Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook or Pixelbook as your primary machine?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 97 posts

Re: Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook or Pixelbook as your primary machine?

#11

Post by fabianTMC »

I was using it as my primary machine for the last 2 months. It was still a challenge even after putting crouton on it and at times things boggled down to a snail's pace.

The best multi-tasking I got was when I was running VS Code, mysql and mongodb servers, one node web server, one python web server, music from the main chrome browser and opera on crouton.

I was trying to build Android apps on it but Android Studio is a no go so I just ended up building it from the command line. I couldn't run anything other than the editor and the build process at the time and things became very very slow until the process was done. I only did this once or twice though so I'm sure it would have eventually hung the entire system.

Re: Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook or Pixelbook as your primary machine?

#12

Post by dsr_ »

bkolobara wrote: post #4

I'm wondering how feasible is it to run your development 100% on a remote machine. One of the drawbacks is that you need always access to internet, but this would not be a problem for me. I don't think that ssh + vim would work for me. I like GUI editors. Is there a good self hosted cloud IDE? Or is it maybe possible to run VS Code on a remote machine and access it through a web interface?

100% remote development is the norm at my company -- not remote from home, although that's an option you can work out with your manager. You can mount your sandbox's filesystem via sshfs, and use whatever editor you like. If your laptop dies, you really haven't lost any work.

Re: Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook or Pixelbook as your primary machine?

#13

Post by bergie »

jcun4128 wrote: post #10

From my experience try to get one that has a non-arm chip (intel) with regard to being able to install everything. I almost could install everything (crouton) but like VS Code wasn't supported. I have this "fear" that my laptop will be stolen so I try to run everything off a USB (attached to my keys) so laptop is pretty much disposable assuming ~$100 in cost (used). The ram/storage is a concern and I'm talking the ju…

VS Code should work fine with crouton. I've seen people running it on some older Chromebooks.

And if the container support lands soon, it might be possible to run developer tools like that without flipping the developer mode switch.

Re: Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook or Pixelbook as your primary machine?

#14

Post by jcun4128 »

pjc50 wrote: post #9
bkolobara wrote: post #4

I'm wondering how feasible is it to run your development 100% on a remote machine. One of the drawbacks is that you need always access to internet, but this would not be a problem for me. I don't think that ssh + vim would work for me. I like GUI editors. Is there a good self hosted cloud IDE? Or is it maybe possible to run VS Code on a remote machine and access it through a web interface?

There are various such things e.g. https://codeanywhere.com/ but not self-hosted; that's quite an onerous requirement. I suppose you could use Apache Guacamole and remote-desktop to a machine..

I tried cloud 9 it's pretty cool, not sure if I can claim latency problem. Gotta learn it/figure it out but I prefer VS code/local setup.

They have preconfigured setups and you start/stop them pretty neat. Nice GUI too regarding the editor.

Re: Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook or Pixelbook as your primary machine?

#15

Post by jcun4128 »

ralmidani wrote: post #7

I used a Samsung ChromeBook 2 (ARM) for about 3 years. You can load a full GNU/Linux environment such as Debian or Ubuntu with Crouton, but you have to enable developer mode. This involves an annoying beep every time you turn your machine on (or otherwise hitting ctrl-d at the right time), and you run the risk of disabling developer mode--thereby reformatting your drive--if you accidentally hit Spacebar. Unless they'…

Haha I did that before (data loss) sucks. Yeah the arm part sucked when I figured that out regarding not being able to install certain programs, specifically for me was VS Code.

Re: Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook or Pixelbook as your primary machine?

#17

Post by bergie »

blikdak wrote: post #16

For the pixelbook price I’d rather get one of these https://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-stealth or since I’m a Mac fanboy a 13” MacBook Pro, then at least I’d be sure the OS would be updated for the next 4 or 5 years or more.

Chrome OS gets roughly that amount of years of updates as well.

Re: Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook or Pixelbook as your primary machine?

#18

Post by yaseer »

bkolobara wrote: post #4

I'm wondering how feasible is it to run your development 100% on a remote machine. One of the drawbacks is that you need always access to internet, but this would not be a problem for me. I don't think that ssh + vim would work for me. I like GUI editors. Is there a good self hosted cloud IDE? Or is it maybe possible to run VS Code on a remote machine and access it through a web interface?

I use c9.io, and also a self-hosted version (https://github.com/c9/core) occasionally.

Using even the free c9 service, connecting to your own server via SSH, you can create a fantastic collaborative development environment.

Although I do most of my development locally, cloud IDEs are perfect for the remote pair-programming use-case - they're far better than screen-sharing.

Re: Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook or Pixelbook as your primary machine?

#19

Post by jcun4128 »

bergie wrote: post #13
jcun4128 wrote: post #10

From my experience try to get one that has a non-arm chip (intel) with regard to being able to install everything. I almost could install everything (crouton) but like VS Code wasn't supported. I have this "fear" that my laptop will be stolen so I try to run everything off a USB (attached to my keys) so laptop is pretty much disposable assuming ~$100 in cost (used). The ram/storage is a concern and I'm talking the ju…

VS Code should work fine with crouton. I've seen people running it on some older Chromebooks. And if the container support lands soon, it might be possible to run developer tools like that without flipping the developer mode switch.

Really? I think if I remember right I bought this ARM version of a chromebook ("octacore" processor) and I wasn't able to install it so I had to use alternatives like Geany.

Re: Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook or Pixelbook as your primary machine?

#20

Post by keenerd »

ralmidani wrote: post #7

I used a Samsung ChromeBook 2 (ARM) for about 3 years. You can load a full GNU/Linux environment such as Debian or Ubuntu with Crouton, but you have to enable developer mode. This involves an annoying beep every time you turn your machine on (or otherwise hitting ctrl-d at the right time), and you run the risk of disabling developer mode--thereby reformatting your drive--if you accidentally hit Spacebar. Unless they'…

If you are worried about that, just don't use Crouton. Completely remove all of the Chrome OS partitions and run linux natively.

I typically get several months of uptime. Suspend/resume has been flawless too. Pressing one button combo a couple times a year hasn't been a show shopper.

Post reply on HN