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Chromebox

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Re: Chromebox

#301

Post by no-espam »

dangrossman wrote: post #246
genwin wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good to know. I just got a quad-core desktop for US$377. The Chromebox w/ Celeron would have to print gold to compare to that.

Most likely, your desktop would have to print gold to make up for the difference in your power bill compared to a ChromeBox too. My desktop needs a couple hundred watts; my Google TV box needs closer to 10. Running a full-size desktop where you don't need the power is equivalent to a voluntary subscription fee versus a one-time payment.

Unless you have an overclocked, ultra graphics machine running distributed apps or playing games most of the day, a desktop does not cost that much more to run. Just because your power supply says 500W doesn't actually mean you are using that much. I did the calculations on my mac mini vs my i2500K win7, which is much faster, and I was surprised the difference was about $60 a year.

Re: Chromebox

#302

Post by etherealG »

Achshar wrote: post #262
etherealG wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your point about the hardware is a good one. All these "small pc equivalent" boxes seem to be overpriced to me, especially the arm-based ones that are essentially competing with smart phones. From the software side, it's a whole different animal. ChromeOS is intended to be very different from Android. I don't think you can compare some of the features like verified boot or integrated cloud services. Also, you…

>I'm pretty sure "installing an app" and "bookmarking a website" are the same thing in ChromeOS. Not quiet so. I write chrome apps myself and there is is difference between websites and installable apps. Mostly they have more API access and features such as background processes. But the underlying technology is exactly same as websites. It's essentially a local website that is not hosted on any server but in browser'…

Thanks for clarifying. I'm a bit disappointed in Google about this. I would much prefer the apis to be shared completely between the 2 models and don't see why they can't be.

Also, installable web apps should be something not specific to Chrome. Why not make this an open standard so I can install my apps to other browsers without extra effort from the app developer.

Re: Chromebox

#303

Post by xxqs »

WiseWeasel wrote: post #251
xxqs wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hmm. I saw somewhere it was characterized as highly hackable

I'd get something like this instead, and put Debian on it: http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/model/PT.SJ4P2.001

I'm currently using two types of devices:

-- 10" Acer AspireOne netbooks. They are cheap, and Ubuntu works flawlessly (true before 12.04)

-- ALIX boards from pcengines.ch. They are even cheaper, and low-power, and with RS-232 console port. Perfect if you don't need CPU power.

but for the cases when I need to do packet trace on a Gigabit link, I need to make sure the traffic is low enough for the acer netbook to catch up

Re: Chromebox

#304

Post by Achshar »

etherealG wrote: post #302
Achshar wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm pretty sure "installing an app" and "bookmarking a website" are the same thing in ChromeOS. Not quiet so. I write chrome apps myself and there is is difference between websites and installable apps. Mostly they have more API access and features such as background processes. But the underlying technology is exactly same as websites. It's essentially a local website that is not hosted on any server but in browser'…

Thanks for clarifying. I'm a bit disappointed in Google about this. I would much prefer the apis to be shared completely between the 2 models and don't see why they can't be. Also, installable web apps should be something not specific to Chrome. Why not make this an open standard so I can install my apps to other browsers without extra effort from the app developer.

As i said, the work is being done on APIs. Infact in developer channels of the browser, I think all the html5 APIs are accessible to everyone. As for background pages, there is no way of running a background page that is hosted somewhere else because there is an internal api that allows communication between pages's javascript in realtime. And such communication would not be possible with a hosted file.

And there is a thing known as installable web-apps. Which basically means you can install an app with just one manifest file hosted online. (it used to be in about:flags but now i think it has landed in stable release, but not sure). Which means no hassle of webstore or even maintaining a separate crx file, just upload a manifest.js once and forget :) Unfortunately background processing is not possible in hosted apps, just in installable ones.

Re: Chromebox

#305

Post by lcargill99 »

it's in a fullsize case, but the Compaq cq2701 seems to have more and better for $20 less... ( bought one for my wife last weekend .) It's a 2.3 GHz G630T dual-core, which is fine for her uses. Yeah, it's Win7, so what, wanna fight about it? :) It could be Chrome O/S-ed in a short interval...
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