It is a good idea IMO, especially with GalliumOS (a Chromebook optimized variant of xubuntu) so you can run Linux natively.
Back in 2016 I picked up a Toshiba CB35 Chromebook with a 13" 1080p IPS display, 4gb of memory, 1.7ghz Celeron and a 256GB SSD for $350. It weighs under 3 pounds and has a backlight keyboard too.
It still runs great today and despite the low end specs it can deal with some programming work loads (Dockerized web apps, a bunch of browser tabs, mp3 player, editor with 40+ plugins, multiple workspaces, etc.). It's not slow either. Even decently sized Rails apps with Webpacker reload nearly instantly while developing and there's no type delay.
It's been a really nice outdoors / travel laptop for someone like me who normally uses a desktop workstation.
If you can still find this exact model at that price point I'd consider it today. It's one of those rare combos of hardware that's really good at a fair price. I wouldn't insta buy it, but I'd at least keep it in the runnings vs a 2021 model, especially at that price point. With lower end machines, newness isn't always a deciding factor for goodness.
+1 to Chromebooks, though I was never much interested in Gallium
I picked up one of the original Acer C720's back in 2013. Anemic 2c1t (dual core) Celeron at 1.2 Ghz and 2GB of memory. But Gentoo on it with XFCE was incredibly nippy. Add a processor optimized Firefox at the time and it was an extremely good tiny laptop
A year or so later I upgraded to its "big brother" the core i3 variant (2c2t, quad core) with 4GB of RAM. Same experience. Extremely happy with both machines
Eventually as the Chrome browser started to eclipse things though I moved to Dell's Chromebook 13 "Lulu" with a beastly Broadwell i5 quad core and 8GB (soldered) RAM
The biggest draw for me is these were the first Linux machines I'd used where everything didn't "just work" or "it works okay but you can tweak XYZ" it worked in the sense it was explicitly designed __to run Linux__
For all the flak Google deservedly gets, the decision to enforce a "no binary blobs, everything must be upstreamed to mainline Linux" kernel and Coreboot (BIOS) as well as making "jailbreaking" the thing with a permanent firmware flash as simple as removing a hardware screw was commendable
These days I'm stuck using an MSI Modern 14, which while "okay" is nowhere near as delightful as the Chromebooks were previously
I have one that's been running Gallium since ~2018.. Asus C202SA. It works like a charm.
I update coreboot every once in a while, as it gets regular updates.
Just a note for anyone that's going to try it: you will have to open up your chromebook and search for the write-protection screw in order to flash your bios (most models are like this). It is a google search away to find where your motherboard's screw is located, as not all boards are labelled. Another thing to to note is that, as long as you don't brick your device somehow, everything is reversible. You can reinstalled the original bios/bootloader, reinstall ChromeOS and put the write protection screw back in and all is well again. Other than that, just follow all instructions for Gallium & coreboot exactly and it will work fine.
Gallium is basically Ubuntu + xfce + mods for keyboard & performance tweaks.
This is the exact machine setup I used for my first job as a professional developer. It was a contracting position and the unemployment from my barista gig had run out some months prior, so I was running on fumes. For $350, the amount of value I got out of it is staggering. While I unfortunately spilled water on it and broke the keyboard some years ago, it will always hold a dear place in my heart.
I feel like with new ARM laptops like the Samsung Galaxy Book Go ($349) the advantages of running Linux on a Chromebook (mainly insanely good battery life) are quickly disappearing.
I don't actually have the Galaxy Book Go but I'm considering it, pending reports of people actually installing Ubuntu on it.
Unfortunately, GalliumOS / Generic Linux doesn't work on many newer Chromebooks due to not supporting the CR50 EC. My Apollo Lake (circa 2017) Chromebook, for example, doesnt work.
i have one of these with gallium as well -- cannot recommend it highly enough, though i wish the memory weren't soldered in. daily driver for normal web stuff for six or seven years now.
I bought Toshiba Chromebooks (the 2014 variant, which lacks the backlit keyboard but is pretty much otherwise identical to the 2015) for my kids. Two of them have moved onto MacBooks but the youngest chugs along with his Chromebook. I was able to find them online for $85 - $135 over the years. The screens were fairly easy to replace and cost about $45.
I also recommended one to my brother-in-law and he totes it on trips. The trackpad stopped working so he uses an external mouse. They're terrific as a travel laptop: plug the SD card into the slot, upload your photos to Google Photos, and don't worry about what happens to your photos if your camera is stolen or whatever. And at that price it's much less painful than if your MacBook Pro is stolen. Plus the 1080P resolution on 13" screen is better than most options for a lot more money.
+1 to the Toshiba CB-35 Chromebook. It is an excellent laptop fr running Linux, although a bit outdated at this point. If I hadn't shattered mine's screen in a bike crash, I probably would still be using it today.
Not sure what the best Chromebook is for running Linux, but appreciate the OP's suggestions.
Every HN thread has to have a comment like this... Look at me, my ancient machine can (barely) get stuff done. But I can't wrap my head around this... why torment yourself like this. Who pays for the lost productivity with these shenanigans? Do you value your time so little? If freelance, do you pass it on to your customers? If job, does nobody notice that you're taking ages getting stuff done? My hourly rate is nearly minimum wage but I have a $5K PC build and the latest MBP. I can't imagine even using a web browser with 4GB RAM. Virtual machines? Android Emulator?? Compiling a Java application?? How...
And why wouldn’t it? CS education is rarely taxing in terms of processor/memory requirements. I doubt the curriculum is all that different than 10 years ago or more with far less specs. It’s about theory and writing algorithms. And if this is a program specializing in ML, the models are still likely to be toy, and anything more can use cloud computing like Google’s Collab.
I don't understand why people buy expensive Chromebooks - the author's Samsung device seems to cost $699 refurbished (16 GB RAM/128 GB SSD). To compare, a basic configuration Macbook Air M1 (8 GB RAM/256 GB SSD) can be bought for $899 new with education discount; if you're lucky, you can also buy a Thinkpad X13 at similar prices.
It depends on the Chromebook, but having owned a personal Chromebook Pixel of the first two generations, it's because, the Pixel at least, represented something that I couldn't find anywhere else. In no particular order:
* We MUST MAKE MORE 3:2 screens. Content is not wide, except video which I don't watch. Content is vertical. A 3:2 screen makes for an amazing laptop shape that is very well suited to the way humans view content, especially on the web.
* I've done computer security stuff for a while. Chromebooks are, by far, the best computer security model I've seen. Trusted boot, hashed root filesystems, fast updates that are as painless as possible (they even keep entered text in textareas on pages). They are, by default, secure enough that I would log into my core accounts on someone else's Chromebook (given a fresh reboot to ensure it wasn't in developer mode - physical firmware attacks aren't in the scope of things I worry about from people I know). Yet, I can twiddle a few keys and get one to be a properly nice Linux laptop with all sorts of great features, that also manages to "just work."
* OS resolution scaling is amazing. Eyes tired at the end of a day? A keystroke or two and you've rescaled the entire UI to match. Throw in the super high res, high def modes on the high DPI screens, and it's good for just about anything.
* Almost everything can be done on the web today, even if one probably shouldn't. I've used them as primary computers for many years, and I only rarely ran into something that I couldn't do (or couldn't do with Crouton and a Linux chroot environment). Those things included "a handful of Windows applications" (wine covers a lot) and "some kernel interfaces for Linux Internals classes" (the kernel simply lacks things that the OS doesn't need).
I know it's popular to hate Chromebooks, but if you're willing to toss them in developer mode for a few things, the value you get for your money, even at the high end, is legitimately impressive.
It’s an Acer spin 13 and not a Samsung, but the 16G price seems to be in the same 700$ range.
For the Macbook Air, the 16G version starts at 1079$ with education discount so roughly 1.5 more expensive (they explicitely choose the 16G version of the ACER, so the RAM shouldn’t be ignored IMO)
The thinkpad X13 at 16G of RAM is around 1380$ on amazon [0], so twice as much.
I don’t know the Acer spin 13, but if the screen is as good as Samsung’s one, it is well worth the price, especially as you usually get more battery life, and the chrome OS + android + linux mix is actually good. There are still rough edges, but the good parts largely outweigh those.
3:2 aspect ratio screens are amazing for productivity, and sadly very rare outside top end chromebooks
Chromebooks are just polished Gentoo linux machines too that don't have nightmare headaches of driver incompatiblity issues. A M1 macbook would have to run linux in a VM (even docker containers) and deal with the overhead/tax of that issue. A chromebook will just run chroot/container stuff against the native kernel with very little overhead and maximum access to the machine's available memory.
I bought the original Chromebook Pixel when it was new for something like $1.3k. At the time, I believed this the best way to get a slim laptop with a high resolution screen and good linux support. Debian did run well on it, as I expected, but I soon came to regret the purchase and will never buy hardware from Google again.
EDIT:
It lost audio about 3 or 4 months after it was out of warranty, both out of the speakers and headphone jack. Left speaker failed first, then the right, then the headphone jack. I can only assume it was some sort of hardware fault, since sound no longer worked in ChromeOS either (and HDMI audio continued working in both). But good fucking luck getting such a thing fixed on a product like that from a company like that. Now I have a Dell XPS with a 1080p screen, which is good enough, particularly considering Dell has a much better reputation for support/repairs.
As long as I can run Linux easily, edit/compile smallish code projects and watch Youtube smoothly CPU/GPU/RAM specs don't matter a whole lot for me when it comes to a laptop - I've got a beefy desktop at home for that (and I could remote into it from the laptop too).
However battery life, ruggedness, 3:2 display, small size etc (note: not thickness, I don't actually care about that, just the other dimensions so it easily fits in a backpack) are all features I do look for in a laptop, and Chromebooks usually have that in spades (stuff that's intended to be handed out to high school kids is probably pretty indestructible).
If Apple releases an 11" MacBook Air for a reasonable price that would be pretty compelling for me too though, knowing I do have the processing power should want it (and the very high dpi display).
So with an education discount, you can spent $200 more for half the RAM? Maybe if you need the disk space (although if it's replaceable, $200 will buy a lot of aftermarket SSD), but that's certainly not an obvious tradeoff to me.
I agree. In fact if I chose a chromebook, I'd automatically restrict the budget to $250 max even for a brand new one. For $950 or more, I wouldn't accept anything less than a performance laptop with a discrete GPU.
So the question is, can you get through the Master's program with a brand new $250 chromeook? I'd say yes- you basically need to set it up as a remote coding machine. Georgia Tech (and most other universities with decent graduate programs) provide access to educational and research computing clusters these days. Also, Google Collab is your friend, especially during the assignment deadlines when those clusters will be occupied by other students.
> $699 refurbished (16 GB RAM/128 GB SSD). To compare, a basic configuration Macbook Air M1 (8 GB RAM/256 GB SSD) can be bought for $899 new with education discount
This is an odd comment.
Imagine I walked up to you, asked if you were happy with your computer, you said yes, and then I proceeded to try to "sell" you on an "upgrade" to half the RAM for the same price. Now consider if we weren't talking about the same price; I'm suggesting that you spend an extra $200+ on this.
Well, my experience is that in practice, older refurb high-end Chromebooks can be had song.
Chromebooks expire, losing security updates, and buying an older model is almost always a bad deal. Figuring out expiration dates is a PITA. In practice, COVID19 shortages aside, they typically carry very low resale value.
If you're running Linux, you don't care.
A rather premium model can be had for under $200 easily. That's cheap enough that you can do things with it that you'd never do with a real laptop.
This. For a while I did the Chromebook thing and it was actually pretty nice running android apps on it along with chrome OS but just kept slamming into chrome limitations. Looked at all the hoops necessary to sideload or try linux stuff and noped out to a regular X1 carbon thinkpad. Common Linux distros on a regular laptop is so much easier.
Chromebooks frequently go on crazy sales - bought my 8Gb/i5 Acer Spin 713 for less than $500. As work machine it’s perfect for me and is also disposable if something were to happen to it.
Linux support rounds out what I need, though it’s not perfect for GUI tools.
I have a hefty budget for personal computing. My current laptop cost me almost 2400USD equivalent. The only reason that's not a Pixelbook is that Chrome doesn't run real Lightroom.
Whether or not a chromebook is adequate for cash-strapped students in my painful experience depends on whether or not your model has soldered RAM.
Doing research in school will likely have you opening a lot of browser tabs. Running Firefox on a non-ChromeOS Linux install is going to eat up more than the measly amount of soldered RAM that cheap Chromebooks offer.[0]
I used Acer Chromebooks in college and very much came to regret this aspect whenever my machine slowed to a crawl the moment I opened an important PDF in Firefox. In hindsight, I probably should have set up zRAM on my machine, which expands the amount of RAM available by compressing it, just like ChromeOS does. However, as soon as I had money I chucked the Chromebook and bought standard a standard Acer notebook with upgradable RAM at a lower price than the fancy Chromebooks.
[0] Don't underestimate this: at the moment I have hundreds of tabs open in a saved browser session, with htop pegging Firefox at 16GB RAM utilization! It goes down when I restart the browser maybe to 5GB or so, but it also doesn't matter much when you have 32GB or more available.
I remember many many years ago taking an intro CS class and learning that the Java compiler was available on The newly released Mac OS X. I thought “Thank goodness I won’t need to use Windows” unfortunately, I never really got it to work. Some obscure errors prevented me from making progress and I wasn’t proactive enough to follow it any further.
The hardest thing about going against the grain in structured learning is that you’re giving yourself extra work - translating the instructions into whatever your toolset is, solving errors that don’t exist on the approved platforms. I wish the author the best of luck.
Tried to upgrade to a Dell XPS 13 (9310) on sale at Costco.
Webcam wasn't connected from the factory. In a post-2020 world, this doesn't fly, and for a $1500+ device, I shouldn't need to spend hours doing firmware updates, driver updates, only to find it's a hardware fault.
Back to my Google Pixelbook, but the final software update date is a terrifying prospect [1], as is it's woefully inefficient Intel 7th generation processor (I've been spoiled by Ryzen for years).
Oh how I wish I could just build my own laptop with COTS components, like my desktops for the last 16 years.
Or, if I'm just not looking in the right place, I'd love to find something with a great display, lightweight, great typing experience, and something that won't hit 45*C+ on the keyboard deck after boot.
In another life, I might have bought into the Apple ecosystem, but I have been Android since 2009 and have already traded my soul to Google for it's scrambled attempts at a cohesive ecosystem.
I've chosen XPS-13 because Dell supports Linux on it. I am no longer using it (Switched beack to Thinkpads because of keyboard) but I had all hardware working on it with Linux just fine: wifi, camera, sounds.
I have always wanted a laptop I could easily work on. I remember working on my Toshiba, and it was petty straight forward, even though the internet was in its infancy. Hell--I had a Panasonic I kept running for a decade, and loved that machine.
I don't mind a heavy big laptop either. I've never understood people whom complain about the weight of their laptop, but I know most customers want light weight devices.
That said, I've been told here repairability, upgrading an existing laptops is the last thing on their mind when forking out money for a computer.
I posted this for several different reasons. I was one of the beta testers for Chrome OS and have used it exclusively for the past decade. I am always interested in how it continues to improve. Secondly, the terminal Debian is a dream come true for me. It is the best CLI I have ever enjoyed. It is also well integrated with the OS. Lastly, while I know that Chrome OS has made many inroads into public education, I had no idea it might be applicable for something like an MA in a technical degree...
The performance of running Linux in a container on a VM is noticeably bad, even on a Google Pixel with Core i7 and 16 GB of RAM.
It works okay for most tasks, but is laggy when running JetBrains IDEs compared to bare metal Linux distros.
Edit: Chromebooks are nice in terms of laptop hardware support compared to some hardware / Linux distros I have used over the years. No issues with suspend / resume, printers and scanners work, great touchscreen and Android tablet functionality.
Some tasks that require more direct access to the hardware (e.g. device drivers used to read lab instrument hardware, debugging devices over USB, etc.) might not work as well (or work at all) due to the Linux VM and container sandboxing.
I graduated in 2017 in Computer Science using a Thinkpad x210 that cost me £50 (~70$). And never had a issue. I haven't used a chromebook in a while but back then they where less powerful than a x210. Nowadays, if I have to recommend a laptop for coding or CS course I would recommend whichever Thinkpad X-series you can afford.
200 Euros buys you a very old and low end Thinkpad right now, at least in Europe, that's a slouch when dealing with modern web apps.
Sure, it's probably fine for running linux and coding in vim but on the modern web and electron apps it shows its age.
Unless you're cash strapped, I'd much rather spend 500-800 Euros and get a machine with a modern Ryzen or Tiger-Lake chip that makes a much more usable experience for a variety of tasks.
I tried using a chromebook for general development and it was not a pleasant or efficient experience.
My goal was to compile and write something using Python and OpenCV, a computer vision library. While one can indeed run Linux apps, the vast majority of what I needed was not pre-compiled. Compiling led to issues with having to compile parts of the toolchain, which went up a couple levels of recursion. Compile some library so you can compile some other library so you can compile a program to compile some thing that she used to compile some package. Then library conflicts, and so forth. I haven’t needed to do this since about 2004. Plus, then waiting for a Chromebook to compile large packages can take all day.
There’s no way I’d try this again versus just getting a normal laptop and installing Linux.
I have a MSc in computer science and used the university workstations and saved my work on a 128MB USB stick for a very long time before my parents helped me buy a laptop.
I'm toying with the idea of getting a chromebook for my day job (software development). I already use the vscode ssh [1] plugin, so that my IDE runs on a remote server which has been a great experience. For Jupyter notebook type tasks, Google's collab sheets [2] run on a remote server (there's a bit to be desired of course). I even use Genymotion in the cloud [3] such that my android APKs are run on the cloud and rendered through a browser emulator. At this point I'm 85% of the way there, and can't wait for the day where no serious computation needs to be done locally.
I don't get the appeal of taking local task metadata, executing on a remote machine and then consuming results locally.
I can imagine this for a collaborative task, but not much else.
Local computation has always led teams I've worked in to a superior (personalized, decentralized, fault tolerant, highly parallel) mode of operation.
My tryst with working with remote computation ended when the 5 VMs we were using as a team for development were locked out and decommissioned without a notice due to a devops error. Thankfully, I did have local equivalents, which I habitually worked on and copied over to the VM for execution, not so much for my team members.
I actually learned web development on a Chromebook running Linux, originally with Chrouton, later with GalliumOS. The Chromebook is around 7 years old and still runs pretty well. There's a lot you can't do, but it has no problem spinning up a Rails or Node server.
Some OMSCS classes require certain proctoring software that may not work on Linux or ChromeOS. Please make sure you have an alternative ready to go as course staff do not make accomodations for this.
You're absolutely right. My main driver is a Linux machine which isn't compatible with Honorlock. I'm very lucky to have inherited another laptop that is compatible.
It does seem a rather unnecessarily complicated task given much cheaper second hand/refurbished units could be picked up on eBay and happily run a Debian/Fedora/Ubuntu Linux.
[+] [-] nickjj|4 years ago|reply
Back in 2016 I picked up a Toshiba CB35 Chromebook with a 13" 1080p IPS display, 4gb of memory, 1.7ghz Celeron and a 256GB SSD for $350. It weighs under 3 pounds and has a backlight keyboard too.
It still runs great today and despite the low end specs it can deal with some programming work loads (Dockerized web apps, a bunch of browser tabs, mp3 player, editor with 40+ plugins, multiple workspaces, etc.). It's not slow either. Even decently sized Rails apps with Webpacker reload nearly instantly while developing and there's no type delay.
It's been a really nice outdoors / travel laptop for someone like me who normally uses a desktop workstation.
I wrote up a whole review of it here: https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/transform-a-toshiba-chromeboo...
If you can still find this exact model at that price point I'd consider it today. It's one of those rare combos of hardware that's really good at a fair price. I wouldn't insta buy it, but I'd at least keep it in the runnings vs a 2021 model, especially at that price point. With lower end machines, newness isn't always a deciding factor for goodness.
[+] [-] IntelMiner|4 years ago|reply
I picked up one of the original Acer C720's back in 2013. Anemic 2c1t (dual core) Celeron at 1.2 Ghz and 2GB of memory. But Gentoo on it with XFCE was incredibly nippy. Add a processor optimized Firefox at the time and it was an extremely good tiny laptop
A year or so later I upgraded to its "big brother" the core i3 variant (2c2t, quad core) with 4GB of RAM. Same experience. Extremely happy with both machines
Eventually as the Chrome browser started to eclipse things though I moved to Dell's Chromebook 13 "Lulu" with a beastly Broadwell i5 quad core and 8GB (soldered) RAM
The biggest draw for me is these were the first Linux machines I'd used where everything didn't "just work" or "it works okay but you can tweak XYZ" it worked in the sense it was explicitly designed __to run Linux__
For all the flak Google deservedly gets, the decision to enforce a "no binary blobs, everything must be upstreamed to mainline Linux" kernel and Coreboot (BIOS) as well as making "jailbreaking" the thing with a permanent firmware flash as simple as removing a hardware screw was commendable
These days I'm stuck using an MSI Modern 14, which while "okay" is nowhere near as delightful as the Chromebooks were previously
[+] [-] BatteryMountain|4 years ago|reply
I update coreboot every once in a while, as it gets regular updates.
Just a note for anyone that's going to try it: you will have to open up your chromebook and search for the write-protection screw in order to flash your bios (most models are like this). It is a google search away to find where your motherboard's screw is located, as not all boards are labelled. Another thing to to note is that, as long as you don't brick your device somehow, everything is reversible. You can reinstalled the original bios/bootloader, reinstall ChromeOS and put the write protection screw back in and all is well again. Other than that, just follow all instructions for Gallium & coreboot exactly and it will work fine.
Gallium is basically Ubuntu + xfce + mods for keyboard & performance tweaks.
[+] [-] zumu|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dheera|4 years ago|reply
I don't actually have the Galaxy Book Go but I'm considering it, pending reports of people actually installing Ubuntu on it.
[+] [-] ac29|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nyolfen|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdeibele|4 years ago|reply
I also recommended one to my brother-in-law and he totes it on trips. The trackpad stopped working so he uses an external mouse. They're terrific as a travel laptop: plug the SD card into the slot, upload your photos to Google Photos, and don't worry about what happens to your photos if your camera is stolen or whatever. And at that price it's much less painful than if your MacBook Pro is stolen. Plus the 1080P resolution on 13" screen is better than most options for a lot more money.
[+] [-] xiii1408|4 years ago|reply
Not sure what the best Chromebook is for running Linux, but appreciate the OP's suggestions.
[+] [-] zodiakzz|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] azinman2|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johndoe0815|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Syonyk|4 years ago|reply
* We MUST MAKE MORE 3:2 screens. Content is not wide, except video which I don't watch. Content is vertical. A 3:2 screen makes for an amazing laptop shape that is very well suited to the way humans view content, especially on the web.
* I've done computer security stuff for a while. Chromebooks are, by far, the best computer security model I've seen. Trusted boot, hashed root filesystems, fast updates that are as painless as possible (they even keep entered text in textareas on pages). They are, by default, secure enough that I would log into my core accounts on someone else's Chromebook (given a fresh reboot to ensure it wasn't in developer mode - physical firmware attacks aren't in the scope of things I worry about from people I know). Yet, I can twiddle a few keys and get one to be a properly nice Linux laptop with all sorts of great features, that also manages to "just work."
* OS resolution scaling is amazing. Eyes tired at the end of a day? A keystroke or two and you've rescaled the entire UI to match. Throw in the super high res, high def modes on the high DPI screens, and it's good for just about anything.
* Almost everything can be done on the web today, even if one probably shouldn't. I've used them as primary computers for many years, and I only rarely ran into something that I couldn't do (or couldn't do with Crouton and a Linux chroot environment). Those things included "a handful of Windows applications" (wine covers a lot) and "some kernel interfaces for Linux Internals classes" (the kernel simply lacks things that the OS doesn't need).
I know it's popular to hate Chromebooks, but if you're willing to toss them in developer mode for a few things, the value you get for your money, even at the high end, is legitimately impressive.
[+] [-] makeitdouble|4 years ago|reply
For the Macbook Air, the 16G version starts at 1079$ with education discount so roughly 1.5 more expensive (they explicitely choose the 16G version of the ACER, so the RAM shouldn’t be ignored IMO)
The thinkpad X13 at 16G of RAM is around 1380$ on amazon [0], so twice as much.
I don’t know the Acer spin 13, but if the screen is as good as Samsung’s one, it is well worth the price, especially as you usually get more battery life, and the chrome OS + android + linux mix is actually good. There are still rough edges, but the good parts largely outweigh those.
[0](https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkPad-20T2003YUS-13-3-Noteb...)
[+] [-] qbasic_forever|4 years ago|reply
Chromebooks are just polished Gentoo linux machines too that don't have nightmare headaches of driver incompatiblity issues. A M1 macbook would have to run linux in a VM (even docker containers) and deal with the overhead/tax of that issue. A chromebook will just run chroot/container stuff against the native kernel with very little overhead and maximum access to the machine's available memory.
[+] [-] wearywanderer|4 years ago|reply
EDIT:
It lost audio about 3 or 4 months after it was out of warranty, both out of the speakers and headphone jack. Left speaker failed first, then the right, then the headphone jack. I can only assume it was some sort of hardware fault, since sound no longer worked in ChromeOS either (and HDMI audio continued working in both). But good fucking luck getting such a thing fixed on a product like that from a company like that. Now I have a Dell XPS with a 1080p screen, which is good enough, particularly considering Dell has a much better reputation for support/repairs.
[+] [-] p1necone|4 years ago|reply
However battery life, ruggedness, 3:2 display, small size etc (note: not thickness, I don't actually care about that, just the other dimensions so it easily fits in a backpack) are all features I do look for in a laptop, and Chromebooks usually have that in spades (stuff that's intended to be handed out to high school kids is probably pretty indestructible).
If Apple releases an 11" MacBook Air for a reasonable price that would be pretty compelling for me too though, knowing I do have the processing power should want it (and the very high dpi display).
[+] [-] yjftsjthsd-h|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] esalman|4 years ago|reply
So the question is, can you get through the Master's program with a brand new $250 chromeook? I'd say yes- you basically need to set it up as a remote coding machine. Georgia Tech (and most other universities with decent graduate programs) provide access to educational and research computing clusters these days. Also, Google Collab is your friend, especially during the assignment deadlines when those clusters will be occupied by other students.
[+] [-] pwdisswordfish8|4 years ago|reply
This is an odd comment.
Imagine I walked up to you, asked if you were happy with your computer, you said yes, and then I proceeded to try to "sell" you on an "upgrade" to half the RAM for the same price. Now consider if we weren't talking about the same price; I'm suggesting that you spend an extra $200+ on this.
Why would anyone take that deal?
[+] [-] blagie|4 years ago|reply
Chromebooks expire, losing security updates, and buying an older model is almost always a bad deal. Figuring out expiration dates is a PITA. In practice, COVID19 shortages aside, they typically carry very low resale value.
If you're running Linux, you don't care.
A rather premium model can be had for under $200 easily. That's cheap enough that you can do things with it that you'd never do with a real laptop.
[+] [-] Maxburn|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sologoub|4 years ago|reply
Linux support rounds out what I need, though it’s not perfect for GUI tools.
[+] [-] lrem|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swebs|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nicklaf|4 years ago|reply
Doing research in school will likely have you opening a lot of browser tabs. Running Firefox on a non-ChromeOS Linux install is going to eat up more than the measly amount of soldered RAM that cheap Chromebooks offer.[0]
I used Acer Chromebooks in college and very much came to regret this aspect whenever my machine slowed to a crawl the moment I opened an important PDF in Firefox. In hindsight, I probably should have set up zRAM on my machine, which expands the amount of RAM available by compressing it, just like ChromeOS does. However, as soon as I had money I chucked the Chromebook and bought standard a standard Acer notebook with upgradable RAM at a lower price than the fancy Chromebooks.
[0] Don't underestimate this: at the moment I have hundreds of tabs open in a saved browser session, with htop pegging Firefox at 16GB RAM utilization! It goes down when I restart the browser maybe to 5GB or so, but it also doesn't matter much when you have 32GB or more available.
[+] [-] sircastor|4 years ago|reply
The hardest thing about going against the grain in structured learning is that you’re giving yourself extra work - translating the instructions into whatever your toolset is, solving errors that don’t exist on the approved platforms. I wish the author the best of luck.
[+] [-] awslattery|4 years ago|reply
Webcam wasn't connected from the factory. In a post-2020 world, this doesn't fly, and for a $1500+ device, I shouldn't need to spend hours doing firmware updates, driver updates, only to find it's a hardware fault.
Back to my Google Pixelbook, but the final software update date is a terrifying prospect [1], as is it's woefully inefficient Intel 7th generation processor (I've been spoiled by Ryzen for years).
Oh how I wish I could just build my own laptop with COTS components, like my desktops for the last 16 years.
Or, if I'm just not looking in the right place, I'd love to find something with a great display, lightweight, great typing experience, and something that won't hit 45*C+ on the keyboard deck after boot.
In another life, I might have bought into the Apple ecosystem, but I have been Android since 2009 and have already traded my soul to Google for it's scrambled attempts at a cohesive ecosystem.
[1] https://support.google.com/pixelbook/answer/9413900?hl=en
[+] [-] vzaliva|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] solarkraft|4 years ago|reply
Design and serviceability are nice, but coil whine and a rattly touchpad are pretty common. r/dell has some more horror stories.
[+] [-] hellbannedguy|4 years ago|reply
I don't mind a heavy big laptop either. I've never understood people whom complain about the weight of their laptop, but I know most customers want light weight devices.
That said, I've been told here repairability, upgrading an existing laptops is the last thing on their mind when forking out money for a computer.
I don't get it, but they are right.
[+] [-] every|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thesuperbigfrog|4 years ago|reply
It works okay for most tasks, but is laggy when running JetBrains IDEs compared to bare metal Linux distros.
Edit: Chromebooks are nice in terms of laptop hardware support compared to some hardware / Linux distros I have used over the years. No issues with suspend / resume, printers and scanners work, great touchscreen and Android tablet functionality.
Some tasks that require more direct access to the hardware (e.g. device drivers used to read lab instrument hardware, debugging devices over USB, etc.) might not work as well (or work at all) due to the Linux VM and container sandboxing.
[+] [-] readonthegoapp|4 years ago|reply
Try 32GB HDD, 4 GB RAM, 1.6 GHz CPU.
Been using it for light web dev. It's a disaster.
[+] [-] xorcist|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chimbosonic|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] martin_a|4 years ago|reply
Well, just buy a used ThinkPad (or whatever business machine) then. My T460 cost me 200 Euro and will probably be good for two or three more years.
Then I'll buy the next used one for the same price and will be happy for four more years...
[+] [-] ChuckNorris89|4 years ago|reply
Sure, it's probably fine for running linux and coding in vim but on the modern web and electron apps it shows its age.
Unless you're cash strapped, I'd much rather spend 500-800 Euros and get a machine with a modern Ryzen or Tiger-Lake chip that makes a much more usable experience for a variety of tasks.
[+] [-] code_duck|4 years ago|reply
My goal was to compile and write something using Python and OpenCV, a computer vision library. While one can indeed run Linux apps, the vast majority of what I needed was not pre-compiled. Compiling led to issues with having to compile parts of the toolchain, which went up a couple levels of recursion. Compile some library so you can compile some other library so you can compile a program to compile some thing that she used to compile some package. Then library conflicts, and so forth. I haven’t needed to do this since about 2004. Plus, then waiting for a Chromebook to compile large packages can take all day.
There’s no way I’d try this again versus just getting a normal laptop and installing Linux.
[+] [-] riccardomc|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jackconsidine|4 years ago|reply
[1] https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/ssh [2] https://colab.research.google.com/?utm_source=scs-index [3] https://cloud.geny.io/
[+] [-] gofreddygo|4 years ago|reply
I can imagine this for a collaborative task, but not much else.
Local computation has always led teams I've worked in to a superior (personalized, decentralized, fault tolerant, highly parallel) mode of operation.
My tryst with working with remote computation ended when the 5 VMs we were using as a team for development were locked out and decommissioned without a notice due to a devops error. Thankfully, I did have local equivalents, which I habitually worked on and copied over to the VM for execution, not so much for my team members.
[+] [-] nmfisher|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] allanrbo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] schwartzworld|4 years ago|reply
Now I mainly use it for GCompris for my kids.
[+] [-] haliskerbas|4 years ago|reply
(source OMSCS grad, seen this happen to others)
[+] [-] jay3ss|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] atdt|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rootusrootus|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] comprev|4 years ago|reply