[iams-]

No. You're not correct. All chromebooks can be run in guest mode which requires no login at all. Google has a long-standing bounty on the security of guest-mode.

[jancsika]

So we've redefined "Linux laptop" to mean a system that returns to the base Debian install any time I log out or reboot?

On the other hand, Chromebooks are cheap. So it might be a fun exercise to post a script on github that installs my development environment packages.