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Google’s Chromebooks Have Hit Their Stride

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Re: Google’s Chromebooks Have Hit Their Stride

#81

Post by [deleted] »

wepple wrote: post #64
ancarda wrote: post #15

When Chrome OS was first announced, I wanted to try it out. Unfortunately every time I try, I can't get it to run in VirtualBox. The hexxeh builds are old (April 2013) and there's no ISO I can download. Has anyone else had success in running a recent, stable build in VirtualBox?

Why not grab VMware? I got the hexxeh build running fine on VMWare (Workstation, but it should work fine in Player) a couple of days ago. All I had to do was change ethernet config in the .vmx file as it wasn't picking up the virtual adapter.

[deleted]

Re: Google’s Chromebooks Have Hit Their Stride

#82

Post by Zigurd »

jmduke wrote: post #7

I'd love a Chromebook equivalent of an iPad. All I do on my tablet at this point is surf the web (okay, and a little Candy Crush/King of Dragon Pass), and if Google could bring that level of build quality and polish to the tablet space it'd be incredibly interesting.

The genius of Chromebook is that the sweet spot for Web apps is a bigger screen with a high-resolution pointing device that can pick out small targets (like links), NOT a finger-touch tablet.

Tablets like iPad and Android tablets rely on UI stacks that are designed for finger-touch UIs, with big targets, gestures, sensors, etc.

Re: Google’s Chromebooks Have Hit Their Stride

#83

Post by cbhl »

jmduke wrote: post #7

I'd love a Chromebook equivalent of an iPad. All I do on my tablet at this point is surf the web (okay, and a little Candy Crush/King of Dragon Pass), and if Google could bring that level of build quality and polish to the tablet space it'd be incredibly interesting.

You should try a Microsoft Surface. Windows 8 and Internet Explorer have really upped their compatibility game and it fits your form factor.

Re: Google’s Chromebooks Have Hit Their Stride

#84

Post by anologwintermut »

charleslmunger wrote: post #53
ladzoppelin wrote: post #8

So basically Chrome OS is like Microsoft windows only with less features, less control, less software, hardware dependent and developed by an advertising company? Doesn't Chrome OS resemble an IPad challenger rather than a Windows/MacBook substitute?

It's like Windows except it's gratis, more secure, more control (check out crouton [1]), and hardware that runs chromeOS is by definition linux friendly, which encourages more hardware support [2]. On top of that, almost all of it is open source. [1] https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton [2] https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/2205401/ (for example)

And more vulnerable to the NSA.

Re: Google’s Chromebooks Have Hit Their Stride

#85

Post by cgs1019 »

cshimmin wrote: post #56
gkoberger wrote: post #41

Bought Chromebooks (and Chromecasts) for all my tech-illiterate family members in order to cut down on having to provide tech support, and it's been amazing. No issues so far, and everything just works.

I do nearly all my work on remote machines, writing code in Vim over SSH. Could chromeOS work for someone like me? Is there a decent terminal app for chromeOS? I don't want a PuTTY-like utility that allows me to open sessions; I'm looking for a tabbed terminal that allows me to run basic linux commands locally and ssh into remote machines...

Look into the SecureShell chrome extension. I use a mac basically like a chromebook, using just chrome+SecureShell, and I do all my real work on a remote linux box through ssh. I do everything through SecureShell now...no more terminal or iterm. Chromoting is useful, too, if for some reason I need to use the GUI on said remote linux box, but this is rare.

Re: Google’s Chromebooks Have Hit Their Stride

#86

Post by cbhl »

Brakenshire wrote: post #20

How are Chromebooks for use with other Linux distributions? Would be nice to have hardware which was made for use with the Linux kernel (and therefore, presumably, guaranteed to have near-perfect hardware support).

It's hit-and-miss, as with any other Linux-based mass-market device.

For example, the ARM-based Samsung Chromebook used a Mali graphics chip that only had a binary blob graphics driver (maybe an Android one?) that had a ugly nonfree license on it.

IIRC, custom code for each device can be found in the main chromium tree somewhere; extracting those bits and using them with a standard Linux distro is painful at best; e.g. locking you to specific kernel revisions for binary driver compatibility. It reminds me of the win/softmodem shenigans we saw in the late 90s.

Virtually every Chromebook has a hardware or software developer mode that lets you boot an unsigned operating system. Developer mode is rather intrusive (sad face; full screen message; beeps if you don't dismiss it early enough so that you can't do it to install malware on a lay user's laptop without them noticing) but usually can be quickly dismissed with Ctrl-D on each boot-up.

There exists some very nice hardware that is built from standard components and/or will run well on standard drivers. As a starting point, prefer x86_64-based Chromebooks over ARM based ones if you're going to run a Linux distro on them.

Re: Google’s Chromebooks Have Hit Their Stride

#87

Post by charleslmunger »

anologwintermut wrote: post #84
charleslmunger wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like Windows except it's gratis, more secure, more control (check out crouton [1]), and hardware that runs chromeOS is by definition linux friendly, which encourages more hardware support [2]. On top of that, almost all of it is open source. [1] https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton [2] https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/2205401/ (for example)

And more vulnerable to the NSA.

[citation needed]

Re: Google’s Chromebooks Have Hit Their Stride

#88

Post by cbhl »

rkudeshi wrote: post #54
gkoberger wrote: post #41

Bought Chromebooks (and Chromecasts) for all my tech-illiterate family members in order to cut down on having to provide tech support, and it's been amazing. No issues so far, and everything just works.

What do they do for Office-type documents and photo management? Google Docs and Picasa?

Depends.

Some users don't need Office-type documents on the laptop -- they have a work-issued computer or it's not a requirement of their day-to-day needs. Similarly with photo management -- maybe they don't have a camera, or they just leave photos on their phone without a copy on the computer.

Other users believe in the Google vision, which is Google Docs and Google+ Photos. (Picasa's web interface is basically dead now.)

Re: Google’s Chromebooks Have Hit Their Stride

#89

Post by brownbat »

10% of sales... to businesses?

Wow, really thought that would be the last safe haven, due to MS Office entrenchment.

I guess it's not clear what businesses, or how they use the machines, but... if enterprises get comfy with Google Docs, we could be on the edge of a huge destructive shift.

Re: Google’s Chromebooks Have Hit Their Stride

#90

Post by tanzam75 »

happyasian wrote: post #76
grandeb wrote: post #66

I find the numbers hard to believe and looks like PR more than anything else. Am on my phone right now, so can't check the numbers. What's the catch?

Sad to see you modded down for just asking a question, but you're right. >according to the latest numbers from NPD, Chromebooks accounted for 21 percent of all laptop sales and almost 10 percent of all computer sales to businesses in 2013. It's only "preconfigured" laptops, which probably excludes many sales because a lot of people go to the OEM sites, say Lenovo and configure a laptop there. Also, it's US only and p…

In particular, large enterprises buy a lot of computers CTO (custom to order). CTO is not preconfigured.

Also note that this NPD report is for the commercial channel only. If a school bought Chromebooks for every student, then that gets counted. If a business decided to use Google Apps for corporate groupware, and bought Chromebooks as a bundle, that's also counted.

But all the discussion above about how great Chromebooks are for girlfriends and grandmas? That's not what this NPD report is about.

NPD tabulates retail sales separately from commercial sales. The latest public figures from NPD give a 3.3% share for Chromebooks in the retail channel during back-to-school season (July, August, and the first week of September).

> Also, other big news is that Mac sales(not sure if absolute or as a percentage) seem to be dropping.

I would say that the 8.5% increase in Windows desktop sales is bigger news. Especially since it contradicts the dominant narrative of the impending death of Windows.

As for declines in Mac sales, Macs are practically nonexistent in the business world, except for its majority share in the media industry. Remember the backlash over Final Cut Pro and the delays to the Mac Pro? That would not have been good for Mac sales to the media industry. But now the Mac Pro is out, so Mac numbers should go back up next year.

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