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Chromebook can make a surprisingly sweet machine for a developer

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Re: Chromebook can make a surprisingly sweet machine for a developer

#51

Post by drivebyacct2 »

jkldotio wrote: post #24
stanleydrew wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious, since I've used every nexus device to date: which ones disable tethering? I can't recall one that does.

Nexus 7 3G bought outright entirely separately to any plan or network carrier. Tethering is entirely disabled and many forums confirm this. And while I theoretically could I am not going to install a "cracked" version of Android from a l33td00d7 user on a php forum just to get a fundamentally basic and useful networking feature which is present in other installs of Android and which there was no reason to turn off. T…

>Nexus 7 3G bought outright entirely separately to any plan or network carrier. Tethering is entirely disabled and many forums confirm this.

That's pretty obnoxious. I can't believe I can't find any info about this except small little anecdotal cases. I'm surprised it wasn't worthy of more hubbub or maybe I missed it.

>So while Canonical might try to put Amazon integration into the Unity bar, they know that you have to be able to turn it off or they will lose their users.

That's not really how that went down when the Amazon integration was first rolled out. See: 12.10.

Re: Chromebook can make a surprisingly sweet machine for a developer

#52

Post by drivebyacct2 »

andrus wrote: post #47
georgemcbay wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can just ssh via crosh without having to install anything extra. ssh in crosh does not require developer mode to be on.

Also, last I checked, Secure Shell relies on an NaCl plugin incompatible with the Samsung ARM Chromebook.

Their PNaCl timeline is sure been delayed and slow...

Re: Chromebook can make a surprisingly sweet machine for a developer

#53

Post by tacticus »

fishtoaster wrote: post #48
greggman wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Went to Best Buy, typed "laptop", first result Toshiba - Satellite 15.6" Laptop - 4GB Memory - 320GB Hard Drive - Satin Black Model: C855D/S5103 • SKU: 8119044 62 Ratings $279.99 That's 2x the ram and I get 320 HD which even if you don't want to use it for storage it's pretty awesome when running any OS that supports virtual memory. Have you looked at how much virtual memory your average Linux distro ends up using? T…

To be fair, that one is more than twice the weight of a chromebook (5.5 lbs vs 2.5).

and a much worse battery life and significantly larger.

That's not a laptop that's a luggable

Re: Chromebook can make a surprisingly sweet machine for a developer

#54

Post by llgrrl_ »

vittore wrote: post #25

I just don't understand this attempts to use shitty and cheap piece of hardware to do development. You are not coding for food, right? Why bother yourself trying to use something that will make you so counterproductive? Need powerful something - get desktop. Need something slim and sexy - get f * macbookair Need both - get pro Need internet connection on the go - get nexus if you use tablet. Oh don't need it -use tet…

I need my balls not to be cooked by the power-hungry processors.

I need a light shit because I walk with my backpack a lot.

I need the key layout on the keyboard not a pain in the ass.

I need my palm to be like little Fonzie. What Fonzie like? It's cool.

I need standard linux, because I don't care enough to learn about all the quirks of Apple.

I need to have a thing that is light, 3G-capable, has good key layout, cool, and I forget to mention, I'm cheap too. So ask me why do I need to spend 5 times as much for your Macbook again?

Re: Chromebook can make a surprisingly sweet machine for a developer

#55

Post by andrus »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #52
andrus wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, last I checked, Secure Shell relies on an NaCl plugin incompatible with the Samsung ARM Chromebook.

Their PNaCl timeline is sure been delayed and slow...

I'm surprised the ARM Chromebook shipped without any mechanism for indicating which apps in the Chrome Web Store are compatible with it (maybe they expected PNaCl to be completed?). Moreover, I had no idea what NaCl was until Secure Shell stalled and I tracked down the bug on a mailing list.

There's an enable "Portable Native Client" (PNaCl) in about:flags (dev. branch, at least), but I have little idea if this would fix the problem. This kind of troubleshooting is OK for power users, but seems at odds with the type of users ChromeOS wants to attract. Still love this machine, though.

Re: Chromebook can make a surprisingly sweet machine for a developer

#56

Post by rorrr2 »

Chromebook Pixel is $1,300. For that amount of money you can get a really really nice laptop. It won't have a super-high-res screen, but it will have a proper high-end i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM, 500GB SSD, video card enough to play modern games, etc.

I don't know about you, but performance matters for me. I don't want to wait twice as long for a DB to import, or a SQL query to run.

Re: Chromebook can make a surprisingly sweet machine for a developer

#57

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

jebblue wrote: post #34

>> Right out of the box, things work quite well. The Secure Shell browser extension can give you an xterm-compliant terminal directly in a browser tab. >> Be sure to install the Crosh Window browser extension. It allows you to pull the browser-tab terminal out into its own window. Without it, many important key bindings will be swallowed by the browser. Or just buy a new laptop, delete Windows and install Ubuntu and…

Can you (or any of the others making this same argument) explain to the rest of us why one bunch of bits running in environment a is 'real' and another bunch running in environment b is 'fake' (or 'unreal', or 'toy', or whatever disparaging term you care to use)? Last time I looked, JavaScript IS turing-complete.

Re: Chromebook can make a surprisingly sweet machine for a developer

#58

Post by voltagex_ »

jrockway wrote: post #39
jkldotio wrote: post #5

I don't see the point in using a crippled operating system when it will prevent you from quickly editing a low res screen cast or editing an image in the GIMP. Machines in that price range have enough performance to do some of these tasks even if they're not optimal for them. If I'm on the move away from a bigger system I might still need to do it though, so not having that capacity just because of someone's "in the…

I switched to a (non-developer-mode) Chromebook recently for work. It's a great development machine for what I use it for. My main workstation basically runs Chrome, Emacs, and some xterms. On my Pixel, I can just use Secure Shell to ssh to my tmux session and be working on exactly what I was using on my desktop. (Port forwarding works too, if you're developing a web app or something.) It's like being at my desktop e…

That is a damn nice radio. Unfortunately it'd be well over $1000AUD once I got it here - is there another product you know of that's a step above the Realtek TV card hack? I'm starting to get beyond its' capabilities (decoding P25 broadcasts)

Re: Chromebook can make a surprisingly sweet machine for a developer

#59

Post by seabrookmx »

greggman wrote: post #33
bobbydavid wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As stated in the article, the "point" is to have the same functionality for a fraction of the cost. You can still run image editing software or whatever you'd run on your workstation using NX. That's somewhat inconvenient, but then it boots faster with no malware, and you are guaranteed nothing important is only stored locally. So it's a trade-off, not a "crippling" as you've put it. Some folks, like the author, bare…

Went to Best Buy, typed "laptop", first result Toshiba - Satellite 15.6" Laptop - 4GB Memory - 320GB Hard Drive - Satin Black Model: C855D/S5103 • SKU: 8119044 62 Ratings $279.99 That's 2x the ram and I get 320 HD which even if you don't want to use it for storage it's pretty awesome when running any OS that supports virtual memory. Have you looked at how much virtual memory your average Linux distro ends up using? T…

Why would you want to use virtual memory? I bet that laptop has a 5400 rpm hard drive - there is no way I want it to be swapping on and off of it at every opportunity. The OS would grind to a halt.

For most developers' usage, you'd be better off with a 32gb SSD than with the 320gb slow-as-hell spinner drive.

Not to mention a cheap 15.6" laptop gets terrible battery life. My $250 Chromebook gets 6.5-7hours, even when running Ubuntu via crouton.

Re: Chromebook can make a surprisingly sweet machine for a developer

#60

Post by seabrookmx »

jsz0 wrote: post #38
bobbydavid wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As stated in the article, the "point" is to have the same functionality for a fraction of the cost. You can still run image editing software or whatever you'd run on your workstation using NX. That's somewhat inconvenient, but then it boots faster with no malware, and you are guaranteed nothing important is only stored locally. So it's a trade-off, not a "crippling" as you've put it. Some folks, like the author, bare…

save $1000, and that feels good If price/value is the main concern a used 4-5 year old x86 laptop is a way better deal. I have an old HP nc8430 for this purpose. Sells on eBay for about $100-$150 these days. Blows away a low end ARM ChromeBook on performance, price and flexibility.

But not on weight/battery life. It all depends on your priorities.
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