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Google’s Chromebooks Have Hit Their Stride

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Re: Google’s Chromebooks Have Hit Their Stride

#31

Post by kovalkos »

mentos wrote: post #12

I'd be interested in seeing if anyone has had success in getting OSX to run on a Chromebook. So far googling for "Chromebook hackintosh" doesn't look promising. The same way Apple has come out with its 'C' line of iPhones which I assume are cheaper, I see an enormous opportunity to do the same with their Macs. Imagine a $250 Macbook.

>Imagine a $250 Macbook.

The only good part about Macs is the hardware. I would much rather run a normal linux distro instead.

Putting OS X on $200 Chromebook is like buying a barn and thinking you will get 1000-acre piece of land with it.

Re: Google’s Chromebooks Have Hit Their Stride

#32

Post by gizmo »

mavhc wrote: post #27

As long as you're fine abandoning the past a Chromebook is a good idea. However the concept of online documents to a normal person used to desktop software can be tricky, "how do I save?", "how do I attach this document to an email?". Then there's concepts like authorising a web app to use your Google Drive to save files in, and exporting PDFs to give to people. And things like mpeg2 files don't play, so your own vid…

Chroombooks support thumb drives / memory sticks. So people can stick to their old habit of drag&dropping files from their thumb stick to an email to add an attachment.

Re: Google’s Chromebooks Have Hit Their Stride

#33

Post by reirob »

[deleted] wrote: post #24
Brakenshire wrote: post #20

How are Chromebooks for use with other Linux distributions? Would be nice to have hardware which was made for use with the Linux kernel (and therefore, presumably, guaranteed to have near-perfect hardware support).

[deleted]

If this is true, then it is really a shame. Just my opinion.

Re: Google’s Chromebooks Have Hit Their Stride

#34

Post by supergauntlet »

[deleted] wrote: post #24
Brakenshire wrote: post #20

How are Chromebooks for use with other Linux distributions? Would be nice to have hardware which was made for use with the Linux kernel (and therefore, presumably, guaranteed to have near-perfect hardware support).

[deleted]

3.4 isn't that old. Debian stable and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS are still on 3.2.

It's not ideal, sure, and it'd be great if they were running 3.12 or something but its not a huge issue in most cases.

If you're trying to run docker or something on it then sure it's a problem but they don't have a ton of memory in the first place.

Re: Google’s Chromebooks Have Hit Their Stride

#35

Post by fpgeek »

Recoil42 wrote: post #23
jmduke wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking along the lines of something that ships with/is optimized for Chrome OS.

Why does it matter if all you're doing is surfing the web? What doesn't Android provide as an analogue? Why is Chrome OS important to you in this instance? Not trying to contradict you -- just trying to understand your position.

Chrome OS is a desktop-style browser, not a mobile one. That means desktop versions of sites work best, multiple window support, full Flash and a few other things. Over time these differences will fade (e.g. post-Pixel touch support has become comparable), especially as Android gets Chrome packaged app support, but in the meantime...

Re: Google’s Chromebooks Have Hit Their Stride

#36

Post by snogglethorpe »

[deleted] wrote: post #24
Brakenshire wrote: post #20

How are Chromebooks for use with other Linux distributions? Would be nice to have hardware which was made for use with the Linux kernel (and therefore, presumably, guaranteed to have near-perfect hardware support).

[deleted]

> Not very good. Asus chromebook has a locked boot loader, so it seems to only boots Google signed OS.

If this is true, then "Not very good" would still be specific to the ASUS model (I don't know much about the ASUS); other chromebook models do better. Even if true, of course, the solution is obvious: don't buy the ASUS chromebook; it has few distinguishing features anyway, and then the problem becomes self-correcting over time.

Linus himself, for instance, uses a Chromebook Pixel as his laptop, and he most certainly cares about which kernel it runs... :]

[Here are directions for installing Linux on the Chromebook Pixel: http://vger.kernel.org/~davem/chromebook_pixel_linux.txt ]

Re: Google’s Chromebooks Have Hit Their Stride

#37

Post by GioM »

irishmoss wrote: post #11
salient wrote: post #5

I used to support Chromebooks. Not anymore. Having every last bit of your data "in the cloud" has turned out to be a very dangerous concept, especially since Google (and many other cloud providers) don't provide any kind of easy client-side encryption options before uploading the data to the "cloud".

I was under the impression that documents stored under /Downloads/ or elsewhere in the file-system (when using dev-mode) are not uploaded to the "cloud".

I can't tell if this is a poor attempt at a defense of the chromebook, or a solid instance of damning by faint praise.

Re: Google’s Chromebooks Have Hit Their Stride

#38

Post by kenjackson »

ladzoppelin wrote: post #8

So basically Chrome OS is like Microsoft windows only with less features, less control, less software, hardware dependent and developed by an advertising company? Doesn't Chrome OS resemble an IPad challenger rather than a Windows/MacBook substitute?

They are really Netbook challengers. For OEMs it is a race to the bottom. But it is a smart play for Google.

But like Netbooks I think it'll have a short run. In the same way it is hard for WinPhone to compete against Android in the long tail of apps, I think the long tail of Win apps is tough to compete with when you can get a Windows PC at almost the same price.

Re: Google’s Chromebooks Have Hit Their Stride

#39

Post by julianpye »

My girlfriend and I won a Google sponsored hackathon this year that got us flights and tix to I/O and we both got the Pixel there. She then decided to make an experiment and sold her Macbook, to proceed using only the Pixel and an iPad. She wrote her entire dissertation with it and loves it. The three things she misses are Illustrator, Photoshop and Lightroom. I doubt she would have done the same thing with a lesser Chromebook, so it was the Pixel's quality that won her over. She now is an embassador for it and recently a friend of ours got one for his wife for Xmas instead of a W8 laptop.

Re: Google’s Chromebooks Have Hit Their Stride

#40

Post by lstamour »

ancarda wrote: post #15

When Chrome OS was first announced, I wanted to try it out. Unfortunately every time I try, I can't get it to run in VirtualBox. The hexxeh builds are old (April 2013) and there's no ISO I can download. Has anyone else had success in running a recent, stable build in VirtualBox?

Last December, I played with building ChromeOS from source for a $449 touchscreen Asus laptop from Microsoft Store. It's easy enough if you just follow the directions on the ChromiumOS website. But I found keeping builds updated was a bigger hardship, and didn't want to make my own continuous build system. So I returned the laptop and this month bought an Acer C720P. Much happier.
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