Hahaha I need the phon 5 inches from my eyes!

You know, as much as I knock Google. ChromeOS Flex ain't that bad. I mean I'm running it on ancient crap. They must have quietly made some adjustment to the scrollbars, that's almost a non-issue now. Don't get me wrong, I'd still like a bit of control there, but whatever.

I kinda of like the basic office editing tools, the stuff you can use without Google Docs or Microshaft's online shit. While they get a bit sluggish with complex, long and/or highly-formatted files, they're kinda cool for viewing, and yes, even editing simple MS files. When you employ some simple tricks, for example, when you want to create a spreadsheet, open the text editor, type something like:

Delete this text before using

then save it in the directory you want the spreadsheet in with the filename you want and then changing the extension to CSV, open it with the basic editor (I have it set as default, so I just double-click), delete the text and go-to-town. The things become useful for creating simple files too. I found keeping a few DOCX files with the margins (for example) set as I want them and a simple single line 'Delete this text before using' in a templates directory, with names like 'half_inch.DOCX', copying them to another directory, renaming them what I want... You get the gist.

With all the online tools, and stuff that you can make work offline, a minuscule bit of know-how, the OS really isn't that bad for most tasks.

Heh, after I hit submit on the last post, it dawned on me that could put an HTML file in that template folder, with links to the documents. I wouldn't even be limited to just using the filenames, I could write longer descriptions:
You can imagine it. Directions at the top of the page stating something like 'To use these templates right-click on them, Save As to the directory you want and rename them as you wish before clicking Save'. Basically just open the HTML in chrome, and use it to move and rename muh precious templates.

I suppose I should mention, for those who never used the basic office editors, that the spreadsheet would convert the CSV (as I was talking about in the previous post) to an MS Office compatible XLSX file.

I need to tinker...

I had to dog-sit for that friend that I installed ChromeOS Flex for today. I used her computer. Yes, I know her password; she trusts me, I guess. Well, I logged in to her account and looked a few settings over, all was "well". I also used the Guest Account, to login to my own shit. I played an online game in both her account and the guest account and noticed something. Performance was considerable better under the Guest account. Asked Google if performance of ChromeOS would be better under the guest account. Google's AI stepped in (was shown at the top of the page), said yes and listed a myriad of reasons why.

I seen discussions of people upset that they can't have the USB stick that the thing runs, or optionally installs, on automatically update. At least not easily. Some will take their USB sticks to the library, for example, and run Flex on computers available to the public. Whoever made the specific post that I was reading, said that they use the guest account (even if they log in to Google).

I think I see a huge missed opportunity here, you know, maybe some flavors of Flex USB. Maybe a certain flavor requiring more than 8GBs, a partition for personal storage (perhaps with optional encryption)....

I know what I'm reading in the press about ChromeOS eventually going the way of the dodo is pure speculation. While I understand that an official Android or Android-ish OS for PC needs to be a thing, a good, relatively secure OS that runs well on older hardware, that already has a base that at least likes it, might be worth keeping around. In fact, as I've already suggested, it might be worth expanding on. It might be good to meet some users where they want to be met at.

That friend that I installed ChromeOS Flex for makes me laugh. Shortly after setting it up, she needed to do something at a job-related website. I was sitting there, and she turned to me with a slightly disappointed look on her face. I asked what was wrong. She turned back to the computer and began reading. "This website requires a modern web browser such as Google Chrome....". "It's Chrome". I replied. "ChomeOS Fl..., Oh!", her reasoning it out loud. This is after she had been running the thing from a USB for about a month. I think I've mentioned here before that when she was running Windows 10 she'd get pissed off about Microsoft trying to foist Edge on her. She always ran Chrome and had it set up in a way that she was always logged in (she had the browser remember passwords for everything). She'd rightfully get pissed about MS's stupid shit like adding a Bing search bar on her taskbar and the weather and headlines... I'd have to find out what to do in the registry to kill some of their shit. I had to think when installing Flex for her because all that stuff I'd normally turn off for my use didn't really mesh with her desires. I took some liberties such as removing Google Drive integration (that would be confusing to her), but had to chuckle a bit when she wanted to keep the Youtube and Gmail apps. She apparently liked them. Still a bit dismayed about that. I did make sure to set the scrollbars to always show, I guess that's something I knew we'd agree on.

I was showing her some of the customization you could do, dark mode, blah blah, blah. I went through a bit of a mental workout to undo all the changes I made when she decided she wanted it the 'way it was'. I should have realized that sort of pastel-pinkish color scheme that Flex has out-of-the-box would be right up her alley. While not my thing, I will admit that it does look nice. I showed her some, what I consider, nice wallpapers. She had some scans of old family photos and wanted to use them to rotate every so often. I knew this at one point (Did I mention it on techtalk.cc?), but I had to refresh my memory by searching Google, you can do exactly what she wanted by uploading the images you want use for a rotating-wallpaper to Google Photos and configuring the OS to use some of those photos. It sort of annoys me that you can't do that with local files, but given that she always wants to be logged in anyway, what difference does it make? None! Anyway, between the built-in image editor and PhotoPea (https://www.photopea.com/), some cropping and adding some backgrounds (making images have a 16x9 aspect ratio), we got what she wanted. Back when I first started thinking of setting this up for her, the only option for logging in was using your Google password. I didn't think she'd like that. I can't recall whether they NOW let you optionally use a password or pin (perhaps both), but did notice there was some choices when setting it up for her. Guess what she wanted to use? Her Google password.

Eh, I guess what I'm getting at is that there's a definitely a crowd the ChromeOS Flex suits almost perfectly. I know my friend likes an OS that boots in under 3 minutes (Yes in the final year or so of Windows 10, it literally took that long). Given the way she uses a computer and what she wants as far as customization goes, it's a good match for her.

I'm grateful. Thanks Gooble!

Steven W wrote: 2026-02-20 05:30...I was showing her some of the customization you could do, dark mode, blah blah, blah. I went through a bit of a mental workout to undo all the changes I made when she decided she wanted it the 'way it was'...

I know that pain! You put time and effort to show something better and they go like "meh".

Eh. Like I said, I should've realized that one. Maybe I should see if I can it pinker-er and purpler-er for girly girl.

Heh! Did a little experiment. Open the Text app. Save a blank file with whatever file name you want and a CSV extension. Assuming you have the Basic Office Editor set to open spreadsheets, it'll launch and want you to 'save the file'. If not associated with the editor, right click and choose to open with the Basic Editor. It saves it with the same file name and an XLSX extension. You'll have to navigate to the directory and delete the CSV file, but you can now work with a new BLANK spreadsheet.

Seriously, Google, set something up to allow blank MS office file creation.

I don't know if I should even keep commenting on this. I was searching about ChromeOS Flex and ran across this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ChromeOSFlex/c ... er_format/

That reminded me I originally had my friend run it from her USB (to decide whether or not it was acceptable), which was an old SanDisk. I had taken a boot-able Xubuntu USB along with me when she decided to install. Well, I ran into the exact same issue. I also insisted on taking a new ChromeOS Flex USB with me. Wasn't going to piss around with trying to install it from the USB she had been using either. She was getting a totally clean install. No choices given. Anyway, once I had ChromeOS Flex installed (from MY USB) and booted from her hard drive, I inserted HER USB and, well, the installed ChromeOS didn't like the ChromeOS USB (HER old SanDisk). I couldn't do shit with it. Not being in piss around mode, booted Xubuntu, unmounted her USB drive, removed partitions from HER USB using Parted, booted back to ChromeOS Flex from her hard drive and suddenly I could format her old SanDisk using ChromeOS Flex (from her hard drive).

I wish I had read this earlier than I did:

https://support.google.com/chromeosflex ... ive-issues

USB drive issues
Known issue

From time to time, Sandisk or other USB drives might not work as installers. Potential USB drive issues include:

USB cannot be written to. For example, it halts writing at 0%.
Even though the USB installer is successfully created, the device doesn't boot.
The device doesn’t install ChromeOS Flex and fails with error code 1.
The device starts the installation but then stalls.
The Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) file is not visible on the USB drive.

We were getting EFI errors when she'd boot from HER old Sandisk, but the thing would boot and run just fine. Who knows, perhaps I was smarter than I realized for insisting on using one of MY USB sticks fir a 'clean install'. If you leave that USB drive in when booting, powering down, or restarting her laptop, you'll see the EFI error again, although it works fine for storage.

Might also be worth mentioning, she had stuff on the USB before starting all this, I moved all her files on it to a new USB along with the stuff (personal files) she had on Ye Olde Winders partition. Her SanDisk was 16GB, the USB drive I gave her was 32GB. I was afraid we'd run out of space... Didn't know until later that there was no need to worry.

Eh, she doesn't have to use her old SanDisk anymore. She asked if she should trash it, I told her no, it might be useful in a pinch, maybe.