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The Chromebook Pixel (2015) Review

anandtech.com

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Re: The Chromebook Pixel (2015) Review

#31

Post by iso8859-1 »

oliwarner wrote: post #21
sombremesa wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to replace the OS with linux, it is already linux based. If you enable developer mode you can get to the terminal, and if your linux-foo is strong that should be all you need (and you'll still be able to use ChromeOS). This is what made my (free) Cr-48 awesome. Does it make the (expensive) Chromebook Pixel awesome? I don't know.

Technically, yes, but not in the way the parent meant. Getting access to a few GNU tools is not the same thing as a real fully-featured desktop and software repositories. That's before mentioning proper support for closed-source x86 applications. Most developers target Ubuntu, not ChromeOS.

Official Docker support in ChromeOS would be awesome. Most applications also work in dockerized Ubuntu.

Re: The Chromebook Pixel (2015) Review

#32

Post by kh_hk »

krillinetc wrote: post #15

Google needs to develop and release their own IDE. I shouldn't need to mess around with the terminal on what is supposed to be a developer's notebook. Android, Java, Chrome/web apps, Go etc, if Google is serious about winning developer mindshare from Apple then creating the proper tools is necessary

    > I shouldn't need to mess around with the terminal on what is supposed to 
    > be a developer's notebook
Really? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

Still, I might feel your pain. If I have to mess around with crouton to install linux on one of these devices I would not call it a developer's notebook. Which is a pity, given the ThinkPad line is almost dead.

Re: The Chromebook Pixel (2015) Review

#33

Post by streptomycin »

dman wrote: post #16
fit2rule wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the same opinion that you do - 64Gigs is just too minimal. But if I can use that 64-gigs for OS/Apps, and mount my home directory on an SD card, I'm happy with that solution .. assuming that the SD card slot can hold a very fast SD (128Gigs or so) without physically protruding out of the case. Its not clear to me that this is so .. anyone know? I actually think that the ability to host a larger SD partition is…

Am curious about what fills up the storage for you. Could you comment a bit on that?

I'm not the guy you replied to, but come on. Install some big software like MATLAB or MS Office, oh no there goes several GB for each one. Set up a few VMs, oops there goes tens more GBs. Install some modern video games, multiple GB each one. And that's without even getting to the obvious culprits of pictures, music, and video.

64 GB would only work for a computer used almost exclusively for doing things on remote systems (browsing internet, working on remote servers, storing things on external HDs, etc).

Re: The Chromebook Pixel (2015) Review

#35

Post by zanny »

pfooti wrote: post #4
resoluteteeth wrote: post #2

The real review here seems to be by BittenRottenApple in the comments, rather than the actual anandtech article. In particular I think this part sums up the main issue I have with the Chromebook Pixel: The entire conceit of Chrome OS is that it's sort of a diet computer. It does the basics, and just the basics. Chrome OS will give you internet, basic word processing through Google Docs, video via YouTube, and the res…

Yeah, all the people I know who have a pixel (three) spend a lot of their time in linux. I think that the pixel is better conceived of as a really, really nice linux laptop rather than a netbook. That said, the market there is probably really small. Of course, the pixel is also just an excuse to push parts and system manufacturers so that high-quality screens, keyboards and touchpads may trickle down into the regular…

It would be a really nice Linux laptop if you could somehow get more storage in it than an emachine from a decade and a half ago.

The Dell XPS 13 is my Linux laptop of the year, assuming they do a proper Sputnik release for it and publish some FOSS drivers. As it is it does not work and where it does its with ugly proprietary hacks, but previous iterations of the line have fixed them and I hope this one does too.

Re: The Chromebook Pixel (2015) Review

#36

Post by cjbprime »

yincrash wrote: post #29
cjbprime wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. No, the SSD is soldered down, and the SD card slot is hooked up (again) via USB2, limiting it to ~20MB/sec.

Do you have a link for this?

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+OlofJohansson/posts/1yopVMjEhjK

Re: The Chromebook Pixel (2015) Review

#37

Post by dublinben »

nextos wrote: post #18

It's really irritating that: * It's difficult to open/service so you can't flip the switch which allows flashing Coreboot that easily * You can't upgrade it's minimal storage, and there's no LTE * The keyboard is non-standard: no super key (great for WM) and no dedicated home/end

You can actually upgrade the storage quite easily with an SD card.

Re: The Chromebook Pixel (2015) Review

#38

Post by pkulak »

yincrash wrote: post #22
DrPsion wrote: post #20

I wish Google had an official way of putting a Linux distribution on these machines. I know they want people working in Chrome OS but for me it just isn't enough. If I could buy the Pixel and have an official way of putting Debian or something on it to make it a proper laptop I probably would buy one. I love the design, the specs are very decent and the display is beautiful.

Crouton is essentially that 'official' way. It's maintained by a hardware engineer from Google. https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton

And I guess now there's a Chrome extension that lets you just run Ubuntu (or whatever you installed) in a browser tab?

It's interesting that this is nearly what I've naturally arrived at with my current work MacBook. I got so tired of trying to get various Linux-y things running (and through OS updates) on OS X that I just created a Vagrant box that I can wipe and re-install at my leisure. Now 90% of my actual work is done on a virtual machine.

I'd have to figure out how to get port-forwarding working, and probably a few other things, but I'm willing to bet this new Pixel would make a darn good work machine.

Re: The Chromebook Pixel (2015) Review

#39

Post by JoshTriplett »

DrPsion wrote: post #20

I wish Google had an official way of putting a Linux distribution on these machines. I know they want people working in Chrome OS but for me it just isn't enough. If I could buy the Pixel and have an official way of putting Debian or something on it to make it a proper laptop I probably would buy one. I love the design, the specs are very decent and the display is beautiful.

There is an official way. Turn on developer mode, open a shell, run "sudo crossystem dev_boot_legacy=1", then reboot and hit ctrl-L to boot a PC BIOS (SeaBIOS) that can install Linux. Then install and run any Linux distribution you like.

Re: The Chromebook Pixel (2015) Review

#40

Post by fit2rule »

dman wrote: post #16
fit2rule wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the same opinion that you do - 64Gigs is just too minimal. But if I can use that 64-gigs for OS/Apps, and mount my home directory on an SD card, I'm happy with that solution .. assuming that the SD card slot can hold a very fast SD (128Gigs or so) without physically protruding out of the case. Its not clear to me that this is so .. anyone know? I actually think that the ability to host a larger SD partition is…

Am curious about what fills up the storage for you. Could you comment a bit on that?

VM's, mostly. Compilers, secondary. Blender, Inkscape. And then there's the big builds I do: the Linux kernel, rootfs, MOAI .. this all adds up and is quite space-filling.

If all I was doing is produce Word .docs and a few spreadsheets, I'm sure it'd be fine. But if you're a modern developer in the F/OSS world, 128gigs is barely enough to get rolling ..

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