Chromebook Developer Setup Guide • Hacker News Board

Re: Chromebook Developer Setup Guide

#11

Post by sombradesoledad » Mon, Oct 07, 2013, 3:36 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #8

What are the odds of programs like SublimeText being able to run on ARM in the near future? I'm sure Eclipse would be far too heavy. Most of the 'Chromebook as a developer laptop' make it into a fancy SSH terminal - which is fine. But I don't really see a 'terminal' as a 'developer laptop'. I understand you can still access the internals of Linux along with the shell and other languages, but it doesn't work for a lot…

It's not quite as capable as the original, but I've put together a Sublime-like editor running as a Chrome app, because I thought it was ridiculous to have to run Vim in a chroot just to do some editing. I'd love to get feedback from any developers working on Chrome OS: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/caret/fljalecfjcio...

Re: Chromebook Developer Setup Guide

#12

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 07, 2013, 3:40 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #8

What are the odds of programs like SublimeText being able to run on ARM in the near future? I'm sure Eclipse would be far too heavy. Most of the 'Chromebook as a developer laptop' make it into a fancy SSH terminal - which is fine. But I don't really see a 'terminal' as a 'developer laptop'. I understand you can still access the internals of Linux along with the shell and other languages, but it doesn't work for a lot…

[deleted]

Re: Chromebook Developer Setup Guide

#13

Post by DanBC » Mon, Oct 07, 2013, 3:43 PM UTC

pekk wrote: post #3

While this is probably very helpful to Chromebook owners, it doesn't make me want to use a Chromebook for development, or understand the choice. If the hardware is particularly good (is it?), why doesn't someone make it easier to just straight up run Linux from the hard drive? I mean no weird scripts, SD cards, etc. but just a proper distro like Debian.

This is just straight Debian, with no ChromeOS, on a Chromebook Pixel. " rel="nofollow">http://vger.kernel.org/~davem/chromebook_pixel_linux.txt>

> When the boot screen appears hit Ctrl-L, SeaBIOS will come up and say "Hit ESC to choose boot device" so hit ESC and choose the USB device you plugged in.

[...]

> Every time you boot up you'll need to do that Ctrl-L song and dance, since unfortunately you can't make SeaBIOS the default 30-sec timeout selection.

Re: Chromebook Developer Setup Guide

#14

Post by Touche » Mon, Oct 07, 2013, 3:50 PM UTC

jon-wood wrote: post #10

bluedino wrote: post #8

What are the odds of programs like SublimeText being able to run on ARM in the near future? I'm sure Eclipse would be far too heavy. Most of the 'Chromebook as a developer laptop' make it into a fancy SSH terminal - which is fine. But I don't really see a 'terminal' as a 'developer laptop'. I understand you can still access the internals of Linux along with the shell and other languages, but it doesn't work for a lot…

I've been using a Chromebook as a development laptop for a few months after leaving my real laptop on a train (it was possibly the stupidest thing I've done due to caffeine withdrawal). Yes, it can function as an SSH Client, but its up there with the worst SSH clients you've encountered. Its slow, and its ugly. You'll also have problems when it comes to more advanced things. Like copying a CSV you generated with a sc…

Were you using crosh or Secure Shell[1]? I think Secure Shell is one of the better ssh clients i've used on any platform.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/secure-shell/pnhec...

Re: Chromebook Developer Setup Guide

#15

Post by lnanek2 » Mon, Oct 07, 2013, 4:00 PM UTC

Interesting that there are ways to keep Chrome OS around. Most developers I know using one just go pure Ubuntu and don't care at all about keeping Chrome OS as a dual boot option or whatever.

Re: Chromebook Developer Setup Guide

#16

Post by Cowen » Mon, Oct 07, 2013, 4:32 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #8

What are the odds of programs like SublimeText being able to run on ARM in the near future? I'm sure Eclipse would be far too heavy. Most of the 'Chromebook as a developer laptop' make it into a fancy SSH terminal - which is fine. But I don't really see a 'terminal' as a 'developer laptop'. I understand you can still access the internals of Linux along with the shell and other languages, but it doesn't work for a lot…

With crouton, there are very few Linux apps that you can't run on a Chromebook. While I haven't tried it with SublimeText, I have run Eclipse on my Chromebook. It's not the smoothest experience, but it can get the job done.

So far, Arduino and IntelliJ are the only apps that I haven't gotten working on my Chromebook. The former relies on some x86 libraries that obviously won't work on an ARM processor, and the latter prefers the Oracle JVM which is just too much of a pain for me to set up when OpenJDK and Eclipse work well enough. I've also had some issues with my VPN (IPSec Xauth PSK).

I probably wouldn't recommend a Chromebook as a full time development machine, but it can certainly be done better than just a fancy SSH terminal. It's served me well enough when I've needed to work on the road. It's the best traveling laptop I've ever owned.

Re: Chromebook Developer Setup Guide

#17

Post by amerkhalid » Mon, Oct 07, 2013, 4:49 PM UTC

I have been using original Samsung Chromebook for PHP work. All I really need is browser based ide like ShiftEdit and ssh access. This is my setup: http://amerkhalid.com/php-programming-on-chromebook/

I miss debugger when developing on Chromebook but everything else seems to just work.

Re: Chromebook Developer Setup Guide

#18

Post by AdmiralAsshat » Mon, Oct 07, 2013, 5:41 PM UTC

Since I primarily work with C, SQL, or Python, Chromebook and crouton has worked just fine as a development machine. The only drawback has been that I can't seem to natively get the terminal to support more than 16 colors, which makes vim look rather bland. I can enable the full 256 for use with the solarized settings if I use tmux (tmuxing to your localhost is rather strange, admittedly), but the lack of scrolling on tmux sessions is a little annoying.

Re: Chromebook Developer Setup Guide

#19

Post by jlgreco » Mon, Oct 07, 2013, 5:57 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #8

What are the odds of programs like SublimeText being able to run on ARM in the near future? I'm sure Eclipse would be far too heavy. Most of the 'Chromebook as a developer laptop' make it into a fancy SSH terminal - which is fine. But I don't really see a 'terminal' as a 'developer laptop'. I understand you can still access the internals of Linux along with the shell and other languages, but it doesn't work for a lot…

I recommend nuking ChromeOS entirely and installing your distro of choice (don't bother with crouton or whatever). Then you use it like you normally would.

The main attraction with Chromebooks is the hardware, not ChromeOS.

Re: Chromebook Developer Setup Guide

#20

Post by jlgreco » Mon, Oct 07, 2013, 6:00 PM UTC

Touche wrote: post #14

jon-wood wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using a Chromebook as a development laptop for a few months after leaving my real laptop on a train (it was possibly the stupidest thing I've done due to caffeine withdrawal). Yes, it can function as an SSH Client, but its up there with the worst SSH clients you've encountered. Its slow, and its ugly. You'll also have problems when it comes to more advanced things. Like copying a CSV you generated with a sc…

Were you using crosh or Secure Shell[1]? I think Secure Shell is one of the better ssh clients i've used on any platform. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/secure-shell/pnhec...

Does that terminal emulator handle all control sequences that xterm would allow? When I tried ChromeOS, whatever terminal emulator I was using was largely worthless for me because Chrome was intercepting certain control sequences and not allowing the terminal emulator to get them.