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2015 Chromebook Pixel

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Re: 2015 Chromebook Pixel

#151

Post by bluedino »

pimlottc wrote: post #127
chambo622 wrote: post #28

My main issues with my first gen Chromebook Pixel that I received at Google I/O in 2013: 1) Poor battery life (~4 hours) 2) Lots of heat 3) Instability of Linux environment (with Crouton) made it a poor dev machine. They seem to have fixed 1) and 2), I'm still nervous about making this a primary machine due to 3). I would have situations where the system would force shut down when closing the lid instead of sleeping/…

I think you mean 2011, that was when gave out the first Chromebooks. It was not a bad little device but the CPU was woefully underpowered.

Chromebook Pixel, not Chromebook.

Re: 2015 Chromebook Pixel

#153

Post by Andrex »

pimlottc wrote: post #127
chambo622 wrote: post #28

My main issues with my first gen Chromebook Pixel that I received at Google I/O in 2013: 1) Poor battery life (~4 hours) 2) Lots of heat 3) Instability of Linux environment (with Crouton) made it a poor dev machine. They seem to have fixed 1) and 2), I'm still nervous about making this a primary machine due to 3). I would have situations where the system would force shut down when closing the lid instead of sleeping/…

I think you mean 2011, that was when gave out the first Chromebooks. It was not a bad little device but the CPU was woefully underpowered.

The Chromebooks given at I/O 2011 were the original Samsung Series 5 models, the first "consumer" Chromebooks after the Cr-48.

The Chromebook Pixel was given out at I/O 2013, I know because that's how I got mine. :)

Re: 2015 Chromebook Pixel

#154

Post by SloopJon »

skrowl wrote: post #27
dferlemann wrote: post #19

I don't get it anymore... 8-16 GB RAM for what? I have not used Chromebook. Do you all use it for gaming? For serious computation? with only 32-64 GB SSD? For this price, it would be nice to be able to upgrade SSD though. Then I will also want to install a Linux distro or Windows on it.

Did you not notice that it has a built in SD card slot if you want more storage? Also, ChromeOS will happily use 8-16GB of RAM if you have enough browser tabs open and stuff running in the background.

I got a Toshiba Chromebook 2 (4 GB RAM, 32 GB storage, decent screen, but an anemic processor), thinking it could replace an old MacBook we use for web, email, and music. The email didn't work so well, because we couldn't easily see multiple accounts at once. I put in an SD card full of music, but the players I tried were all terrible.

I can see wanting 8 GB of RAM, but I'd need Crouton to make use of 16 GB.

Re: 2015 Chromebook Pixel

#155

Post by chestnut-tree »

digi_owl wrote: post #87
moskie wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet many people use their MacBooks as a browser on steroids. Those people are the target audience of the Chromebook.

The whole ChromeOS project seems to have gotten underway because someone at Google observed how much of the computing time was spent inside the web browser. the problem with ChromeOS, imo, is how limited it becomes once you pull out the net connection. Never mind the whole lockdown unless you flip that "developer" switch.

"the problem with ChromeOS, imo, is how limited it becomes once you pull out the net connection"

The other problem with ChromesOS is that it's a gigantic privacy sinkhole.

Everything you do in the OS is tracked and recorded by Google. Even printing to your desktop printer. None of this tracking is anonymous either since you must sign in with your Google account to properly use ChromeOS. (Just a reminder that a Google account equals your name, gender, email, date-of-birth, location and mobile phone number).

Google fail to state in their lengthy privacy policy how long they keep your data (presumably forever) or whether your activity is disassociated from your identity when viewed by Google. In my view, this is simply unacceptable when you consider the gargantuan volumes of private date collected and the unprecedented degree of tracking.

The reaction on this site to an entire OS that tracks you by default has mostly been: "Yeah, you're being tracked. So what? Get over it." Presumably everyone happy to recommend ChromeOS would be equally happy to switch on their Mac/Windows/Ubuntu machine and have it track everything they do, have that information sent back to the OS manufacturer, and for none of that data to be anonymous?

Re: 2015 Chromebook Pixel

#156

Post by egonschiele »

revelation wrote: post #148

Jesus, designing a usable ultrabook must be very difficult. We have one contender from California, but their ideology has them offer just a single USB-C port. Now we get the competitor from Mountain View, who have rightly recognized the need for more than one fucking port when that's how you charge the damn thing, and what do they decide? Oh yeah, we'll top out storage at 64GiB.

The whole point of a chromebook is that the storage is in the cloud. I was surprised they offered so much storage.

Re: 2015 Chromebook Pixel

#157

Post by ChuckMcM »

Pretty neat. And caveat the port issue[1] pretty nice. I wonder what the battery life is like with Linux installed (probably not 12 hours :-) Now if they added a wireless charging option so that when I set it upon my desk it was powered/charging wirelessly that would be pretty neat. I'm amazed as how closely it tracks the macbook 13. They could be twins.

[1] The whole one port to rule them all which is fine except that it becomes a single point of failure for the device, I would be totally ok if it came with two C connectors and either could be power or data or whatever, then if one failed or got gunked up it would still be usable until I got it repaired.

Re: 2015 Chromebook Pixel

#158

Post by edvinbesic »

revelation wrote: post #148

Jesus, designing a usable ultrabook must be very difficult. We have one contender from California, but their ideology has them offer just a single USB-C port. Now we get the competitor from Mountain View, who have rightly recognized the need for more than one fucking port when that's how you charge the damn thing, and what do they decide? Oh yeah, we'll top out storage at 64GiB.

One is promoting a completely wireless way of computing and the other is promoting a completely cloud based way of computing.

Apples to Oranges, no pun intended.

Re: 2015 Chromebook Pixel

#160

Post by jrockway »

Splendor wrote: post #149
jrockway wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bootloader has never been locked on any ChromeOS device.

Sorry if I've misunderstood. When I read passages like this[0]: > Installing Ubuntu is not easy , either. By default the bootloader of Chromebooks are signed and locked. I assume that the writer is correct. [0]: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/10/ubuntu-12-04-up-and-runni...

All the details are here:

http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chromiumos-design-docs/d...

Depending on your device, you unlock things by pressing Power-Refresh; that switches the device to unlocked mode. You can continue using ChromeOS, build your own ChromiumOS, or install another OS.

You can also kill off the bootloader completely. I've never done that before, but I believe the linked doc describes the process. I'm not exactly sure how to install Ubuntu, but the hardware is not going to stop you and never has.

The Pixel-specific instructions are here, though this is for the old revision and I'm not sure what (if anything) has changed:

http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-fo...

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