The hardware of every chromebook I know is enough to run a terminal emulator and a browser. You can install a gnu/linux distribution on most x86 based chromebooks. Gnu/linux is arguably better suited for "serious" development, so I don't understand the premise in the question.
Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?
61–70 of 190 posts
Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
How has your experience been with battery and portability? I'm leaning towards buying a new laptop that I can carry around comfortably. I'm comfortable with remotely working on a more powerful PC if needed. Any models you'd recommend? I much rather would pick anything else over a MacBook.
I use a x230 with the biggest battery. It's decently thick/heavy compared to the modern ultra-slim laptops, but it's compact, fast enough and it set me back barely over 300€ total and the battery lasts 9+ hours. It sounds like budget is not your problem, but I thought I'd just mention this for any students etc. passing by.
I use a x220 because it has a better keyboard. I'm limited to USB2 but honestly I never use them except for my mouse and iOS devices, which are limited to USB2 speeds anyway. But I'm able to hook it up to dual external 1080p monitors. Cost me less than US$100.
Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's one Dell model that all of the hardcore Linux devs in the office use that I've heard called the rough equivalent of the MacBook Pro. XPS 15, I believe.
XPS 13 user here, big fan
Counterpoint here, XPS 13 user, hate it. Worst coil whine I've heard on anything, fan sounds like it's catching, WiFi on Ubuntu very unreliable. Trackpad is atrocious.
I think it varies a lot between models.
Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?
#64I couldn't stand anymore the stream of mistakes that macOS had become so I had installed ChromeOS as main OS on MacBook Pro.
This is excellent combination. Mac is still superior hardware wise and ChromeOS is really nice graphical environment for web browsing, HBO Go, Spotify, YouTube, Google Play Music, Google Photos, Google Drive, Inbox etc. Anyway most of the time I spent inside terminal - crouton - Debian stretch - Vim - gcloud.
I am enjoying the screen real estate of Mac's Retina display, touchpad, keyboard, battery life etc. On the other hand I am free from half-baked Apple software...
I have a backup ChromeOS install on at least 6 years old x230. I have also wiped out Windows and installed ChromeOS on my Mom's i3 Lenovo laptop.
So far so good..
Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?
#65A few months ago my Macbook Pro screen cracked while I was on a road trip. I thought I was screwed, but decided to try development on a Chromebook I had lying around. That was when I discovered AWS Cloud 9. After getting back my repaired fully maxed out latest model Macbook Pro, I have not even bothered to restore the hard drive. Developing on Cloud 9 has been wonderful. Having everything already in the cloud in a pr…
> Having everything already in the cloud in a production-like environment has enormous advantages. Could you talk about this a little more? I have never used C9. I use git and an IDE on multiple devices (Linux on home desktop, Windows on old ass laptop, macOS at work) so I can work in basically the same environment on any of those devices any time. Granted, I can’t just pull up a browser on any device, but that seems…
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.
Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?
#66A few months ago my Macbook Pro screen cracked while I was on a road trip. I thought I was screwed, but decided to try development on a Chromebook I had lying around. That was when I discovered AWS Cloud 9. After getting back my repaired fully maxed out latest model Macbook Pro, I have not even bothered to restore the hard drive. Developing on Cloud 9 has been wonderful. Having everything already in the cloud in a pr…
> Having everything already in the cloud in a production-like environment has enormous advantages. Could you talk about this a little more? I have never used C9. I use git and an IDE on multiple devices (Linux on home desktop, Windows on old ass laptop, macOS at work) so I can work in basically the same environment on any of those devices any time. Granted, I can’t just pull up a browser on any device, but that seems…
In reality those environments are not "the same". You have all sorts of libraries that are compiled and set up specifically for your system, and those differences add up.
With Cloud 9 everything is on an EC2 instance with Linux, exactly the same platform as I will deploy in production.
Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?
#67I've been doing that for years: http://kmkeen.com/c100p-tweaks/ Development doesn't require any more CPU than word processing. You're type stuff up, and there is a pretty strict grammar check. I don't get why people why people want to run huge things on a laptop. It is way more economical to shell into a beefy server when you need big iron instead of carrying it with you.
Some people still write code that is compiled.
and even if you don't, using a slow machine is still not a great experience.
Opening a shell, reloading a page, switching tabs, running git pull, decompressing an archive, linting, building etc.
All these things will take noticably longer to the point of being frustrating on a low-end machine.
Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?
#68It's been perfectly possible to do real work on a Chromebook using web IDEs, Crouton or tools like Termux for some time now. Similarly, Linux on laptops has been perfectly viable for many many years. I ditched my MacOS experiment around a decade ago after getting fed up of the terrible package management story. Fink and macports were trying their best fair play. Better with brew these days but still not in the same r…
Hypervisor layer aside, I'm not so sure this is the case anymore. Homebrew is pretty good these days. Even running a setup like dozens of Docker containers with a local k8s cluster in Docker for Mac works pretty well. I feel like any friction in between Linux vs Mac dev has become negligible.
The only day to say exception to this is Docker for Mac's power usage.
Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Having everything already in the cloud in a production-like environment has enormous advantages. Could you talk about this a little more? I have never used C9. I use git and an IDE on multiple devices (Linux on home desktop, Windows on old ass laptop, macOS at work) so I can work in basically the same environment on any of those devices any time. Granted, I can’t just pull up a browser on any device, but that seems…
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.
Replacing the hardware and restoring your environment is expensive and time consuming, sometimes prohibitively so. Let's say you're on a road trip through Mexico...
Also backing up a Macbook to the cloud is a lot of data, and Apple doesn't have an adequate solution for this. I was using Backblaze. Their restore method is mailing a USB drive.
Unless you have a local backup, which is not practical while traveling, restoring from backup is non-trivial.
Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?
#70I 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?
I've generally found most generic laptops super loud when they heat up. Or they have poor fit and finish or ugly screens.