Sunday night tech h...
 

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Sunday night tech help - Turning old Win7 laptop into Chromebook

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Going back a few years, someone on here recommended Neverware for running a chromebook from a USB. It worked great.

Roll on a few years and the old win7 laptop needs to be replaced but in an attempt to eek a few more months out of it before we upgrade when the daughter moves to secondary school I thought I'd revisit neverware, as she only needs a browser for homework tasks.

It seems Neverware was bought out and you can no longer run from a USB stick. No problem, got an old hard-drive I'll overwrite contents with the ChromeOS install. All good. However, no on attempting to complete the install if won't connect to the internet (can't find any networks to connect too). ChromeOS tells me wifi is ON but laptop show's the wifi button light as orange/red meaning it isn't enabled.

On initial boot up, the wifi light does go white to suggest wifi is enabled but then it goes orange/red again as the setup starts.

Can't see any option in BIOS to turn it on.

Any help? It was all going so well until this point 🙁

Thanks


 
Posted : 04/02/2024 5:25 pm
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If I press the wifi button during startup, it turns on. Setup then detects the wifi networks but before I can select and connect it seems the ChromeOS install turns the wifi off again and I can't re-enable with the button.

Guessing I'll need to splash out on a laptop sooner than I'd liked 🙁


 
Posted : 04/02/2024 5:37 pm
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It might just be a driver problem.

Give MX Linux a whirl, 32 and 64-bit flavours and it'll run from USB while you decide if you like it https://mxlinux.org/download-links/


 
Posted : 04/02/2024 6:21 pm
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Thanks Timba, I'll take a look.


 
Posted : 04/02/2024 7:35 pm
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Does it work with a wired Ethernet connection?


 
Posted : 04/02/2024 9:53 pm
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Not sure, but sorted it now.

Found an old Neverware bin file on internet and managed to make a bootable USB from that.

Sorted for a few months 🤞


 
Posted : 04/02/2024 10:32 pm

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