You should try Action.IO: https://www.action.io/
Wow Action.IO is exactly the idea I had the other night and I thought it would be the best thing ever. Web-based IDE with SSH access and some console tools. Glad someone else already did it!
Setting Up a Local Development Environment in Chrome OS
31–40 of 41 posts
Re: Setting Up a Local Development Environment in Chrome OS
#32Having just set this up, I'm really digging it.
If you're unsure whether or not a Chromebook is the right system for you, check out the specs[0]. Note that the Chromebook isn't extremely powerful, but that is not the product's goal.
Back to Ubuntu/Chrome: Rather than install Unity (which I actually don't mind on some systems), I opted for the actual crouton dev team's recommendation of XFCE[1].
XFCE is made for an underwhelming environment, and its performance is better than what Unity would probably offer.
You can in fact switch between Chrome-os/Ubuntu with 3 or 4 key presses, depending on your chromebook model. Your install likely won't come with vim, git, etc. installed as ujeezy noted, but if you're familiar with gnu/linux, you already know you what you want from your environment.
I, like many of you, have a couple of computers to lug around: Work laptop (windows), Macbook (expensive shiny development tool). Being that I really have come to enjoy the macbook's battery life, even when using lots of high-resource tools/windows, I'm not sure where this chromebook will fit in. Breaking my macbook scares me, but so does being without it.
If you have a chromebook, definitely try this out. I was expecting to have to deal with lots of issues, but the install was extremely smooth (other than the downloads coming in at 20-30kb/s).
Things to note:
* Make sure you read Crouton[1]'s readme - there are a few potential 'gotcha's in there.
* Disable XFCE or Unity's screensaver.
* As ujeezy noted, you'll need to install vim/emacs, git, gcc, etc.
* While nice, and amazing for what it is, this will probably not replace your default dev environment, unless you exclusively use programs that aren't resource intensive, and/or only exist in terminal.
[0] http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/samsung-chromeb...
Re: Setting Up a Local Development Environment in Chrome OS
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Article author here. Anecdotally the battery life takes a bit of a hit, but I've been running it pretty hard to get everything installed. I haven't done any tests. I have a suspicion that Chrome limits its CPU usage, and the chroot does not. That said, the battery life isn't completely shot in the chroot. I got my Chromebook on Monday, so I haven't updated it after initial boot. I'm not sure about the updating issues…
Thanks for the preliminary response. I am very tempted to do all of this "hacker" stuff to my Chromebook but I'm worried that's a slippery slope. As is I have no local files, no battery worries, so it's essentially a maintenance free machine. Once I start doing local work I'm going to want more and more until it's basically just a netbook. I think it's maybe good for me to have a machine where I can't constantly be t…
There's always USB booting [0], you can still tinker but can't muck up CrOS
[0] http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv7/samsung-chromebook
Re: Setting Up a Local Development Environment in Chrome OS
#34This isn't setting up a local dev environment in Chrome OS. This is setting up a local dev environment on a Chromebook. I was hoping this would show some new way to actually develop in Chrome OS itself, just saying "boot into Ubuntu!" is a lazy answer.
Re: Setting Up a Local Development Environment in Chrome OS
#35What about something like sublime text 2? You can't really use it via a shell, so would you end up running in a full Ubuntu install anyways?
Re: Setting Up a Local Development Environment in Chrome OS
#36What about something like sublime text 2? You can't really use it via a shell, so would you end up running in a full Ubuntu install anyways?
While Sublime Text is nice (and rather attractive), many people still prefer vim and emacs. It's a matter of personal preference, in the end, as both vim and emacs are quite extensible. With the existence of tools such as YouCompleteMe, syntastic, delimitmate, etc., one can outfit vim with the functionality of Sublime Text or even some heavier IDEs in a matter of minutes (using vundle and pathogen to handle the extensions). My largest reason for preferring vim is its presence by default in almost every UNIX system I've touched. I just have to pull my .vimrc over to whatever machine I'm working in, if I'm spending enough time there to warrant it, and I'm almost immediately at home.
I'm a vim guy so I can't really speak on emacs, but I imagine things work in a similar fashion.
Re: Setting Up a Local Development Environment in Chrome OS
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for the preliminary response. I am very tempted to do all of this "hacker" stuff to my Chromebook but I'm worried that's a slippery slope. As is I have no local files, no battery worries, so it's essentially a maintenance free machine. Once I start doing local work I'm going to want more and more until it's basically just a netbook. I think it's maybe good for me to have a machine where I can't constantly be t…
There's always USB booting [0], you can still tinker but can't muck up CrOS [0] http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv7/samsung-chromebook
If you did this, would there be a significant lag from i/o? I assume sticking a Class 10 SD card in it and booting archARM would be pretty quick, but still slower than the SSD that ships with the machine.
Re: Setting Up a Local Development Environment in Chrome OS
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's always USB booting [0], you can still tinker but can't muck up CrOS [0] http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv7/samsung-chromebook
If you did this, would there be a significant lag from i/o? I assume sticking a Class 10 SD card in it and booting archARM would be pretty quick, but still slower than the SSD that ships with the machine.
Haven't tried on this machine specifically, but never noticed much lag as a result of running from USB on others. There is a USB3 port on the back if you're concerned about performance (just remember this is a $250 ARM laptop, not a MacBook Pro).
Re: Setting Up a Local Development Environment in Chrome OS
#39I dont get it , for the price of a chromebook , one can get a netbook with a full linux plateform to install whatever stack one needs (and ides like netbeans/eclipse/sublimetext2...) , what's the point being a chromebook for development purposes ? ( it is a question not a rant against chromebooks )
The ARM Chromebook looks to be a much nicer piece of hardware than anything under $250 on Amazon's top 20 list of netbooks[0]; bigger screen, dead silent (no spinning HDD, no fans), great battery life, and a keyboard/touchpad better than nearly every low/mid-end PC laptop I've used. And you lose this benefit if you go outside CrOS as described in the article (I'm fine using it as a SSH terminal myself), but they're m…
ok , so it is for the SSD ?
Re: Setting Up a Local Development Environment in Chrome OS
#40I dont get it , for the price of a chromebook , one can get a netbook with a full linux plateform to install whatever stack one needs (and ides like netbeans/eclipse/sublimetext2...) , what's the point being a chromebook for development purposes ? ( it is a question not a rant against chromebooks )
Can you get 6h battery life for $250? I have the Samsung one and it delivers on the battery life promise.
6 hours ? really ?wow, if i can get 3 hours with my MB i'm happy. thanks. I was always suspicious about listed battery lifetime.