alphapuggle

There's a new version (fork?) of filebrowser dubbed "quantum" if that's your thing https://github.com/gtsteffaniak/filebrowser

I've had luck melting a hot glue stick and pressing it on the head, letting it cool, and pulling it out, but you would also be best replacing the lock since you can open the door

You can get this to 1x1 and it'll look okay if your launcher allows you to ignore widget sizes (e.g. Lawnchair)

I promise it's not as hard as it sounds 😂

Edit: this ifixit guide may help a bit https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/ASUS+Chromebook+C424MA-DH48F+Lower+Case+Replacement/180425

There doesn't seem to be any specific videos for your model, but for the most part you just have to take all of the screws out of the bottom and wedge something in the crack between the top and bottom to gently pry it apart. I would take a look at some other videos on similar computers to get comfortable with it first. If the case is putting up a lot of resistence once you've gotten a part separated, you'll want to go back and make sure you got all of the screws out, sometimes they'll be under the rubber feet.

Not entirely, just the connection it has to the motherboard

They're not too bad to work with, I did my grandma's Chromebook a bit ago and did 2 last night after realizing I didn't need a modded cable, just the battery trick. If you'd replace it anyway it doesn't hurt to try!

Do you have this laptop currently? You can coreboot it and install Fedora on it https://docs.mrchromebox.tech/docs/supported-devices.html

Oh boy, this came out 8 years ago??

There's this, looks kinda fishy but it only asks for a date from the bios and spits out a code without asking for payment, couldn't hurt to try

Edit: found the source for it if you want to roll your own

Their tag line is "in search of incredible" for a reason, they sure as fuck haven't found it!

Ah I think I see what you're going with here. Try turning on "deck" mode shown in the same picture above. That'll place all apps on the home screen and disable the drawer completely. Bypasses the need for automatically adding new apps too

Edit: heads up, there's a reason it says beta next to it. Definitely quite new for the app