Repurposing an old Acer Chromebook 314
In this post I will explain what I like about ChromeOS, what I don't like about it, and how I turned a cheap Acer Chromebook into a much more useful machine using Fedora Linux
The Hardware
I own a 5 year old chromebook that originally cost me the equivilant of 250 USD. It's an Acer Chromebook 314 with an 14 inch full HD screen. The screen is pretty nice actually. The keyboard is fine to type on and the trackpad is pretty good as well. No complaints here.
The machine is equipped with an Intel Celeron N4100 CPU, 8 GBs of RAM, and a 128 GB SSD.
About ChromeOS
The great thing about ChromeOS is how it just works. It's really hard to mess it up. It always boots up when you turn the machine on, updates never go wrong, you get no viruses, there are no driver issues. I can see how this makes it an attractive platform for schools and IT departments.
As an IT professional, I value technology that “just works”. I could see how a simple laptop that always boots up and is low maintenance could be valuable to someone like me. But to get any actual work done, I would either need much more powerful hardware than what this Chromebook supplies or rely on external services (like cloud VMs).
And then there is the case for the software itself, ChromeOS. On the surface, it's fine. You get:
– The Google Play Store (Android apps runs natively).
– Linux subsystem (named “Crostini”).
– The Chrome browser and a simple desktop environment.
The desktop environment is what it is, and I have nothing against it. It reminds me of the GNOME shell, but simpler.
The Play Store is not really that useful. Obviously you can get anything Android has to offer, which is nice, but 99% of the apps are made for phones, not tablets or desktops. It's a mediocre experience at best. It's also kinda slow on this machine.
Then there is the Linux subsystem. It's the best way to run the Firefox browser on your Chromebook, among other things. From what I can tell, it's Debian-based and have all the usual packages. I even managed to run Jetbrains Webstorm by downloading the official deb package. The downside is that the Linux subsystem seems is locked down. You can't install any other Linux distribution, and you don't directly control how it runs. It's still a part of the locked down ChromeOS experience, for better or worse. Also, it's kinda slow.
But the main reason I don't like my Chromebook is the performance. The whole system is SLOW. Everything takes forever. There is lag every time I start an app or try to do anything remotely complex on this machine. The Linux subsystem sometimes takes 5 minutes to start up. Firefox takes forever to sync. YouTube (in the Chrome browser) often lags when watching videos. Every non-trivial interaction in ChromeOS is followed by 1-2 seconds of lag.
I realise that a factory reset might fix it somewhat, but it was never fast to begin with. And it's still just ChromeOS. At this point, I'm considering retiring the machine completely, but luckily, I found a way to repurpose it for something better.
Replacing ChromeOS
For the longest time, I thought ChromeOS was my only option. I've read about replacing it with Linux, but my internet searches led me to believe the firmware was locked down so alternative software couldn't be installed.
Turned out I just hadn't searched for the right terms. I gave it another go and found the following sites, which were the key to unlocking the firmware:
They are full of documentation about how to unleash your Chromebook hardware's full potential, and it does take a little while to find the information you need for your specific model.
In my case, all I needed to do was the following:
1. Put the machine into developer mode (easy, works on all Chromebooks)
2. Enable overwriting the firmware. Turns out this is done by unscrewing the bottom of the machine and unplugging the battery. Then just run it from AC power. Really. Now the firmware can be overwritten.
3. Boot the machine into developer mode, enter the “developer shell” (forgot it's real name). Make sure you are connected to wifi first though. It's all explained on the linked website above.
4. Download the “MrChromebox” firmware script using curl and run it.
5. Pick the option where the UEFI firmware is flashed with a modified version that enables alternative OSs (and prevents you from running ChromeOS).
6. Then reconnect the battery, assemble your machine again, and reboot.
7. Boot your new OS of choice from an USB. I had a Fedora Workstation 42 on a Live USB ready for this occasion and ended up installing Fedora from there. See the next section.
Fedora 42 installation
Fedora is a delightful experience. Linux in 2025 is nothing like it was just a decade ago. I think the installation process is probably the simplest OS installation process I've experienced so far, and I have been installing OS's since Windows 95 and early versions of Redhat Linux (desktop versions).
It went something like this:
1. Boot from USB and start Fedora Live USB.
2. After having confirmed that it works, pick the option to install it permanently.
3. Tell it to replace everything on the SSD.
4. Pick language and keyboard layout.
5. Pick timezone.
6. Enable third-party repositories.
7. Reboot.
After reboot, this happenened:
1. I was asked to setup my user (full name, username, password).
2. A short guide was presented to me (skipable). It gave me a few useful gestures for the trackpad an a few hints on where to find stuff. I was a two minute to read.
And that was that. Nice.
The Fedora 42 Chromebook Experience
Everything, including wifi and sound, works out of the box. Firefox came preinstalled. Everything else can be installed as flatpaks from the “discover” store or you can use the package manager from the terminal (named “dnf”).
Since the machine is based on a lowly Intel Celeron N4100 with only 8 GB of RAM and 128 SSD, there is a limit to what you can use the machine for. It's definitely faster now than when it ran ChromeOS, but not by a whole lot.
What works well:
– The desktop is smoooth. I actually like GNOME a lot (though KDE Plasma is also nice for a more traditional desktop experience).
– Simple stuff like surfing with Firefox or using the terminal works really well.
– Battery life under light usage is quite good (more than 5 hours).
– Nothing is locked down. This is pure Linux as it is supposed to be.
What doesn't work so well:
– The firmware is once again read-only (there is an update I can't apply).
– Doing too much at once makes the machine slow. I would never install an IDE like Jetbrains IntelliJ on this thing. (I would also quickly run out of space anyway.)
– Apps do take a little while longer to open than what I'm used to (on my top-of-the-line Lenovo Thinkpad and my Steamdeck).
– Booting up does take a few minutes at least.
– YouTube in Firefox lags. I suppose it would run better in Chrome, but I haven't tested it.
Overall it works really well and I can easily see myself using this machine for simple tasks for many years to come.