I Use a Chromebook
aboutchromebooks.com
aboutchromebooks.com
Nobody on our team used Chromebooks - everybody got a Mac - but I thought I'll give it a go.
Well it was a mistake. Having a computer that doesn't work as a computer is frustrating. Congratulations to everyone who can convince themselves they don't "need" things that computers do while using a computer.
Yes, one can do a lot with a browser. But the list of things you can't do is immensely vaster. The compromise can make sense when you use a tablet or a phone, and have a specialized OS tailored to the use case.
But Chromebooks are literally just laptop PCs. You get all the disadvantages of using a laptop (size, weight, etc), while getting all the disadvantages of trying to do things on a phone OS. It's a lose-lose scenario.
The question here is not what the author can do with their Chromebooks, or why it works for them. The question is what someone could gain from using a Chromebook over a similarly-sized laptop running Windows/Linux/MacOS.
The author claims it's "snappiness" - by comparing to Windows 10 running on absolute crap hardware. I'm not convinced, but I'll take their word. Of course, that doesn't apply if you buy non-crap, but slightly older hardware.
It's not foolproof, but these are good candidate devices for the terminally computer illiterate. Scam call centers aren't trained on ChromeOS takeovers as well as they are for Windows, but the user interface is close enough to Windows for users trained to use Windows. In case of large trouble, powerwash is easily accessible and fast. The ephemeral nature means replacing hardware doesn't require data transfer. The big downside is it's tied to a Google account, which means if you can't manage a Google account (because you like resetting your password instead of finding your password book, and writing the new password somewhere else you can't find, etc), you're going to end up with a Guest login account which is less functional.
Point taken, but you really got to have no faither in those users.
Even my 80+ year old grandparents learned Windows well enough to use for their needs. And all in all, Windows 95 has been miles ahead of Chrome OS in discoverability and UX.
Sadly, yes. I hope the trend to make everything look shiny (and hard to use) reverses one day. Agreeing on the rest - lack of features is a feature in this case.
Windows 95 was even more susceptible to the 15 browser bar extension crap.
2) Don't buy a chromeos device with an arm processor
3) Don't buy a chromeos device with an atom processor
4) Maybe don't buy one with an AMD processor, but I'm not sure?
You're unlikely to brick the laptop anyway, but if you rely on the Google firmware to boot other operating systems, it's easy to accidentally push the wrong button and wipe the drive during boot, and I recall reading about some models that did bad things if the battery fully ran down and they lost firmware battery ram storage.
Q: I want to buy a Chromebook to run Windows or Linux -- which should I buy?
A: Buying any modern (2017+) Chromebook with the intention of running Windows or Linux is a terrible idea, period. Most can't boot anything other than ChromeOS, and those that can run it poorly. Older models may fair better compatibility wise, but there are still lots of caveats, and it's not recommended to buy a Chromebook as a cheap Linux device. The days where Chromebooks ran Linux well ended with the 2015 models.
Also the "Supported Devices" part of the site suggests going here: https://wiki.galliumos.org/Hardware_Compatibility Which does not show anything working post 2019.
Am I missing something?
He basically seems tired of angry emails from amatuers who brick their machines. Suzy qables aren't even available anymore, so to do what I'm talking about, you need to open the chromebook, disconnect the battery, and rewrite the firmware on the SOIC-8 chip from the command line. If you screw this up, you have a brick and need a CH341A SPI flash programmer to restore the firmware backup. You have one of those handy in a drawer somewhere? Then you might be the target audience. Otherwise, maybe you should reconsider doing this.
I've tried putting both plain Arch and Debian on it, but the networking seems hit and miss. But that's alright because it's not my main machine. Makes a great auxiliary computer though!
It is somewhat slow but cheap, lightweight and the battery holds forever.
This thing is quite practical for surfing on the couch or writing the odd email while on vacation.
I would never consider this for serious work but i really like it as a sort larger smartphone with a keyboard which can run Linux applications if need be.
As a student i used one of those crappy Netbooks that thing was more expensive and (not considering the privacy issues of ChromeOs) way worse.
Those Chromebooks are fine as sort of a more capable tablet which you use alongside a "proper" Desktop/Laptop.
They look like cheap laptops to me. And they are priced like cheap laptops as well, with all the pains it entails.
You must be kidding, right?
By that standard, my monitor can run any app in the world... as long as I plug it into a computer that runs it!
Thin clients have been a thing for a while. They don't run apps. That's the point.
No, he's not. You can run Android applications on the device, they're not running remotely. You can also run Linux applications using Crostini, on the device.
The real limitation I found with either of these approaches is that they are sandboxed in such a way as the apps are always hobbled. Android applications can only reach a sandboxed file system. Linux apps can't use GPU. Neither can read USB storage. Stuff like that.
Some of those may be fixed now, but after trying for a couple of years, I eventually gave up on ChromeOS ever working as advertised in that regard. Running applications on ChromeOS is a sort of toy feature that might work, but if it doesn't, don't expect any attention in making it work, because you're the weirdo trying to run apps on ChromeOS.
>run almost any app on the planet with Chrome Remote Desktop
Sure, any device that can run RealVNC is capable of running "almost any app on the planet" then.
Anyway why waste money on a Chromebook when GNU/Linux laptops are much cheaper or have similar price points.
Well, yeah, and if someone says your monitor sucks because it can’t even run apps, that’s exactly what your response would be. That’s not a slight against your monitor or against a Chromebook.
Makes sense.
Similarly, a car seat is a vehicle: it can get a person to another place (as long as it's installed in a car).
Isn't that the entire point of a dumb terminal, which a Chromebook essentially is?
Chromebooks are the end result of making terminals smarter and smarter until they're just computers with artificial restrictions on which programs they can run. That's a valid product if you want to subject yourself (retail chromebooks) or others (school fleets) to such restrictions, but pretending it's innovative because you have to work around limitations you needlessly imposed on yourself is a bit daft.
But, we can acknowledge the real reason what they're doing with Chromebook is interesting: security.
If you take away the keys to my home I will not feel more secure, nor be more secure - I will be more ignorant about security, that's it. The same applies here.
This has been a meme for longer than it was taken seriously.