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I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

blog.johnozbay.com

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Re: I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

#61

Post by notme43 »

Not even a Mac user and have been legitimately considering a move like this.

My desktop and Thinkpad run Gentoo. A NAS I have at home is the build host. I am a business software consultant, and a common thread in all of my interactions is: I need to be prepared. If I'm fiddling with "hang on my mic doesn't work" or "i need to reboot", I look silly.

An onsite visit might be in an executive board room, or a closet in the back of a warehouse with a TV from 2007 and a VGA connector.

If I need software installed quick, like Zoom or something, Flatpak gets me 95% there. Yes, I could use Ubuntu or something normal, but I like portage and long for the day I can use FreeBSD seriously on the desktop.

So enter Chromebooks, which come with portage, can use Flatpak, and the OS is basically just a web browser. Plus, I don't have to wrestle with SELinux, or any of the other nitty gritty stuff that gets in the way of real work™. It's either a PWA or an Android app, and it just works.

Re: I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

#62

Post by tolerance »

NDlurker wrote: post #42

What is that terrible font? I've never seen an "h" look like that

My initial guess was that migrating to a non-MacOS machine precludes the freedom to view the original Futura typeface on one's personal website. "The Future" must be some shoddy free alternative.

Except "The Future" is a paid typeface inspired by Futura and designed by the Klim Type Foundry. [0] The odd lowercase "h" is an alternative glyph probably meant for display sizes. [1] In addition to this for some reason the author is using the Light weight font for body text instead of Regular weight...

[0]: I love Söhne – https://klim.co.nz/blog/soehne-design-information/

[1]: https://klim.co.nz/fonts/the-future/#open-type/ss06/example

Re: I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

#64

Post by inventor7777 »

bigyabai wrote: post #52
Aurornis wrote: post #47

Going from complaining about Apple not having enough polish in the fine details of their UI to suggesting we all switch to Chromebooks is so completely inconsistent that there must be other motivations. In one post they're complaining about things like Apple having the search bar in different locations in different apps, and in the next post they're seriously trying to tell us that a laptop that requires modifying th…

It's possible that your own opinions are coloring this perspective. As a Linux user, if you gave me the choice between switching back to macOS or dailying ChromeOS instead, it's objectively (sadly) true that the ChromeOS machine would do a better job handling my daily tasks. Going back to macOS would require me to keep multiple desktop machines around for gaming, filesystem manipulation and native Linux containers. C…

Have you heard of this?

According to their GitHub, this should solve the issues you mentioned with Linux development on macOS. Note: I have not used it myself as I find macOS+Brew sufficient for my tasks.

https://github.com/apple/container

Re: I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

#66

Post by Scarbutt »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #28
hmokiguess wrote: post #2

Chrome OS? No, thank you. I'll stay with macOS and keep hoping for the Asahi Linux dream

you can run Arch proper in UTM.app on macos...utm is available on the app store or open source, and wraps the apple silicon hypervisor.framework. it works fantastic magic. i had dual booted Asahi for a year or so, but really for no good reason once i realized UTM existed.

Do you use x64 emulation with UTM? If so, how's the performance?

Re: I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

#67

Post by traderj0e »

Aurornis wrote: post #47

Going from complaining about Apple not having enough polish in the fine details of their UI to suggesting we all switch to Chromebooks is so completely inconsistent that there must be other motivations. In one post they're complaining about things like Apple having the search bar in different locations in different apps, and in the next post they're seriously trying to tell us that a laptop that requires modifying th…

"After my last blog post I received tons and tons of emails from people mentioning that they switched to X or Y because of Liquid Glass, and much like them, I switched away from the Apple ecosystem thanks to these ongoing issues as well."

Then within 2 sentences: "So this blog post is about my painful journey trying to find a nice piece of hardware that works and feels just as good as Apple's hardware as a web developer."

So yeah I really don't get the motivation

Re: I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

#68

Post by traderj0e »

inventor7777 wrote: post #64
bigyabai wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible that your own opinions are coloring this perspective. As a Linux user, if you gave me the choice between switching back to macOS or dailying ChromeOS instead, it's objectively (sadly) true that the ChromeOS machine would do a better job handling my daily tasks. Going back to macOS would require me to keep multiple desktop machines around for gaming, filesystem manipulation and native Linux containers. C…

Have you heard of this? According to their GitHub, this should solve the issues you mentioned with Linux development on macOS. Note: I have not used it myself as I find macOS+Brew sufficient for my tasks. https://github.com/apple/container

Can I put Ubuntu on this and it works exactly the same as on any other ARM machine? Supposedly yes https://docs.getutm.app/guides/ubuntu/ but have you actually done it?

Honestly this and Crostini both look like there are too many caveats. I'd just SSH into an Rpi for anything that won't natively run in macOS. And would not even deal with Chromebook.

P.S. I +1'd bigyabai's comment only to save it from being marked dead; why is someone downvoting that??

Re: I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

#69

Post by loloquwowndueo »

wmichelin wrote: post #12
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #8

Good Lord, what next? “I switched from Mac to Windows and you can too”? Might make sense if the Chromebook can be degoogled and set up with a clean Linux distro. Barring that, a regular laptop with Linux may be an option.

Framework has always been appealing to me as a Mac competitor

Same, but they are a bit expensive. I assume if TFA put himself through the pain of a Chromebook in the first place, it’s because cost was a significant factor.
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