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Chrome OS: Ready for Web Development [video]

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Re: Chrome OS: Ready for Web Development [video]

#171

Post by sridca »

dirkg wrote: post #133

Some counterpoints - - Crostini is only for a limited set of Chromebooks. I have an Acer 15 with Intel Broadwell, which is extremely powerful and not that old, but Google won't support it for whatever insane reason they might have - Chromebook keyboard is lacking. You cannot program without a del key - They aren't cheap. Only the low end low powered 2GB models are and they are unusable, as well as not supported by Cr…

> - or even better, a used Thinnkpad + Linux which would be better than almost anything for 1/2 the cost.

I do have a Thinkpad (running NixOS), however the battery life sucks. 2 hours for P71 (or 4 hours for X1C6). And hardware support is not perfect (I simply cannot figure out yet how to connect my Bose QC headphones via bluetooth).

So I have high hopes for chromebooks (like Pixel Slate) because then you can have best of the both worlds.

The year of Linux desktop is arriving, but not as directly as we have all thought it would.

Re: Chrome OS: Ready for Web Development [video]

#172

Post by dandv »

danans wrote: post #94
antoineMoPa wrote: post #88

So do we still have to be in developer mode with new chromebooks to do this? Currently, I have a semi-old chromebook with crouton, which means I have to be in developer mode, which means I risk deleting my entire disk at every boot. Someone else erased it some years ago, thinking that hitting space at boot was the right choice when prompted with "This system is unsafe, press space to erase entire disk"...

No. This all runs in regular mode.

The remote debugging part does require developer mode.

https://medium.com/@dandv/remote-debugging-web-apps-running-...

Re: Chrome OS: Ready for Web Development [video]

#173

Post by sridca »

jjuel wrote: post #41
rb808 wrote: post #5

I'm thinking of getting a Chromebook for dev work, with the view of just using it as a dumb client for terminals and browser to cloud servers. I'm worried I'll buy then wish I bought a proper machine. Anyone thought the same then regretted it?

I will be honest. I bought my Pixelbook mostly due to the aesthetics and features(most of which I no longer use e.g. tablet mode and pen support). I loved it for a long time. My laptop was mostly a browsing machine anyway so ChromeOS was perfect. I did use it as a dumb terminal to remote into my main dev machine. Then Crostini came around and I do enjoy being able to just develop on my Pixelbook. However, for some re…

> for some reason I keep wishing I had bought a Macbook instead

Do you know what those reasons in fact are? Or is it just a gut feel?

Re: Chrome OS: Ready for Web Development [video]

#174

Post by dandv »

WildGreenLeave wrote: post #76
benforreal wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was at the Chrome Dev Summit - we got 75% off coupons at registration, so it was advertised as for attendees only. Even so, it wasn't a real coupon code - you go to a site, enter the code, and tell them what app you're working and they get back to you. Not quite sure how "required" that is, but they were required form fields

Was that a personal coupon code or a generic one? In other words, can you share it or not? :)

Speaker here. The discount codes were intended for the attendees, are unique, and they can not be redeemed twice. That said, I'd keep an eye for any Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals.

Re: Chrome OS: Ready for Web Development [video]

#175

Post by sridca »

zaxcellent wrote: post #12
azangru wrote: post #2

Interesting. Any advantage of using Chrome OS for Web development compared to just any plain Linux distro (e.g. Ubuntu)? Or, even more interesting, compared to MacOS? Because from the video, it feels as if Crostini is a second-class citizen on Chrome OS (all that talk about Linux in a container). Why choose Chrome OS at all?

(I'm crostini developer) Chrome OS has some natural advantages as an OS e.g. it's always updated and secure, device drivers just work. Chrome OS is also the only desktop OS with Android support maintained by Google. Because Crostini uses Linux containers, more Linux programs can be used in development than MacOS, and any linux distribution that runs under LXD can be used. Chromebooks can also be found in certain plac…

If I want to run NixOS using crostini on my (upcoming) Pixel Slate, would it be run at an inferior performance compared to running NixOS natively on the device? Because it is all virtualized?

Re: Chrome OS: Ready for Web Development [video]

#176

Post by dandv »

type0 wrote: post #138
chasedehan wrote: post #62

I once had plans to do dev work on a chromebook. I even installed gallium on one. BUT,the biggest problem for me is the keyboard and missing a bunch of essential keys.

Not having proper function keys means it's faulty by design for me, or can I remap those Chromebook keys to f keys somehow?

Yes, the top row of keys map to F1 - F10. You can activate them if you hold the Search key while pressing them, or you can have Chrome OS "Treat top-row keys as function keys" (Settings -> Keyboard).

Pixelbooks: https://support.google.com/pixelbook/answer/7504061 Chrome OS in general: https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/1047364

Re: Chrome OS: Ready for Web Development [video]

#177

Post by sridca »

ChristianBundy wrote: post #50
bhhaskin wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all well and good, but doesn't answer the question. Why would I use Chrome OS rather than another Linux distro for web development? My Ubuntu instillation is also always updated and secure. Device drivers also just work. The android support sounds great for android development, not web development.

> Why would I use Chrome OS rather than another Linux distro for web development? You shouldn't. It's in Google's best interest to get people to use their products. It's in your best interest to avoid Google whenever you can.

I see that ditching Google has become a popular past-time here in HN, however avoiding Google is surely not even close to my best interest.

Re: Chrome OS: Ready for Web Development [video]

#178

Post by rifung »

type0 wrote: post #119
rifung wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer I work at Google My own personal reason is that I have never had an ideal experience running Linux on laptops. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy tinkering and it was fun when I was in school, but nowadays I don't have much time so if I want to develop something I don't want my time to be spent fixing technical difficulties. With Chrome OS the main benefit to me is the same as running OS X or Windows: you don't h…

> With Chrome OS the main benefit to me is the same as running OS X or Windows: you don't have to worry about your stuff working. Has not been my experience with either of these three. There are plenty of Linux distros that are miles more stable.

That's fair I should have prefaced by saying I have only used the Pixelbook and my experience on Linux is limited to Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, Mint, and Slack.

I've only really used a Thinkpad and MBP for the laptops so of course your experience may differ depending on your hardware.

Also when I said things work I didn't mean stability/crashes which I admit do happen. I was referring to hardware (wifi) not working which in my opinion is much more annoying.

Re: Chrome OS: Ready for Web Development [video]

#179

Post by kbutler »

dman wrote: post #100
stickfigure wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if you measure in $/yr of service. Also... you've got to treat a laptop pretty gingerly to have one last more than 5 years. Mine are in pretty rough shape by then.

On the price front - https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/inspiron-11-300... - that is a windows laptop for $180. Do you think a chromebook will have better $/year than that? On the durability front - I guess you dont use thinkpads :)

I picked up one of those for Black Friday last year.

Nice little machine, but the 32GB drive is not enough for Windows - Windows update failed within 6 months because of disk full - even with no user data. Way too much hassle

I ended up putting Linux on it - faster and could keep it updated. But still quite a bit of hassle.

It's sitting in a drawer now. But my old Samsung arm Chromebook XE303C12 still gets used. I do miss the more complete keyboard on the Inspiron, though.

Re: Chrome OS: Ready for Web Development [video]

#180

Post by dandv »

canhascodez wrote: post #131

I patched my firmware and installed GalliumOS[0], which is basically a tweaked version of Ubuntu. I was previously using crouton[1], which functions similarly[3] to Crostini. On ChromeOS, I was using the Cloud9 Web IDE (which has since become an Amazon service), and on the Crouton/GalliumOS side of things I've been using ST2/3, but have essentially switched completely to SpaceVim[3]. ChromeOS is fine for web developm…

Tabs being killed is most likely due to the low RAM on your Chromebook. I've been having 100+ open tabs for several weeks on my 8GB RAM Pixelbook, without problems.
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