So far, that hasn't quite worked out.
ChromeOS Flex doesn't have a build for this specific model, and a build for another model with the same processor wouldn't boot.
There also doesn't seem to be a ChromiumOS build for this specific model, nor would the generic x86 build boot.
I spent a good chunk of time yesterday downloading "light" Linux distributions, burning them to flash drives, and checking them out. Only one successfully booted, and that was Lubuntu. It's supposed to be a "light" version of Ubuntu, but I can't tell that it's any "lighter" in terms of resource usage than the pre-installed Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS, and I don't like its GUI, etc. as well.
I spent another good chunk of time yesterday in panic mode after one of these experiments led to me making some boot order changes in Grub Customizer that ended up causing the machine to boot directly into its BIOS/setup screen, and then do that over and over without ever entering into an OS.
I finally (I don't remember how) got it to boot into the "live" USB drive Lubuntu, installed Lubuntu on a newly created hard drive partition, and let it do its automatic Grub setup so that I now have a dual boot machine and a choice of Lubuntu or regular Ubuntu. I'm using the latter. I don't begrudge the additional disk space, as I was always expecting to eventually run two partitions. It's a 128Gb SSD drive, and frankly I store very little information on a drive. I ditch all programs that I don't use. I've never even run short on drive space on the 16Gb SSDs typical of lower-end Chromebooks.
And hey, it's working out. I may eventually put something other than Lubuntu on that second partition, but I'm not in a big hurry now.
I've turned enough extraneous stuff off that my power usage is now much closer to being in line with the Raspberry Pi 4B's. More on that in a minute.
I've installed Google Chrome instead of the Chromium browser. It's visibly faster at rendering sites, has fewer problems with some embedded stuff, and even lets me view DRM-protected material from e.g. Netflix (always a problem trying to straighten out with other browsers in Linux).
I've also installed psensor to keep track of CPU temperatures, and I haven't seen anything about 50 degrees celsius yet.
Now, as to the slightly higher power usage: There's a down side and an up side.
The down side is that given my solar setup (160-watt panel, 300 watt-hour power station), I could conceivably have to plug into wall AC if I use the machine until very late at night such that I don't have enough stored power left over to keep me running in the early morning (pre-dawn) hours when I get my work day started.
The up side is that, hey, if I focus on getting my work done before sundown, turning off the machine will take care of that problem (the panel easily charges the station to 100% given reasonable daylight). Which means I can do things like 1) spend more time hanging with family, 2) actually make it to bed by my target time of 8:30pm, 3) etc., instead of sitting at the fucking computer for not really any good reason.
Over time, I'll continue tweaking the machine and probably experimenting with other operating systems, but so far it is meeting my needs quite well. And I can also recommend it to anyone who's still never tried Linux, would like to, and is afraid to do so on their "daily driver" computer. For about $100, you get a reasonably powerful machine with a very friendly Linux distribution already installed.
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