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I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

blog.johnozbay.com

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Re: I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

#111

Post by [deleted] »

lukan wrote: post #94
nolist_policy wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Chromebook gets you the elegant UI, touchpad gestures, slim vertically integrated system architecture and the reliable sleep mode of a MacBook without Liquid Glass. Plus Chromebooks have the better keyboard layout IMHO.

I .. don't get how anyone can consider ChromeOS to have a elegant UI. I have a chromebook for traveling and light web dev work since years .. and it works, because I rooted it and allmost do not have to use the UI(I need the terminal and chrome dev tools). In general it got better, but is still horrible inefficient and not ergonomic. Or did you mean it looks good? Well, maybe, but for me a elegant UI means it does no…

[deleted]

Re: I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

#112

Post by fragmede »

vile_wretch wrote: post #97

> Figma and Spotify have some of the best web apps out there as well, so that's all good too! The Spotify web app is still much more limited than the desktop app. > Did you know that Adobe ported Photoshop etc to web, with all the AI bells and whistles and the web apps perform incredibly well? Perfect if all you need out of Photoshop is the AI portion, I guess. > As a side note, it is no surprise that Adobe's suite o…

Airdrop still doesn't work when I share directly from my phone. If I hit share, and then choose the airdrop target directly, it doesn't work. If I open airdrop and share to the same device, then that works.

For cross-platform local sharing, I use KDE-connect.

Re: I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

#113

Post by fragmede »

ototot wrote: post #102
_imnothere wrote: post #11

I can't think of any valid reason for a person with sane mind to do this. Yes, macOS is somewhat closed, but it's definitely more open than ChromeOS.

You can even install linux on Chromebooks, and ChromeOS has upstreamed / opensource many of their codes. In other perspective, ChromeOS supports running Linux apps w/ GUI without much differences. You just open your terminal, type `apt install XXX`, then `XXX` should work out-of-the box. I don't see any reasons that ChromeOS is less open then macOS

Any? Crostini is neat and all, but it's a VM running inside of ChromeOS, so it's restricted in what it can do.

Re: I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

#115

Post by hirvi74 »

inventor7777 wrote: post #64
bigyabai wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible that your own opinions are coloring this perspective. As a Linux user, if you gave me the choice between switching back to macOS or dailying ChromeOS instead, it's objectively (sadly) true that the ChromeOS machine would do a better job handling my daily tasks. Going back to macOS would require me to keep multiple desktop machines around for gaming, filesystem manipulation and native Linux containers. C…

Have you heard of this? According to their GitHub, this should solve the issues you mentioned with Linux development on macOS. Note: I have not used it myself as I find macOS+Brew sufficient for my tasks. https://github.com/apple/container

I use this tool all the time. Mainly for running various LLM cli tools and whatnot. No way will I install those tools on my host OS due to my unfounded paranoia.

Container still has a few warts. Mainly, Container and mDNSResponder on macOS do not always play nicely together. If you use a VPN that binds to port 53, you will also have a bad time. Container-to-Container name resolution is also hit or miss.

However, none of these issues have prevented me from accomplishing what I need. Though, I can see where friction may arise between some corporate network environments and Container.

Re: I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

#116

Post by hirvi74 »

traderj0e wrote: post #68
inventor7777 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you heard of this? According to their GitHub, this should solve the issues you mentioned with Linux development on macOS. Note: I have not used it myself as I find macOS+Brew sufficient for my tasks. https://github.com/apple/container

Can I put Ubuntu on this and it works exactly the same as on any other ARM machine? Supposedly yes https://docs.getutm.app/guides/ubuntu/ but have you actually done it? Honestly this and Crostini both look like there are too many caveats. I'd just SSH into an Rpi for anything that won't natively run in macOS. And would not even deal with Chromebook. P.S. I +1'd bigyabai's comment only to save it from being marked dea…

> have you actually done it?

Yes.

What do you mean by "works exactly the same?" The same as Ubuntu installed on an ARM laptop? No, there is not GUI, DE, and a lot of tools are stripped.

You can literally pull this down and get it up and running in minutes:

https://hub.docker.com/_/ubuntu/

Rosetta is not necessary to get this working either. Now, there maybe some warts with DNS that you might encounter depending on if you have a certain VPNs running, use dnsmasq, etc.. But there are potential workarounds for many issues.

If you want a full VM, I would recommend Lima/Colima. If you need a full VM with GUI and all, then maybe use something like Parallels, VMware Fusion, etc..

Re: I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

#117

Post by fragmede »

makeitdouble wrote: post #40
_imnothere wrote: post #11

I can't think of any valid reason for a person with sane mind to do this. Yes, macOS is somewhat closed, but it's definitely more open than ChromeOS.

ChromeOS will run on any standard machine and subsystems (qndroid, linux) work decently good. What concrete points makes you put macos as more open ?

Root on the host OS. Can't change the MAC on the wifi adapter, for instance.

Re: I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

#118

Post by hirvi74 »

I love Liquid Glass. I think a lot of the complaints are whiny and pedantic. I do agree a bit of tender love and care could be used to clean up some GUI elements, but people act like Liquid Glass fried their logic board and rendered their machine utterly unusable.

Re: I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

#119

Post by traderj0e »

hirvi74 wrote: post #116
traderj0e wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I put Ubuntu on this and it works exactly the same as on any other ARM machine? Supposedly yes https://docs.getutm.app/guides/ubuntu/ but have you actually done it? Honestly this and Crostini both look like there are too many caveats. I'd just SSH into an Rpi for anything that won't natively run in macOS. And would not even deal with Chromebook. P.S. I +1'd bigyabai's comment only to save it from being marked dea…

> have you actually done it? Yes. What do you mean by "works exactly the same?" The same as Ubuntu installed on an ARM laptop? No, there is not GUI, DE, and a lot of tools are stripped. You can literally pull this down and get it up and running in minutes: https://hub.docker.com/_/ubuntu/ Rosetta is not necessary to get this working either. Now, there maybe some warts with DNS that you might encounter depending on if…

I mean like same as Ubuntu on an x86 laptop for general work. This is assuming you don't have any specific need for x86 binaries, but you also never know what might randomly require it. Would've tried it myself but I'm away from my Mac rn. I'll try again.

Last time I tried UTM specifically for reading an ext4-formatted SD card in my MacBook's internal slot, I couldn't get it to interface with the reader, but that works on Chromebooks' Linux VM supposedly.

Re: I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook

#120

Post by fragmede »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #69
wmichelin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Framework has always been appealing to me as a Mac competitor

Same, but they are a bit expensive. I assume if TFA put himself through the pain of a Chromebook in the first place, it’s because cost was a significant factor.

Even if you can afford a more expensive laptop, there's just something about knowing you can hit Best buy and just grab a $300 laptop and be back at it, if anything happens to your laptop while you're out and about in the world.
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