I am thinking about getting a Chromebook to use on the go to thinker with. I like that it is light weight and inexpensive. I've also read some positive reviews about using crouton but was curious if anyone has been successful with it more than just as a proof of concept.
Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook for dev? What is your toolchain?
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Re: Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook for dev? What is your toolchain?
#2I don't personally develop on a Chromebook but I teach kids who do and they'll use a cloud based IDE like Cloud9 or Nitrous.
Re: Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook for dev? What is your toolchain?
#3I have an Acer C200 (low-end Chromebook) running Crouton. I use it for all my day-to-day programming because it has great battery life (about 10 hours).
There are occasional slowdowns, mainly when using Firefox. The 16Gb of SSD are quite limiting, but it's usable.
I mainly develop using Emacs with various extensions. I've tried Eclipse and it wasn't even remotely powerful enough. I do Python, C++, Web dev and a bit of Common Lisp.
Be aware that dual-booting Linux isn't yet possible on BayTrail-powered Chromebooks because of compatibility issues with SeaBIOS.
Re: Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook for dev? What is your toolchain?
#4Used one travelling Xmas 2013, its pretty good value theres no denying that. I did have some problems with some binaries, I'm sure someone else could better explain it but I think it was something to do with the processor it runs on, mySQL (I think it was) was a nuisance to get up and running because of it. Must have worked, though, because I worked on it for a month or so.
Obviously it doesn't compare to something like a Macbook Air - which I have with me this time round.
Re: Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook for dev? What is your toolchain?
#5I was thinking about one. I bought a used ThinkPad X201 off EBay for significantly less money...including a replacement battery.
I avoided to jumping through hoops to get Linux installed, avoided managing scarce local storage, gained a copy of Windows 7, and got glorious hardware with a robust secondary support market.
Oh, and the keyboard. What I gave up was spending an extra $100 to get something new. For me it was worth it. YMMV. If I didn't want Linux (or Windows) The calculus might be different.
Re: Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook for dev? What is your toolchain?
#6I use one daily, I replaced my macbook pro with the pixel 2. I also use a Toshiba Chromebook 2.
I use node, ruby, postgres, redis, rvm, nvm, terminator, atom, and smartgit.
I have tried sublime and visual studio code also and both work, I just prefer atom.
All programs I have open in their own window or tab and use chromeos native browser for web browsing and dev tools. One exception is smartgit. It spins up multiple processes and I haven't figured out how to run it without running a full Ubuntu desktop.
If you plan to try it out install crouton with xiwi,extension targets and use xiwi to open the programs.
Re: Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook for dev? What is your toolchain?
#7I have a acer c720p. I run a CLI only linux (crouton) that I run and then access via the chrome secure shell plugin through localhost. From there it's just zsh + tmux + vim. I mostly do python web dev with postgres and am learning some C and Haskell on the side. No problems so far.
I like it like this because I really just need a browser and a terminal. ChromeOS is a browser so no need for a full DE.
Re: Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook for dev? What is your toolchain?
#8My only dev computer anymore is an HP Chromebook 14 with 4GB ram. I run linux on it only(antergos at the moment, but ubuntu installs fine too), no dual booting or traces of ChromeOS left behind. This is not just a proof of concept, it is my daily driver and I can answer any questions about it.
Pros -
Lightweight
~8 hours battery life
Great keyboard
Boots and shuts down very fast
Extremely durable for what it is. My 90 lb bloodhound steps on it constantly, and has never harmed it despite my freaking out.
Cons -
Suspend/hibernate is flaky - I disable them
The touchpad was hard to get used to
Hard drive space can be limited (16 GB in my case).
Overall, I much prefer it to a fullsize laptop. If you have any questions, let me know.
Re: Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook for dev? What is your toolchain?
#9I've never owned one but have a friend who uses one (although I don't recall his model). He observed that it works reasonably well for stuff that's primarily going to happen server-side (shocking, I know) but that he prefers a conventional OS X / Linux / Windows system because he often finds himself wanting to do things locally that should be easy (i.e. scripting, little GUIs) but actually turn out to be hard. It's 90% there but that last 10% makes it not really worth it for him.
He also observed that modern MacBooks and good Linux machines, like that 13" Dell, can be bought for $1000 – $1500 and last for years. For those prices he'd rather buy, either new or refurbished, and have less hassle.
Re: Ask HN: Do you use a Chromebook for dev? What is your toolchain?
#10I run Ubuntu Trusty with kernal 3.19 on HP Chromebook 14 4GBRAM on which I upgraded the SSD to 64GB as my personal dev machine.I mostly work with Go, JS which work very well & Android Studio - the last is a bit slow but bearable - battery life is excellent. The most important enablers were buying a Haswell processor based model with support for Legacy boot and upgrading the ssd without which it's not really feasible to use it as a dev machine.
http://chromebook-falco.blogspot.in/?m=1
Look up the ChrUbubuntu script for pointers on partitioning but it's not really needed as newer Linux kernals have most of the patches it applies. http://chromeos-cr48.blogspot.in/2013/10/chrubuntu-for-new-c...