I have written several times about the usefulness and ease of use of Chromebooks (see https://www.eogn.com/Sys/Search?q=Chromebook&types=7&page=1 for a list of my past articles about Chromebooks). I often wrote about how easy it is to convert an old Windows or Macintosh to become a Chromebook. (You can find that article, Turn Old Macs and PCs into Chromebooks, at: https://www.eogn.com/page-18080/12852743.)

Now Steven Vaughan-Nichols, Senior Contributing Editor of ZDSNet, has written How I installed ChromeOS Flex in 30 minutes and has published it at: https://zd.net/3SxYlRW.

Steven Vaughan-Nichols writes:

"One of my favorite old PCs is a Dell Inspiron One 2320. This all-in-one (AIO) computer with a 2.4Ghz Intel Pentium Dual Core i5 processor, 6GBs of RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GT525M, and a 320GB hard drive is a great machine… for 2012. Ten years later? Not so much.

"But this one-time Windows 7 PC still has a good 23-inch HD display. What it can't do is run Windows 10 well, and let's not even talk about Windows 11."

He also wrote:

"I had left Windows 7 on this machine, which was a dedicated accounting system. I'd disconnected it from the internet, though, since running Windows 7 on an internet-connected PC is just asking to be hacked. Like most old Windows PCs, it had slowed to the point where it was essentially useless. Just booting it up would take -- I kid you not -- three minutes.

"But ChromeOS Flex, which is at heart a Linux system, can run on low-powered computers. How low can it go?"

Finally, Steven Vaughan-Nichols also wrote:

"On my older machine, it took me about 15 minutes from choosing to install it to running it."

If you are thinking of converting an old computer that is presently gathering dust in a closet or some similar place, I suggest you first read How I installed ChromeOS Flex in 30 minutes at https://zd.net/3SxYlRW.