in the dmesg IIRC.  That's the code
name for that model.  :-)

> Version 78.0.3904.92 (Official Build) (64-bit) No mention of a R[0-9]+
> release identifier but, from Googling, R44 looks like it's 2015
> vintage.

Ah, so perhaps it was shipped with R44.  The table I found wasn't clear
if that was the last supported release for that model.

> Entering text into the grid at
> https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/27979 I might type 6-8
> characters before the first appears. "Several seconds" might be a
> slight exaggeration.

Not here it isn't.  If I disable enough NoScript, uBlock Origin, etc.,
to allow that page to load completely in Firefox then it's a real CPU
hog.  Typing is very laggy and laboured, waiting seconds for it to catch
up.

Using Firefox's Tools → Web Developer → Performance to record and then
typing letters into the grid, I'm seeing performance dive from 60 fps to
0.16 fps.  The latter being 6.25 s/frame.  Zooming in on the waterfall
show Promise Callbacks taking more than 750 ms during which nothing else
happens over than a couple of minor garbage collections suggesting the
code that's running is churning memory, generating garbage.

> The Task Manager lets me see the total  memory footprint of each
> process, its CPU consumption and JavaScript memory:

I'd concentrate on CPU consumption.

-- 
Cheers, Ralph.

-- 
  Next meeting: BEC, Bournemouth, Tuesday, 2019-12-03 20:00
  Check to whom you are replying
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Re: [Dorset] Chromebook very very slow, /dev/root file system 99%!

[Victor Churchill]

Hi Ralph,

> Quoting lots having had a quick go at reformatting it.
>

Oops! Sorry. Copying direct from Chrome report page copied a bit too much.

>
> > My old Acer Chromebook
>
> Model R11, circa December 2015, with a 1.6GHz quad-core Intel Celeron
> N3150 CPU.  Is ChromeOS release R44 the latest update?
>
> Wow.Not sure where you got that information from, I didn't see it in my
post!?

My Settings says
Your Chromebook is up to date
Version 78.0.3904.92 (Official Build) (64-bit)
No mention of a R[0-9]+ release identifier but, from Googling, R44 looks
like it's 2015 vintage.

> has got really, *really* slow. Like, every time I change tab it
> > re-loads the page. And If I am typing onto a page it lags several
> > seconds behind.
>
> Is that a really simple web page with just a HTML textarea, or one
> that's piled up with Javascript that runs on each keystroke?  Is typing
> in the location bar also similarly slow?
>

That's an interesting question.
A plain old retro page https://www.quinapalus.com/cgi-bin/match will echo
my text input back instantly.
Entering text into the grid at
https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/27979
 I might
type 6-8 characters before the first appears. "Several seconds" might be a
slight exaggeration.

That is after having cleared cache and disabled the extensions and then
re-enabled them. Just doing that, however, does seem to have improved
things. Chrome is not (at the moment) doing a complete re-load of each tab
when I select it - which it was doing yesterday. Just that makes a heckuva
difference.


> You've still got quite a few extensions running.
>
> Great Suspender and Text Mode were attempts to get round the problem by
reducing the amount of active page memory. GS did seem to help up to a
point.

> > Filesystem  1K-blocks  Used Available  Use%  Mounted on
> > /dev/root   18343521813120  21232  99%   /
>
> This is a read-only filesystem that doesn't normally change thus its
> size is just big enough for the content.
>
> Ah. Did not know what /dev/root was for. Google was not helpful.

> /dev/mmcblk0p1  10801712   5520820  471247254%
>  /mnt/stateful_partition
> This is where most of your data ends up.
>
Yep. Which is not under stress at the moment.

>
> > /dev/mmcblk0p8  11760  24   11412  1%/usr/share/oem
> >
> > 5. swapinfo seems ok...
> >
> > swap_info
> > Filename Type Size Used Priority
> > /dev/zram0 partition 4095996 879972 -1
> > low-memory margin (MiB): 101 778
> > min_filelist_kbytes (KiB): 40
> > extra_free_kbytes (KiB): 0
> >
> > edited highlights of system_files:
> > 2.1G /home/
> > 1.9G /mnt/stateful_partition/
> >
> > top memory use: high load average but low CPU
> > top memory
> > top - 13:29:10 up 15:56, 0 users, load average: 2.20, 5.75, 6.30
>
> You've four cores, so presumably anything over four is CPU bound?
>
> > Tasks: 273 total, 1 running, 272 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
> > %Cpu(s): 10.3 us, 12.8 sy, 0.0 ni, 76.9 id, 0.0 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.0 si, 0.0
> st
>
> 10.3 + 12.8 = 23.1% so almost one of the four cores is permanently busy,
> if it is doing all the work.  And if it's a single-threaded thing
> burning CPU then it may be just one core.
>
> > MiB Mem : 1946.2 total, 425.0 free, 862.8 used, 658.4 buff/cache
> > MiB Swap: 4000.0 total, 3308.7 free, 691.3 used. 765.3 avail Mem
> ...
> > I am reluctant to install developer mode on the chromebook as that
> > will involve a powerwash factory reset and I have a few chrome
> > extensions I quite like, and  stuff squirreled away in downloads that
> > I don't want to have to mess around with uploading to elsewhere.
> >
> > ANyone else have any idea on what I can do to remedy this ? Just
> > finding out what's happening and why would be a start.
>
> Given my normal machine for Firefox is a quad-core 1.8 GHz Intel
> Atom D525, I'd blame extra code running in the browser, e.g. Javascript
> for particular sits, and extensions.  NoScript helped a lot here.  :-)
> Does ChromeOS offer an about:about index of what there is to peruse,
> e.g. about:serviceworkers?  Or performance monitoring by tab?
>

I do have a chrome://serviceworker-internals/ which gives me a set of
sections like:
Scope: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/
Registration ID: 207
Navigation preload enabled: true
Navigation preload header length: 4
Active worker:
Installation Status: ACTIVATED
Running Status: RUNNING
Fetch handler existence: EXISTS
Script: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/sw.js?offline_allowed=1
Version ID: 9560
Renderer process ID: 10434
Renderer thread ID: 7
DevTools agent route ID: 31
Log:[ empty text box]
 [Stop] [Inspect] [Unregister]

The above is the only one in RUNNING state, the others were all STOPPED.
There were only 5 in total, _not_ mapped 1:1 with open tabs.
I guess if things got really laggy I could try Stopping individual running
workers.

>
> I'd disable as much as easily possible to return to the 

Re: [Dorset] Chromebook very very slow, /dev/root file system 99%!

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi Victor,

Quoting lots having had a quick go at reformatting it.

> My old Acer Chromebook

Model R11, circa December 2015, with a 1.6GHz quad-core Intel Celeron
N3150 CPU.  Is ChromeOS release R44 the latest update?

> has got really, *really* slow. Like, every time I change tab it
> re-loads the page. And If I am typing onto a page it lags several
> seconds behind.

Is that a really simple web page with just a HTML textarea, or one
that's piled up with Javascript that runs on each keystroke?  Is typing
in the location bar also similarly slow?

> At first I thought it was a memory issue, and unloaded various extensions
> from Chrome but the thing continues to be slow even with a stripped down
> Chrome, and very few tabs poen.
>
> chrome://system/ shows:
> 1. crashes in dmesg log e.g.
> [ 8757.474061] Task chrome:10706 refused to die (killer main:6598:6598, 
> nvcsw=2928, nivcsw=11253)
> [ 8757.474084] chrome R running task 0 10706 5882 0x00100184
> [ 8757.474102] 880002aaf7f8 0086  
> 880014b2ee40
> [ 8757.474119] 88001b61d2b0 88001b61d2b0 00013b40 
> 88001b61d2b0
> [ 8757.474136] b636ff84 880002aaffd8 880029b50a50 
> 0001
> [ 8757.474153] Call Trace:
> [ 8757.474169] [] ?  mmu_page_zap_pte+0xf/0x9f
> [ 8757.474184] [] preempt_schedule+0x36/0x51
> [ 8757.474198] [] ___preempt_schedule+0x35/0x67
> [ 8757.474218] [] ?  _raw_spin_unlock+0x1f/0x21
> [ 8757.474230] [] mmu_shrink_scan+0xd6/0x189
> [ 8757.474243] [] shrink_slab+0x1dd/0x4ab
> [ 8757.474257] [] try_to_free_pages+0x295/0x59b
> [ 8757.474272] [] __alloc_pages_nodemask+0x218c/0x2be6
> [ 8757.474286] [] ?  pagecache_get_page+0x89/0x470
> [ 8757.474300] [] read_swap_cache_async+0x91/0x1e0
> [ 8757.474313] [] swapin_readahead+0x164/0x187
> [ 8757.474326] [] handle_mm_fault+0xfe8/0x206f
> [ 8757.474340] [] __do_page_fault+0x2ff/0x45a
> [ 8757.474353] [] ?  __switch_to+0x158/0x367
> [ 8757.474365] [] ?  kvm_on_user_return+0x53/0x55
> [ 8757.474378] [] do_page_fault+0xc/0xe
> [ 8757.474389] [] page_fault+0x22/0x30
> ...
> [ 8890.707420] ThreadPoolForeg: page allocation failure: order:0, mode:0x200da
> [ 8890.707446] CPU: 0 PID: 21782 Comm: ThreadPoolForeg Not tainted 
> 3.18.0-19748-gc785fae00b84 #1
> [ 8890.707459] Hardware name: GOOGLE Cyan, BIOS Google_Cyan.7287.57.209 
> 06/13/2019
> [ 8890.707472]  62ad1553 880028eff9c8 
> b69e5f68
> [ 8890.707490]  000200da 880028effa58 
> b649750d
> [ 8890.707507] 0040 0246 880028effa58 
> b64a3f01
> [ 8890.707524] Call Trace:
> [ 8890.707541] [] dump_stack+0x4e/0x71
> [ 8890.707555] [] warn_alloc_failed+0x114/0x13d
> [ 8890.707569] [] ? wait_iff_congested+0xfb/0x165
> [ 8890.707583] [] ? __wake_up_sync+0x12/0x12
> [ 8890.707598] [] __alloc_pages_nodemask+0x22bf/0x2be6
> [ 8890.707613] [] ? zs_unmap_object+0x15c/0x17f
> [ 8890.707626] [] ? pagecache_get_page+0x89/0x470
> [ 8890.707640] [] read_swap_cache_async+0x91/0x1e0
> [ 8890.707653] [] swapin_readahead+0x164/0x187
> [ 8890.707666] [] ? _raw_spin_unlock+0xe/0x21
> [ 8890.707679] [] handle_mm_fault+0xfe8/0x206f
> [ 8890.707706] [] __do_page_fault+0x2ff/0x45a
> [ 8890.707719] [] ? __switch_to+0x208/0x367
> [ 8890.707733] [] ? kvm_on_user_return+0x53/0x55
> [ 8890.707746] [] do_page_fault+0xc/0xe
> [ 8890.707757] [] page_fault+0x22/0x30
> ...
> etc etc
>
> 2. meminfo looks ok...

I agree; there's lot of Inactive pages that could be swapped out,
and there's the swap space available.

> MemTotal:1992884 kB
> MemFree: 225724 kB
> MemAvailable:464652 kB
> Buffers: 84064 kB
> Cached:  399772 kB
> SwapCached:  131508 kB
> Active:  787536 kB
> Inactive:358020 kB
> Active(anon):537752 kB
> Inactive(anon):  179896 kB
> Active(file):249784 kB
> Inactive(file):  178124 kB
> Unevictable: 32436 kB
> Mlocked: 34120 kB
> SwapTotal:   4095996 kB
> SwapFree:3216904 kB
> Dirty:   100 kB
> Writeback:   0 kB
> AnonPages:   682432 kB
> Mapped:  252072 kB
> Shmem:   55736 kB
> Slab:146864 kB
> SReclaimable:72564 kB
> SUnreclaim:  74300 kB
> KernelStack: 21264 kB
> PageTables:  43176 kB
> NFS_Unstable:0 kB
> Bounce:  0 kB
> WritebackTmp:0 kB
> CommitLimit: 5092436 kB
> Committed_AS:30900496 kB
> VmallocTotal:34359738367 kB
> VmallocUsed: 616564 kB
> VmallocChunk:34359117316 kB
>
> 3. memusage not an issue:
>
> Browser   229 MB, 493 FDs open of 
> 8192
> GPU []97 MB, 103 FDs open of 
> 8192
> Extension [Files] 76 MB, 42 FDs open of 
> 2048
> Extension [LastPass: Free Password Manager]   72 MB, 41 FDs open of 
> 2048
> Tab [chromebook /dev/root full - Google Search]   66 MB, 44 

[Dorset] Chromebook very very slow, /dev/root file system 99%!

[Victor Churchill]

My old Acer Chromebook has got really, *really* slow. Like, every time I
change tab it re-loads the page. And If I am typing onto a page it lags
several seconds behind.

At first I thought it was a memory issue, and unloaded various extensions
from Chrome but the thing continues to be slow even with a stripped down
Chrome, and very few tabs poen.


chrome://system/ shows:
1. crashes in dmesg log e.g.
[ 8757.474061] Task chrome:10706 refused to die (killer main:6598:6598,
nvcsw=2928, nivcsw=11253) [ 8757.474084] chrome R running task 0 10706 5882
0x00100184 [ 8757.474102] 880002aaf7f8 0086
 880014b2ee40 [ 8757.474119] 88001b61d2b0
88001b61d2b0 00013b40 88001b61d2b0 [ 8757.474136]
b636ff84 880002aaffd8 880029b50a50 0001 [
8757.474153] Call Trace: [ 8757.474169] [] ?
mmu_page_zap_pte+0xf/0x9f [ 8757.474184] []
preempt_schedule+0x36/0x51 [ 8757.474198] []
___preempt_schedule+0x35/0x67 [ 8757.474218] [] ?
_raw_spin_unlock+0x1f/0x21 [ 8757.474230] []
mmu_shrink_scan+0xd6/0x189 [ 8757.474243] []
shrink_slab+0x1dd/0x4ab [ 8757.474257] []
try_to_free_pages+0x295/0x59b [ 8757.474272] []
__alloc_pages_nodemask+0x218c/0x2be6 [ 8757.474286] [] ?
pagecache_get_page+0x89/0x470 [ 8757.474300] []
read_swap_cache_async+0x91/0x1e0 [ 8757.474313] []
swapin_readahead+0x164/0x187 [ 8757.474326] []
handle_mm_fault+0xfe8/0x206f [ 8757.474340] []
__do_page_fault+0x2ff/0x45a [ 8757.474353] [] ?
__switch_to+0x158/0x367 [ 8757.474365] [] ?
kvm_on_user_return+0x53/0x55 [ 8757.474378] []
do_page_fault+0xc/0xe [ 8757.474389] []
page_fault+0x22/0x30
...
[ 8890.707420] ThreadPoolForeg: page allocation failure: order:0,
mode:0x200da [ 8890.707446] CPU: 0 PID: 21782 Comm: ThreadPoolForeg Not
tainted 3.18.0-19748-gc785fae00b84 #1 [ 8890.707459] Hardware name: GOOGLE
Cyan, BIOS Google_Cyan.7287.57.209 06/13/2019 [ 8890.707472]
 62ad1553 880028eff9c8 b69e5f68 [
8890.707490]  000200da 880028effa58
b649750d [ 8890.707507] 0040 0246
880028effa58 b64a3f01 [ 8890.707524] Call Trace: [ 8890.707541]
[] dump_stack+0x4e/0x71 [ 8890.707555]
[] warn_alloc_failed+0x114/0x13d [ 8890.707569]
[] ? wait_iff_congested+0xfb/0x165 [ 8890.707583]
[] ? __wake_up_sync+0x12/0x12 [ 8890.707598]
[] __alloc_pages_nodemask+0x22bf/0x2be6 [ 8890.707613]
[] ? zs_unmap_object+0x15c/0x17f [ 8890.707626]
[] ? pagecache_get_page+0x89/0x470 [ 8890.707640]
[] read_swap_cache_async+0x91/0x1e0 [ 8890.707653]
[] swapin_readahead+0x164/0x187 [ 8890.707666]
[] ? _raw_spin_unlock+0xe/0x21 [ 8890.707679]
[] handle_mm_fault+0xfe8/0x206f [ 8890.707706]
[] __do_page_fault+0x2ff/0x45a [ 8890.707719]
[] ? __switch_to+0x208/0x367 [ 8890.707733]
[] ? kvm_on_user_return+0x53/0x55 [ 8890.707746]
[] do_page_fault+0xc/0xe [ 8890.707757]
[] page_fault+0x22/0x30
...

etc etc

2. meminfo looks ok...

meminfo
Collapse…
MemTotal: 1992884 kB MemFree: 225724 kB MemAvailable: 464652 kB Buffers:
84064 kB Cached: 399772 kB SwapCached: 131508 kB Active: 787536 kB
Inactive: 358020 kB Active(anon): 537752 kB Inactive(anon): 179896 kB
Active(file): 249784 kB Inactive(file): 178124 kB Unevictable: 32436 kB
Mlocked: 34120 kB SwapTotal: 4095996 kB SwapFree: 3216904 kB Dirty: 100 kB
Writeback: 0 kB AnonPages: 682432 kB Mapped: 252072 kB Shmem: 55736 kB
Slab: 146864 kB SReclaimable: 72564 kB SUnreclaim: 74300 kB KernelStack:
21264 kB PageTables: 43176 kB NFS_Unstable: 0 kB Bounce: 0 kB WritebackTmp:
0 kB CommitLimit: 5092436 kB Committed_AS: 30900496 kB VmallocTotal:
34359738367 kB VmallocUsed: 616564 kB VmallocChunk: 34359117316 kB

3. memusage not an issue:
mem_usage
Collapse…
Browser 229 MB, 493 FDs open of 8192 GPU [] 97 MB, 103 FDs open of 8192
Extension [Files] 76 MB, 42 FDs open of 2048 Extension [LastPass: Free
Password Manager] 72 MB, 41 FDs open of 2048 Tab [chromebook /dev/root full
- Google Search] 66 MB, 44 FDs open of 2048 Utility [Network Service] 60
MB, 52 FDs open of 8192 Extension [The Great Suspender] 53 MB, 45 FDs open
of 2048 Extension [Trello] 44 MB, 39 FDs open of 2048 Extension [Stylus] 44
MB, 37 FDs open of 2048 Extension [Office Editing for Docs, Sheets &
Slides] 39 MB, 30 FDs open of 2048 Extension [Text Mode] 37 MB, 36 FDs open
of 2048 Tab (Chrome) [About System] 35 MB, 43 FDs open of 2048 Extension
[WordWeb Dictionary Lookup] 35 MB, 30 FDs open of 2048 Utility [Assistant
Audio Decoder Service] 28 MB, 29 FDs open of 2048 Pepper Plugin Broker
[Shockwave Flash] 12 MB, 20 FDs open of 8192 Zygote 0 MB, 18 FDs open of
2048
4.  But- aha! Disk is a problem --  but what is that file system?

disk_usage
Collapse…
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/root 1834352
1813120 21232 99% / devtmpfs 995308 0 995308 0% /dev tmp 996440 168 996272
1% /tmp run 996440 748 995692 1% /run shmfs 996440 61652 934788 7% /dev/shm
/dev/mmcblk0p1 10801712 5520820 4712472 54% /mnt/stateful_partition

Re: [Dorset] Chromebook

[John Carlyle-Clarke]

The web app works fine. I've used it often on the Chromebook. Even the OSX
app seems to be the web app packaged as an desktop app since it looks
identical.

On Wed, 15 Aug 2018 at 17:08, Terry Coles  wrote:

> Try again, this time to the list instead of Peter...
>
> On Wednesday, 15 August 2018 16:27:06 BST PeterMerchant via dorset wrote:
> > Hi All, this message directed mostly towards terry, but I welcome input
> > from Others.
>
> I no longer have a Chromebook, but we helped a friend to buy one recently.
>
> > My sister-in-law is coming to visit, and has been complaining about her
> > useless computer. Her son (wise man) has advised her to not get a
> > windows computer, but to opt for a Chromebook. I see Acer Chromebooks at
> > Argos for £229. The one niggle I have about what she wants it for is to
> > use What's App, which generally requires a mobile phone number, but if
> > she has been doing it on her W$ machine it must be possible.
>
> I've just tried to install WhatsApp on our friends ACer R11, but there
> isn't a
> ChromeOS App or Extension, although there are helper type tools.
>
> As Natalie mentioned there is a web app, but I haven't got a WhatsApp
> account
> so I couldn't test it.  If the App needs installing, then see the previous
> Para.
>
> > Q: Is this the best place to get a Chromebook? or would you recommend
> > somewhere else?
>
> Our friend got his from Currys.  Prices seem much odf a muchness.
>
> --
>
>
>
> Terry Coles
>
>
>
> --
> Next meeting:  Bournemouth, Tuesday, 2018-09-04 20:00
> Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ...  http://dorset.lug.org.uk/
> New thread:  mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk / CHECK IF YOU'RE REPLYING
> Reporting bugs well:  http://goo.gl/4Xue / TO THE LIST OR THE AUTHOR
-- 
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Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ...  http://dorset.lug.org.uk/
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Reporting bugs well:  http://goo.gl/4Xue / TO THE LIST OR THE AUTHOR

Re: [Dorset] Chromebook

[Terry Coles]

Try again, this time to the list instead of Peter...

On Wednesday, 15 August 2018 16:27:06 BST PeterMerchant via dorset wrote:
> Hi All, this message directed mostly towards terry, but I welcome input
> from Others.

I no longer have a Chromebook, but we helped a friend to buy one recently.

> My sister-in-law is coming to visit, and has been complaining about her
> useless computer. Her son (wise man) has advised her to not get a
> windows computer, but to opt for a Chromebook. I see Acer Chromebooks at
> Argos for £229. The one niggle I have about what she wants it for is to
> use What's App, which generally requires a mobile phone number, but if
> she has been doing it on her W$ machine it must be possible.

I've just tried to install WhatsApp on our friends ACer R11, but there isn't a 
ChromeOS App or Extension, although there are helper type tools.

As Natalie mentioned there is a web app, but I haven't got a WhatsApp account 
so I couldn't test it.  If the App needs installing, then see the previous 
Para.

> Q: Is this the best place to get a Chromebook? or would you recommend
> somewhere else?

Our friend got his from Currys.  Prices seem much odf a muchness.

-- 



Terry Coles



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Re: [Dorset] Chromebook

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi again,

> Though it's not obvious to me where to find the APK and know it's the
> unmodified article from WhatsApp.

It's in the page that Tim just linked to.
https://www.whatsapp.com/android/

Cheers, Ralph.

-- 
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Re: [Dorset] Chromebook

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi Peter,

Natalie wrote:
> I'm pretty sure what's app has a web app which you can pair with your
> phone. A quick Google search should confirm this.

I think that's right based on what I've found.  And there's also a
desktop program for Windows and Mac OS X.
https://www.whatsapp.com/download/

Separately, the Android app can be installed on a Chromebook with a bit
of fiddling by installing the app's APK according to
https://beebom.com/how-to-install-and-use-whatsapp-on-a-chromebook/
Though it's not obvious to me where to find the APK and know it's the
unmodified article from WhatsApp.

> Have you checked out all the available models?
> https://www.google.com/intl/en_uk/chromebook/find-yours/

Yes, I'd buy by choosing a model, Googling reviews, etc., and then
looking for where to buy and comparing prices.

My Chromebook recently got some TLC.  Having opened up the main PC with
those spudgers, I did the same to the Chromebook to move the flash
memory's write-protect screw so I could then flash it with coreboot and
Intel's UEFI-implementation.  https://www.coreboot.org/TianoCore
That allowed booting off a USB stick so I could wipe the SSD drive and
install Arch Linux.  No Grub required;  an EFISTUB Linux kernel fits the
interface expected by the UEFI and gets run directly.  I'm now playing
with the i3(1) tiling window-manager.  Don't think your sister-in-law
would consider this an improvement over Windows though.

Cheers, Ralph.

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Re: [Dorset] Chromebook

[Tim]

Not tried this myself but I was at this for somebody else last week, 
found this:


https://www.cyberfreewishes.com/blog/how-to-install-and-use-whatsapp-on-chromebook#

There are loads of google hits for a search on "whatsapp on chromebook"

Tim H


On 15/08/18 16:27, PeterMerchant via dorset wrote:
Hi All, this message directed mostly towards terry, but I welcome 
input from Others.


My sister-in-law is coming to visit, and has been complaining about 
her useless computer. Her son (wise man) has advised her to not get a 
windows computer, but to opt for a Chromebook. I see Acer Chromebooks 
at Argos for £229. The one niggle I have about what she wants it for 
is to use What's App, which generally requires a mobile phone number, 
but if she has been doing it on her W$ machine it must be possible.


Q: Is this the best place to get a Chromebook? or would you recommend 
somewhere else?


Cheers,

Peter






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Re: [Dorset] Chromebook

[Natalie Masse Hooper]

I'm pretty sure what's app has a web app which you can pair with your
phone. A quick Google search should confirm this.

Have you checked out all the available models?
https://www.google.com/intl/en_uk/chromebook/find-yours/ You can follow
links to buy for each model, as not all shops carry them all (I know one at
least is only available at Tesco for some bizarre reason)


On Wed, 15 Aug 2018, 16:27 PeterMerchant via dorset, <
dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk> wrote:

> Hi All, this message directed mostly towards terry, but I welcome input
> from Others.
>
> My sister-in-law is coming to visit, and has been complaining about her
> useless computer. Her son (wise man) has advised her to not get a
> windows computer, but to opt for a Chromebook. I see Acer Chromebooks at
> Argos for £229. The one niggle I have about what she wants it for is to
> use What's App, which generally requires a mobile phone number, but if
> she has been doing it on her W$ machine it must be possible.
>
> Q: Is this the best place to get a Chromebook? or would you recommend
> somewhere else?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Peter
>
>
>
> --
> Next meeting:  Bournemouth, Tuesday, 2018-09-04 20:00
> Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ...  http://dorset.lug.org.uk/
> New thread:  mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk / CHECK IF YOU'RE REPLYING
> Reporting bugs well:  http://goo.gl/4Xue / TO THE LIST OR THE AUTHOR
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[Dorset] Chromebook

[PeterMerchant via dorset]

Hi All, this message directed mostly towards terry, but I welcome input 
from Others.


My sister-in-law is coming to visit, and has been complaining about her 
useless computer. Her son (wise man) has advised her to not get a 
windows computer, but to opt for a Chromebook. I see Acer Chromebooks at 
Argos for £229. The one niggle I have about what she wants it for is to 
use What's App, which generally requires a mobile phone number, but if 
she has been doing it on her W$ machine it must be possible.


Q: Is this the best place to get a Chromebook? or would you recommend 
somewhere else?


Cheers,

Peter



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