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

The Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition

frame.work

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 476 posts

Re: The Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition

#161

Post by nightpool »

nsm wrote: post #121
nrp wrote: post #2

I'm happy to answer questions anyone has on this product!

This is potentially a very attractive replacement for my Pixelbook. What is the battery life when running Chrome OS? If I wanted to, could I later put a full Linux or Windows in some sort of dual boot?

They answered battery life questions here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32927094, and bootloader questions here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32926689 (it's possible to install other OSs, but depends on community support, it's not official)

Re: The Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition

#162

Post by paxys »

amelius wrote: post #117
LandStander wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Concerns of spyware are precisely why those switches exist.

Switches won't do much if your photos and videos are on your laptop through some other physical means (e.g. disk/network) or if you put them there when the switch was not active.

Yes they also don't protect you from car accidents or heart disease. What's your point?

The purpose of a privacy switch is to make sure that Google (or anyone else, including hackers) isn't spying on you through your camera or microphone. This one accomplishes exactly that.

Re: The Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition

#163

Post by greenie_beans »

the_duke wrote: post #80
nrp wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a valid question. Since there are few to no current products in this segment, we really are testing it. We get to do tests like this much more efficiently than most because we can leverage our existing modular product and build just new modules needed for it.

I am (personally) a bit disappointed that you'd work on a Chromebook version first, before tackling AMD or a version with a dedicated GPU. I'll need a new laptop soon, and would really love to see either and ideally both of those. But for the company it's probably a good move. Get help from Google on battery optimisations, open up a new market and hopefully get a sizeable order from Google directly, all without a cra…

how do you know they're not doing that behind the scenes? anytime this issue comes up, a framework rep doesn't say anything.

you could gamble that they are and get the 11th gen intel kit, then upgrade once (if) an amd kit is released. or wait and see.

Re: The Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition

#164

Post by ufmace »

duped wrote: post #83
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #68

This is awesome! I still use my Pixelbook, and I love it, and was always dismayed that it seemed to be yet another great product that Google lost interest in. For folks wondering "who's the market in this?", the Linux container support in ChromeOS is awesome - my Pixelbook was actually a great dev laptop (I ran postgres, VSCode, Node, etc on it), just with age it's lack of upgrades is starting to show. So for me, on…

I think the question is, why ChromeOS instead of a Linux?

Personally, I chose ChromeOS as the bare-metal OS for my laptop because I think it's the best of both worlds:

For web browser-based stuff, I have a constantly-updated state of the art browser with full vendor-backed hardware support for everything around graphics, sound, USB, Bluetooth, etc, anything else I might want, plus probably the best sandboxing you can get as far as protecting the core system from any malicious web exploits. It also works rather well in tablet mode with convertible devices. IME, getting all of this on bare-metal Linux and having it stay working for years is very hit-or-miss.

For linuxy CLI stuff, I have a built-in Linux container with a nice terminal. Everything I've wanted to do as far as CLI stuff works great, including Vim + Tmux, developing and compiling in any language, systemd services, docker and k8s CLI support. I've opened at least a dozen or so PRs on various open-source projects and maintained server clusters working entirely on a Chromebook. All the driver and display stuff is taken care of by ChromeOS so I never have to mess with config for it.

Re: The Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition

#165

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

kyrra wrote: post #102
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #68

This is awesome! I still use my Pixelbook, and I love it, and was always dismayed that it seemed to be yet another great product that Google lost interest in. For folks wondering "who's the market in this?", the Linux container support in ChromeOS is awesome - my Pixelbook was actually a great dev laptop (I ran postgres, VSCode, Node, etc on it), just with age it's lack of upgrades is starting to show. So for me, on…

Googler, opinions are my own. Google definitely has not lost interest. The Chromebook team at Google is actually involved in almost (all?) Chromebooks made. Since Google is responsible for all firmware/software updates for the life of that Chromebook, they are involved in that way. As well, the hardware/firmware teams here do a lot of the core engineering to getting the core parts of the hardware working (motherboard…

Thanks for your response, it's very helpful. I'll check out the HP Elite Dragonfly too.

As the sibling commenter mentioned, though, Google did just shut down their Pixelbook division, which is what I was referring to. And as a corollary, if you can forward this to anyone that matters, Google's product marketing is the absolute worst. And I say this as a big fan of Google's developer-focused products. Case in point, I'm a giant Pixelbook fan. If Google is shutting down Pixelbook development, why can't Google just put something on their store to point to alternatives, like you have?

As another example, I am heavily invested in GCP, and I'm a big Firebase fan. Yet I can hardly think of any other company that sells to enterprises that is so loath to even show a hint of what's on their roadmap. I get it, priorities can change, and you don't want to put something out there that is (incorrectly) taken as a promise. But tons of other companies have to deal with this problem, and with Google it's almost impossible to get any status about important bug fixes or feature requests.

Re: The Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition

#166

Post by qzw »

alexvoda wrote: post #115
nrp wrote: post #2

I'm happy to answer questions anyone has on this product!

Can the motherboard be purchased separately in order to transform an existing Framework laptop into a Framework Chromebook?

Didn’t google make a version of ChromeOS that can be installed on a lot of regular laptops? Seems to me it’s possible there may not be any hardware difference between the Chromebook edition and other Framework laptops.

Re: The Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition

#167

Post by jeffbee »

r-w wrote: post #133
nrp wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice, full, stable hardware compatibility and battery life. The Linux experience on the Framework Laptop on recent distros (e.g. Ubuntu 22.04.1) is solid, but battery life will still generally be better running Ubuntu on top of ChromeOS.

Interesting. Do we have a concrete reason why, e.g., TLP[0] falls short of the power management features offered on other OSes? [0]: https://linrunner.de/tlp/

One reason is all the binary artifacts are peak-optimized for the platform and this yields significant, often 10-20% lower CPU usage than plain vanilla binaries offered by all other Linux distributions. This includes the kernel, which in ChromeOS is built with LLVM with profile-guided optimization. Faster software translates directly to longer battery life. Every other distribution is years behind Google in terms of tooling.

Re: The Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition

#168

Post by wilsonnb3 »

babypuncher wrote: post #22
nrp wrote: post #2

I'm happy to answer questions anyone has on this product!

Is the hardware any different? If not, why sell this as a separate machine instead of providing a ChromeOS image that can be installed to a standard Framework?

The Chromebook version has a different keyboard than the regular one. Like most Chromebooks, it only has a large control and alt key in the bottom left. Plus no caps lock, you get a search key instead I think.

Re: The Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition

#169

Post by treffer »

nrp wrote: post #2

I'm happy to answer questions anyone has on this product!

I have a 11th gen frame.work.

1. Could I swap mainboards to upgrade the 11th gen framework to the chromebook version? 2. Is the coreboot chip flashable with custom firmware? / Is the boot process locked?

This might well be the mainboard I've been waiting for. Congratulations on shipping this!

Re: The Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition

#170

Post by qzw »

nrp wrote: post #120
alexvoda wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can the motherboard be purchased separately in order to transform an existing Framework laptop into a Framework Chromebook?

Technically, yes! You may also need the Chromebook-specific Input Cover and Webcam though for full functionality.

Are those the only hardware differences from a regular Framework?
Post reply on HN