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My first experience with Chrome OS was through Chromium OS installed on an old Acer laptop. There was Hexxeh who produced good quality Chromium OS builds, regularly for those who wanted to try Chromium OS. And then that stopped. Chromebooks became popular and affordable. There aren’t many who would want to turn an old bulky laptops and PCs into Chromebooks.

We hear a lot about schools buying up Chromebooks (you should follow Chris Robato on Google Plus if you want a lot of such news). This is the other side of the story. For schools with budget constraints and lots of old hardware around, CloudReady provides a version of Chromium OS and support / maintenance subscriptions.

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Looks like that era is not over. Turning an old computer into a Chromium OS device is a good value proposition for lots of institutions, especially for schools with tight budgets. And CloudyReady is for them (and many others)

Chromium OS (like Chrome OS) does not require much computing power. Old computers can run it neat enough. However, running the latest version of one of the regular operating systems can be a challenge. (okay, you can install and run most of them, but it may not be as snappy as you want them to be)

The OS comes in an easy to install USB drive. CloudReady provides automatic updates similar to Chrome OS and the ability to enroll devices in the Chrome Admin Console. Schools can opt for an annual license of $25 per machine or a lifetime license of $59 per machine, which includes four years of technical support.

For Individuals Too

You can download CloudReady for free and install it on one of those old computers and turn them into Chromebooks within minutes. I do not see “Automatic updates” listed as a feature on the For Individuals page, so that is something that I will need to test when I try this out! I am definitely going to give this a try!+

Edit: The free version for individuals also has automatic updates!

Source: CNN Money (interesting read!)

Thank you Matthew Merkey!