Is postmarketOS a practical choice for my Chromebook?

postmarketOS is mainly designed around phones and embedded hardware, so it may not be the easiest choice for a Chromebook. A regular beginner-friendly Linux distribution would usually have better application and hardware support, but your CPU limitations could make that difficult. Unless you have a specific reason to switch, staying with ChromeOS is probably the least frustrating option.

It can work if your Chromebook has a compatible pre-built image. postmarketOS is based on Alpine Linux and uses OpenRC rather than systemd, so it may feel unfamiliar and troubleshooting can be harder than with mainstream desktop distributions. I’d only install it if you’re comfortable experimenting and solving hardware issues yourself.

For a machine you mainly want to use rather than tinker with, a familiar mainstream distribution is usually the better choice. postmarketOS may be usable, but limited software support and Chromebook-specific hardware problems could mean spending more time troubleshooting than actually using the laptop.

Before changing anything on the internal drive, look for a compatible image and boot it from a USB drive. That lets you check whether the keyboard, trackpad, display, Wi-Fi, sound, and applications work well enough. If the test goes well, you can install it afterward using a graphical disk tool or the postmarketOS installation utility.