It's a sweet machine because you're able to use ssh ... using a special "developer" boot option? Come on people.
Chromebook can make a surprisingly sweet machine for a developer
61–70 of 84 posts
Re: Chromebook can make a surprisingly sweet machine for a developer
#62I 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…
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…
Chromebooks are not that much cheaper. They don't give you that much extra battery life. They are extremely limited in functionality and I feel a proper "developer machine" should have more than just ssh.
Re: Chromebook can make a surprisingly sweet machine for a developer
#63I am not sure I actually see myself doing development on this hardware. Maybe it is due to the type of work I am doing now and the requirement of the sheer amount of data/services running locally. But I wouldn't mind using this essentially as an operating environment with a few tmux sessions open. The more that I tinker with OpenStack and generally setting up virtualized services I am beginning to be sway towards nev…
The Samsung Chromebooks get 6-7hours of battery life.
You aren't getting Retina/Pixel resolution with the cheap Chromebook, but my Series 5 is 1280 x 800, which is the same resolution as the 13" Macbook Pro's (pre-retina) were. This is quite decent considering the average 15.6" cheapo laptop runs 1366 x 768.
Re: Chromebook can make a surprisingly sweet machine for a developer
#64I have a chroot'ed Samsung Intel Chromebook that makes an OK development machine for small projects using Eclipse/Java/H2/Jetty. If I fully rooted it the extra ram would make the machine a bit more useful. https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton/wiki/
crouton runs surprisingly well. I've noticed a few hiccups though - I still can't get my trackpad to work smoothly on my original Series 5.
Re: Chromebook can make a surprisingly sweet machine for a developer
#65I 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…
>I never really used a laptop until I got my Chromebook Pixel, because it was so painful to keep it up to date and my configuration sync'd. My Thinkpad X220 has been sitting dead on my windowsill for about a year.
Have you tried Dropbox as a way to keep your config sync'd?
Re: Chromebook can make a surprisingly sweet machine for a developer
#66It's a sweet machine because you're able to use ssh ... using a special "developer" boot option? Come on people.
SSH does not require a "special developer boot option". You install the SecureShell chrome extension and you're done.
Re: Chromebook can make a surprisingly sweet machine for a developer
#67Earlier 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.
ARM support for Secure Shell was released in 0.8.8 in December.
Re: Chromebook can make a surprisingly sweet machine for a developer
#68Earlier 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…
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…
just a quick question.
With crouton you still get the large developer mode warning right?
and it requires either a keystroke or a 30 second to pass correct?
and do you have the arm one or another?
Re: Chromebook can make a surprisingly sweet machine for a developer
#69It's a sweet machine because you're able to use ssh ... using a special "developer" boot option? Come on people.
SSH does not require a "special developer boot option". You install the SecureShell chrome extension and you're done.
Yeah, I got that there is a SSH chrome extension, though the author opted for the boot option with a "real" ssh (his words, not mine).
Re: Chromebook can make a surprisingly sweet machine for a developer
#70>> 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.
I can't speak for others, when I was a kid, computers were powerful machines locked away and operated by seemingly mythical people. When I started reading about them I realized quickly there's nothing mythical, magical or mysterious about them at all. Then I wondered why isn't this power available to anyone, to everyone? It dawned on me in a flash, power and control.
I keep the cloud at an arm's distance, those computing resources are not owned or controlled by me. The cloud, given full control like a ChromeBook, takes all of the control away from me.