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Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?

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Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?

#161

Post by dabockster »

jdietrich wrote: post #155
tannhaeuser wrote: post #42

I don't understand the authors choice to limit himself to Apple or Google. You've been able to do development on Linux notebooks (and Windows notebooks, of course) since decades. I can absolutely recommend Dell (and ThinkPad, though not from personal experience) notebooks with Ubuntu preinstalled/officially supported. Or is the question if a Chromebook is en vogue to use this season at Starbucks?

It's also worth noting that Windows 10 now has a native Linux subsystem, allowing you to run Windows and your choice of Linux distribution in parallel. This makes Windows a very compelling alternative to Mac OS if you prefer to develop in a *nix environment but also need to run proprietary software. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/about

Or you can do what I've done for years and just run VirtualBox/VMware with port forwarding. A bit harder to set up, but gets the job done.

Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?

#162

Post by crystaln »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #98
3pt14159 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why not just use VMWare with Linux locally?

In context of this thread, because aws works with Chromebooks and VMware doesn't.

Funny enough, with Google releasing Debian on Chrome OS, this may actually become an option soon.

Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?

#163

Post by hedora »

jdietrich wrote: post #155
tannhaeuser wrote: post #42

I don't understand the authors choice to limit himself to Apple or Google. You've been able to do development on Linux notebooks (and Windows notebooks, of course) since decades. I can absolutely recommend Dell (and ThinkPad, though not from personal experience) notebooks with Ubuntu preinstalled/officially supported. Or is the question if a Chromebook is en vogue to use this season at Starbucks?

It's also worth noting that Windows 10 now has a native Linux subsystem, allowing you to run Windows and your choice of Linux distribution in parallel. This makes Windows a very compelling alternative to Mac OS if you prefer to develop in a *nix environment but also need to run proprietary software. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/about

Privacy + telemetry concerns were ultimately a deal breaker for me, but hyper-v plus mobixterm’s x11 server also make for a nice setup.

Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?

#164

Post by hedora »

tbyehl wrote: post #147
cagenut wrote: post #28

I've been using my Samsung Chromebook Plus for about a year now, and the answer is a fairly clear: no. Everything about it is just sluggish and laggy. The opposite of snappy. This is compounded by the fact that the AWS and GCP web interfaces I spend a lot of time in aren't exactly lightweight, but that's the work. The SSH client is similarly just ever so slightly off. In terms of just compatibility pains, don't even…

> The SSH client is similarly just ever so slightly off. The Google Chrome SSH app is an abomination. If you have Dev mode enabled, OpenSSH is in the shell (open the crosh cli and type 'shell'). The Termius Chrome app is also decent but they're no longer developing it. > Everything about it is just sluggish and laggy > So maybe a Pixelbook with its full-i5 would get over the hurdle I'm very pleased with the performan…

I’m happy with my Acer 11” cloud book. It was under $200, is fanless, and the keyboard/ trackpad are best-in-class (usable), and so is the build quality.

Linux battery life is something like 8 hours. A year or so ago it almost ran freebsd and openbsd. Haven’t checked since.

Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?

#165

Post by jamespo »

wilsonnb wrote: post #129
vuln wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love my x220 came with an i7 upgraded the RAM to 16GB, slapped in a 256GB SSD. The last modification I have to complete is the Full HD screen conversion, I am really excited about this. I have a few of the extended and regular batteries. I tend to just use the extended battery. I daily carry my x220 and I am not sure what I'll replace it with. I also have a mid 2014 MacBook air but the specs are mediocre. The only…

The x220 is too heavy for daily carry in my opinion, plus the screen can be pretty bad if you don't get the IPS one. I'd have trouble recommending it to anyone these days unless they were looking for something really cheap.

I wouldn't really describe it as heavy, but that's right about the screen

Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?

#166

Post by vinceguidry »

yawgmoth wrote: post #39
dmihal wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows is out of the question for a lot of devs that live in the Unix shell. Sure, I could run a Linux VM or dual boot, but those aren't very pleasant experience.

WSL + Git Bash on Windows works wonderfully.

I decided to dual boot my WSL Windows install with Arch, now I never go back to Windows. Arch is 100% what I need in a developer machine, and 70% of a decent recreation machine, while Windows is the other way around. Turns out I care more about my dev experience than gaming.

Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?

#167

Post by crystaln »

scruple wrote: post #154
sovnade wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're way past the point where you need to guard your laptop with your life because you'll lose everything, as he puts it. Anyone who isn't already backed up to at least 1 cloud service is stuck in the last decade.

> Anyone who isn't already backed up to at least 1 cloud service is stuck in the last decade. Are finances not a concern here, or am I missing something else with this suggestion? I don't backup _anything_ to a cloud provider because my last-decades solutions (automation + home network NAS or SAN at work) _just works_, and I, and my company, don't need the recurring costs hit from a cloud provider.

For many people here the finances of their tech are not a concern. It’s the source of our income so minor efficiencies can have a big impact on productivity and income. For me any reasonable expense that I will gain value from is worthwhile.

If you are a software engineer and you are concerned about $100/year in cost for your backup system, you might want to consider your priorities.

Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?

#168

Post by _asummers »

brazzledazzle wrote: post #127
_asummers wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter-anecdote to OSX Docker: My OSX Docker experience was nothing short of painful. Anything CPU intensive brought the entire laptop to a crawl. When I went down to metal noticed at least a 10-15x performance improvement, due to the way XHyve does things with the disk (I think?). This may have changed recently, but I won't run Docker on OSX anymore unless I have to.

I’m not sure how long ago that was but there has been at least one update over the last few months that change how they use storage. It had to wipe the VM (subsequently deleting containers) so warned me about it first.

It's been a while. Good to hear that's improved. If I need to retool local again, I'll give it another shot.

Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?

#170

Post by artimaeis »

scruple wrote: post #154
sovnade wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're way past the point where you need to guard your laptop with your life because you'll lose everything, as he puts it. Anyone who isn't already backed up to at least 1 cloud service is stuck in the last decade.

> Anyone who isn't already backed up to at least 1 cloud service is stuck in the last decade. Are finances not a concern here, or am I missing something else with this suggestion? I don't backup _anything_ to a cloud provider because my last-decades solutions (automation + home network NAS or SAN at work) _just works_, and I, and my company, don't need the recurring costs hit from a cloud provider.

> Are finances not a concern here, or am I missing something else with this suggestion?

Sounds like a little of both to me.

At home I keep my backups on a NAS with RAID 1 redundancy so I'm tolerant to most things. That entire 4TB array is backed up to the cloud through BackBlaze B2 because it's affordable and grants me peace-of-mind for scenarios where both disks fail. I don't use nearly the entire 4TB, so it's about $10/mo for my B2 usage.

So far in life, I've never had to use my cloud backups. Which is great, they'd be slow as can be to download. But the insurance of knowing they're there is completely worth it to me.

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