There has to be a very niche market for people who want ChromeOS on their device but do not have the technical know-how to do so, or without a device that can flash an iso.
I guess for $3 it's not really a cash-grab or anything. Kinda nice to see vendor-supported live USBs honestly
Can I use this to upgrade my Chromebook that Google won't upgrade anymore?
This is great! Only concern I have is that it seems Google is moving to Android Desktop OS. So would ChromeOS be supported in the future? What about the hardware support in this case?
Interesting idea - could it be done for a Linux distro?
Looks like we can do free it from here. https://support.google.com/chromeosflex/answer/11541904?hl=e...
I'm trying it now to upgrade a 2017 Acer Chromebook.
A Google partner is selling 3000 USB sticks with Linux distribution (ChromeOS) installers?
Honestly that's not a lot. It probably won't make a dent in either ChromeOS or Linux without considerable marketing effort and the right user expectations.
Old outdated computer will probably not have usb-3 so using it as a live-cd will be painfully slow.
I booted chromeos flex on a >12 year old laptop earlier this year and had a good experience with it. I wrote a bit about it here https://konaraddi.com/writing/2026-01-01-chromeos-flex/ (tl;dr tried to use fedora at first but no luck with WiFi out of the box then I used chromeos flex and it worked out of the box)
I mean, a "live" option booted off a USB drive is pretty common for linux? Pretty sure Slackware has one, and probably most other distributions?
I think this actually installs ChromeOS Flex? I guess Google will do anything to increase their ad-delivery surface?
Fighting obsolescence with "most likely to become obsolete" OS
This is a bootable USB memory stick with ChromeOS Flex on it.