Chromebook unenrollment woes . . . | . . .
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Content Warning: Cockroaches, implied poor living conditions
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(Edit: This article was written over multiple days. All parts refer to the events of 22|6|2024. The first part of the article was written on 23|6|2024.)
Hrrf... Did some stuff yesterday. Mainly with laptops.
So, I got a chromebook from school, right? School–issued chromebook. I still have it, but I graduated a while ago. Are they gonna ask for it back? I assume they would, but I haven't received any word of it.
I graduated early, so at first, I thought they hadn't said anything because they were waiting for the school year to end. But it has certainly ended now, so I am confused.
I have been avoiding emails related to school. I'm usually aware that I'm sent one, though ("usually" because as far as I know I always know when I get one, but if I miss one then I miss it. It's in the name. So I wouldn't know that I missed it, especially since I don't actively look for them). And as far as I am aware, I have not been sent anything related to returning my chromebook.
This belief is further strengthened by the fact that at the graduation ceremony, I briefly mentioned this fact to a schoolmate of mine, and they replied that they hadn't been asked to return theirs either. In fact, because of this, they were planning on keeping it.
When I switched highschools, I asked if had to return my chromebook (and I would then, assumedly, be given a new chromebook at my new school). The school staff person said no, as long as I was within the education system (or maybe they said school district?) I would keep my laptop wherever I go.
So maybe that's it. I'm technically enrolled at a college, after all (although I have no idea if that schoolmate is).
All of this to say: whether I get to keep my chromebook is up in the air.
Know what's not up in the air? I want a laptop.
Also starting from the previous paragraph, it's the next day (24/06/2024). All this stuff is referring to the events of 22/06/2024.
To solve this problem, I decided to make a bootable USB with persistence, so as to essentially have a portable computer I can use wherever I have access to a laptop. Which, considering I live close to a library, would be often.
I decided all this months ago. I created such a USB, but there were... events. Sorry school windows laptop for use in the cte program </3. But hey, IT fixed it pretty quick after I finally said there was an issue. Even if it never booted up as fast as it used to.
(Also it always did that little flash which I had come to associate with the laptop being unable to boot windows, although I have no idea if that is actually true.)
So, I then wanted to get my own laptop so that I could analyse what went wrong with my USB.
Also, I really really want to boot/install an alternate OS than the default one 'cus it'd be *sooo* fun. You have no IDEA the kind of rush I got when I successfully booted into Mint that last time (regardless of whether it was dampened by subsequent events).
Thus: I wanted to use one of my available chromebooks.
At first, I decided to use my personal one. It was a weak laptop, and it being a chromebook meant it had a lot of restrictions that a laptop with a different OS would not (e.g. Windows). So for use as a laptop, it was not good. But I used to use it a lot for things that weren't laptop specific.
That stopped when I finally gave my phone a try and started using it more (I was more emotionally attatched to my chromebook which I had had for years, than my phone which I had then only had for a short while (surprise christmas gift from grandma). So I would only use my laptop and neglected to use my phone).
My phone did almost everything I did with my laptop, and after getting used to the smaller screen, I discovered I liked how much lighter it was than my chromebook. I ended up not using my chromebook at all in favour of my phone.
But my laptop had served me for a great many years (it had even reached its end of life!), and I had thought this was a great way to bring new life to it.
Unfortunately, our house sucks big time, and I quickly discovered that the laptop was infested with cockroaches. I knew that any of your possessions could be destroyed or defaced in this place, and there was nothing you could do to keep them safe, but this had never happened before when I had left my laptop for a while, so it was totally unexpected.
I could have killed all the cockroaches in there without risking damaging the electronics, but that would've left the roach bodies in there, and that didn't sit right with me. I would have to manually remove them, and that disgusted me so bad I absolutely didn't want to do that. Also, there was no guarantee I would've gotten them all.
So: I wasn't able to use my personal chromebook. A real shame, especially considering that meant I had no laptop whatsoever. I briefly considered using my school chromebook instead, but at the time I was still in school, it was definitely theirs, so it was a hard no.
But things have changed. The laptop is now dubiously mine. And with that in mind, I set my sights on it once again.
That conversation with my former schoolmate at the graduation ceremony, where they said no-one had asked them to return their chromebook either so they were planning on keeping it, really emboldened me. I was seriously considering using it.
I prepared for that task, which included researching cheap chromebooks online I could use instead (I have a safe place to store them now! I'm generally in a much cleaner place, these days). Before I went through with trying to boot a new OS on my school chromebook, I wanted one last bit of confirmation.
So I texted that schoolmate again and asked if there'd been any updates on the whole "being asked to return the laptops" thing in case I missed anything. In the meantime, I asked my mum if there was any possibility she'd buy a $45 chromebook with no shipping on newegg.com. I think she said yes? But more importantly she brought up how we actually had some extra, unused chromebooks I could have instead, and gave me them.
Apparently, these chromebooks had been given to my siblings by the school(s). They then got lost, so my mum reached out to their school(s) and asked about replacements. The school(s) agreed to replace them, and new laptops were given. However, a while after this all took place, my mum actually found the old ones!
They have since gone unused, due to new ones being issued and then the proceeding end of the school year.
Great! I had two laptops that I could use to try to boot a new OS, and there was no possibility that I would have to return them! The perfect test subjects!
So, I got to work doing everything! There was a dell chromebook and an hp one. I had to disable write protect in order to install uefi and boot an alternate OS. For the hp chromebook, I would just have to unscrew a screw labelled "WP" that was inside the laptop, which was much easier than disconnecting the battery like what I had to do with the dell one (not really hard either, but it is harder). However I don't like how the hp one is shaped so I went with the dell one instead <3.
By the way, almost all of my information regarding the process of installing or booting an alternate OS on a chromebook comes from Mr. Chromebox, so I heavily reccomend checking that site out if you're thinking of installing a new OS yourself! Although I also reccomend watching a tutorial on youtube because I found piecing together the order of events from just the site tricky, although that could be a me thing.
So, I unscrewed the back of the chromebook and disconnected the battery. It was actually a bit hard for me to do, and I worried I might've damaged the cord by being too rough, but it was completely fine. I clicked the back into place and pressed esc + refresh + power while it was turning on, and successfully booted into recovery mode!
It was when I pressed ctrl + d that disaster struck.
"Developer mode is disabled on this device by system policy."
(Oh hey it's yet another new day hello good morning)
ALACK! I knew the chromebook was enrolled (enterprise enrollment), but I had FOOLISHLY assumed that booting into recovery and developer mode would FREE it of those shackles.
I didn't understand. I was confused and defeated in that moment. I thought, "since it says "[my] system will reboot and local data will be cleared" once I "[p]ress ENTER to confirm [I] wish to turn OS verification on", maybe pressing enter will get rid of enrollment?"
But alas, while it had me set up the laptop again, that process only led me to face the school login screen. I was even excited for a second while setting it up, thinking it had been set to factory default. But, no.
Unfortunately, it appeared I'd have to do more than that to get rid of enrollment. But I would not give up so easily!
According to two websites I had found online, I could disconnect and remove the battery, press the power button for 30-40 seconds, put the battery back in and reconnect it, turn on the laptop again, press esc + refresh + power when the "chrome screen" is on, wait 9-15 minutes for it to boot, and then do ctrl + d. Then BAM! Enterprise enrollment would be removed.
Well, I was able to get the battery off, but I touched the back of it and left fingerprints. I don't think that damaged it...? I timed the seconds I pressed the power button with my phone's stop watch since the seconds seemed pretty specific. I did ~33 seconds.
Then I tried to turn it on (after putting the battery back), and had some issues. It just wouldn't turn on? No life on that screen. Also, I don't know what that one commenter meant by "chrome screen", so I'm gonna assume it means the chrome logo that pops up while powering on the device. But that didn't show up 'cus it wasn't turning on at all.
I began to get worried that I had damaged the battery. I decided to charge the laptop, both to see if I was able to and to see if it would enable me to turn the laptop on, in the case that the battery was disconnected but otherwise fine.
It started charging, and the indicator light also flashed white (the laptop was closed). I opened the laptop and it turned on! I quickly pressed esc + refresh + power when the chrome logo popped up, but it immediately booted into recovery mode, instead of taking 9-15 minutes to do so.
I pressed ctrl + d only to be met with that blasted screen again. "Developer mode is disabled on this device by system policy". I tried another method I had found where you just boot into recovery mode and developer mode repeatedly until it lets you go into dev mode, but the screens I was sent to were out-of-order I think. Regardless, I wasn't able to get into developer mode.
I suppose I could contact the school(s) and ask them to unenroll our devices, but as far as they're aware these laptops are missing. When I say they're "ours", I mean no-one's gonna come to get them. But if I contact them asking to unenroll them, not only will I reveal that we have them, it'd be tantamount to asking them to give us laptops for free! So I'm gonna assume they wouldn't oblige. Actually, they'd probably ask for them back if I let them know we have them, instead.
I started researching some other ways. Saw a bit of a video where they had to replace the drive. Immediately dismissed it as not applying to me, but I think that was wishful thinking. Didn't want to, but ended up watching a part of a video talking about how it's not worth it to unenroll chromebooks, and why. And it has got me thinking.
Ugh, okay. So there are other avenues to research. Some more leads I could follow up on. But it seems like the general consensus is that I'd need to buy some replacement parts or unrelated hardware. I'm not sure if it'd be worth it.
Certainly, you can get some parts for pretty cheap, or at least cheaper than a chromebook. But depending on the cost of the part, how many I'd need, and shipping, it may end up being more expensive than just buying myself a new laptop off of ebay or something.
Additionally, what if unenrollment fails, either by my error or the method plain not working? That could potentially lead me to buying even more parts, leading it to being more expensive than buying a new one.
Meanwhile, I know for a fact that an unenrolled laptop would work (provided it's on the supported devices list, of course). A fact I'm not guaranteed with the other method.
So I'm really not sure it's worth it.
Sigh, I guess it would come down to researching various methods to unenroll devices, and checking the costs against the cost of buying a new laptop (well, new to me, the ones I have my eyes on are used and are like $23 (not including shipping)).
That'd take time, though, especially since this is all dificult for me to wrap my head around (it's rather complicated to me), and I guess I'm a bit afraid those laptops would sell out before then. Even if that happened, though, another cheap laptop is bound to show up somewhere eventually. I'd just have to wait. I'm just sick of waiting. And the longer I wait for something, it seems the less likely it is I'll do it or get it.
Oh well. Nothing I can do.
When I do get an unenrolled laptop, though, I plan to buy a USB as well. I'll get GalliumOS on it, and install that on the chromebook. Then, I'll test with my mint usb to see if the same problem that happened last time occurs. After trouble shooting that, I'll let my siblings use the laptop anytime they want for whatever they want. Meanwhile my real computer would be the bootable mint usb with persistence, which I would plug into the laptop any time I want to use it (or into any laptop).
Y'know, when my mum gave me the two chromebooks, she also told me how there were a bunch of tablets that are currently being unused. I think I'll look into those as well to see if any of them are compatible with LineageOS.
As for what other project I've been doing these last two days? That'll be another post. I really like that project, and I'm almost done!
Also, look at the new favicon! I can't see it on the local version of the website, but I'm pretty sure it's just the local thing. I'm confident it'll show up fine on the actual website.
Edit: I can see it on the local website now! Woo!
This is not the actual file, of course, but the uncropped, highest quality version of the image I have. Isn't it cool? I think it looks awesome! Favicons are actually one of my favourite parts of websites, but I dawdled on putting one in on my site 'cus I wanted it to be cool.
In other news, for some reason Homepage's "Blog" button isn't linking to the correct article? I checked the url and it was correct. I didn't bother to research why this might be since I was working on a new article anyway (this one) and wanted to see if the issue would resolve itself that way. If not, I'll have to look further into it. Here's hoping!
That's all for today, I hope you have a great day! Cheers! :D