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Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

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Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#31

Post by stevewillows »

dgzl wrote: post #7
jimmies wrote: post #2

I am a hardcore Linux user. I went so far as buying Chromebooks to wipe ChromeOS and run Linux on them in the last 5 years. As of late, I have decided to leave ChromeOS alone on my new Pixelbook. There are two reasons for that decision: - I just love having the ability to have a pen to draw when I needed to share the screen to explain something for my friends when we talk about technical crap. ChromeOS supports the p…

As a Linux fanatic myself, I've been really interested in flashing a cheap Chromebook into Arch or something low resource, and using it as a super mobile workstation. I guess the only problem is, I haven't given up on my T430 from college. Upgraded parts, extended battery and dock makes for a very comfortable setup that's hard to leave.

Take a look at https://galliumos.org -- its Xubuntu tweaked for certain Chromebooks. I've been running it on a first gen Toshiba CB2 (4gb ram, 16gb eMMC, 1080p display) -- and it runs really well. I run i3 and the other standards.

I use it as my out-on-the-town laptop out of fear of either dropping or losing my late 2013 macbook pro.

Anyway, the dev community around this is pretty decent, and other distros do run with varying degrees of success. If nothing else, its a fun, quick little project to get it up and running.

edit: I should also mention that having a 8-10hr actual-use battery life is a dream come true.

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#32

Post by zozbot123 »

devereaux wrote: post #16
jimmies wrote: post #2

I am a hardcore Linux user. I went so far as buying Chromebooks to wipe ChromeOS and run Linux on them in the last 5 years. As of late, I have decided to leave ChromeOS alone on my new Pixelbook. There are two reasons for that decision: - I just love having the ability to have a pen to draw when I needed to share the screen to explain something for my friends when we talk about technical crap. ChromeOS supports the p…

Don't take it personally, but I think it is just growing older and getting more busy with work, life etc. The returns on investment on the time you spend tickering with your laptop are lower - because you have other uses for your time, and because you have expectations set in the past while ChomeOs keeps improving. Now if you take a long sabbatical or go back to school, maybe you'll tinker again!

It doesn't take much tinkering to install Linux these days (unless you choose to go with Arch for some reason). If you know how to reinstall Windows 10 from external media, you know how to install Linux.

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#33

Post by pqz »

zozbot123 wrote: post #30
pqz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if this is his reason, but at the price range of a Chromebook I assume all Windows notebooks are crap and Macs are non-existent.

A "crap" Windows notebook becomes perfectly usable, even quite snappy, when the Windows install is wiped out and replaced with Linux. (Barring hardware issues, of course.) It's not like low-end Chromebooks have better hardware specs for the price.

I'm not talking about the hw specs, I'm talking about the shitty build all cheap Windows laptops have. Correct me if wrong but I think all Chromebooks are sturdy and durable regardless of the price.

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#34

Post by zozbot123 »

pqz wrote: post #33
zozbot123 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "crap" Windows notebook becomes perfectly usable, even quite snappy, when the Windows install is wiped out and replaced with Linux. (Barring hardware issues, of course.) It's not like low-end Chromebooks have better hardware specs for the price.

I'm not talking about the hw specs, I'm talking about the shitty build all cheap Windows laptops have. Correct me if wrong but I think all Chromebooks are sturdy and durable regardless of the price.

There's plenty of refurbished hardware that's built in a sturdier way. Or you can pay a few hundred dollars more and get a new laptop with a better build - it's worth it just to not have to deal with the weird issues in Chromebook firmware. I'm sorry but a computer that will wipe its install simply because you did not press the right key combination at startup is a useless toy, nothing more than that. (And no, I'm not going to look up my Chromebook model in a firmware-replacement guide and spend my weekend tinkering with it just so it doesn't do that anymore. That's ridiculous.)

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#35

Post by SXX »

jimmies wrote: post #2

I am a hardcore Linux user. I went so far as buying Chromebooks to wipe ChromeOS and run Linux on them in the last 5 years. As of late, I have decided to leave ChromeOS alone on my new Pixelbook. There are two reasons for that decision: - I just love having the ability to have a pen to draw when I needed to share the screen to explain something for my friends when we talk about technical crap. ChromeOS supports the p…

> The Linux emulation layer on ChromeOS is actually very good. I can run app-get, gcc, Sublime text, Konsole and most of the apps I want to run.

What emulation are you talking about? ChromeOS is based on Gentoo Linux.

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#36

Post by jimmies »

devereaux wrote: post #16
jimmies wrote: post #2

I am a hardcore Linux user. I went so far as buying Chromebooks to wipe ChromeOS and run Linux on them in the last 5 years. As of late, I have decided to leave ChromeOS alone on my new Pixelbook. There are two reasons for that decision: - I just love having the ability to have a pen to draw when I needed to share the screen to explain something for my friends when we talk about technical crap. ChromeOS supports the p…

Don't take it personally, but I think it is just growing older and getting more busy with work, life etc. The returns on investment on the time you spend tickering with your laptop are lower - because you have other uses for your time, and because you have expectations set in the past while ChomeOs keeps improving. Now if you take a long sabbatical or go back to school, maybe you'll tinker again!

Absolutely. Same reason I stopped doing custom ROM for my phone. Growing up is hard :(

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#37

Post by bubblethink »

SXX wrote: post #35
jimmies wrote: post #2

I am a hardcore Linux user. I went so far as buying Chromebooks to wipe ChromeOS and run Linux on them in the last 5 years. As of late, I have decided to leave ChromeOS alone on my new Pixelbook. There are two reasons for that decision: - I just love having the ability to have a pen to draw when I needed to share the screen to explain something for my friends when we talk about technical crap. ChromeOS supports the p…

> The Linux emulation layer on ChromeOS is actually very good. I can run app-get, gcc, Sublime text, Konsole and most of the apps I want to run. What emulation are you talking about? ChromeOS is based on Gentoo Linux.

LXC container in a vm. https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/docs/+/master/c...

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#38

Post by jimmies »

lostmsu wrote: post #6
jimmies wrote: post #2

I am a hardcore Linux user. I went so far as buying Chromebooks to wipe ChromeOS and run Linux on them in the last 5 years. As of late, I have decided to leave ChromeOS alone on my new Pixelbook. There are two reasons for that decision: - I just love having the ability to have a pen to draw when I needed to share the screen to explain something for my friends when we talk about technical crap. ChromeOS supports the p…

So, why don't you just use Windows or Mac laptop? You'd have all the same advantages without hardware/firmware problems.

>why don't you just use Windows or Mac laptop?

Linux tooling support is still very important to me. I want to be able to enjoy Konsole and Sublime text.

Windows Subsystem for Linux is getting there, but I don't think it's as advanced as ChromeOS' yet. Besides, I don't like the Metro interface and Windows 10 in general.

Mac means tying to Apple hardware. Apple hardware means crappy keyboard, heavy laptop, and no touch screen.

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#39

Post by cyphar »

bubblethink wrote: post #37
SXX wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Linux emulation layer on ChromeOS is actually very good. I can run app-get, gcc, Sublime text, Konsole and most of the apps I want to run. What emulation are you talking about? ChromeOS is based on Gentoo Linux.

LXC container in a vm. https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/docs/+/master/c...

Yes, but it definitely isn't an emulation layer. It's just virtualization.

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#40

Post by opencl »

drcode wrote: post #29
robert_foss wrote: post #9

As a developer of this, it's built using Virgil3D[1], which is rather interesting tech, that allows virtualized guests to get hardware accelerated 3D graphics. It works by having the guest run a Mesa3D (Linux Userspace graphics) driver called virgl in the guest, which takes all of the OpenGL/OpenGL ES commands and send them through through Linux VirtIO[3] to the guest, where they are executed by the virglrenderer[1]…

Does this mean it won't accelerate 2d graphics? Should I expect acceleration in gimp/emacs/etc after the Crostini patch is available?

It'll accelerate 2D graphics that use OpenGL. GIMP and emacs don't use hardware acceleration in the first place. Krita uses OpenGL to draw the canvas so it will get accelerated.
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