I’m just wondering if anyone here uses a chromebook?
What do you use?
Do you keep up to date on the new developments that are coming out? (containers, etc.)
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I have a Acer C720 that has Gallium OS installed on it.
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I actually use a Chromebook.
I’m using an Acer that will be end of life this year. That said I’m on the Dev Chrome OS Channel. I’m submitting bugs as I come across them.
Yeah I’m keeping up with the Chrome OS.
https://chromeunboxed.com/ Is a pretty good site to go to for news for chrome os.
https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/ is where you can get the offical news on the different chromes. [Note it is all of chrome and not just Chrome OS.]
https://blog.google/products/chromebooks/ - Googles Blog space for Chromebooks.
I do want to play with the container stuff but it isn’t out yet I think? I do plan to get another Chromebook so I can keep playing with Chrome OS.
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I also have been submitting bugs on occasion, and they seem to be quite responsive (when having submitted bugs via https://crbug.com), I’m not sure how they manage feedback via the OS, but it’s quite easy to do.
Some container stuff has hit recently that someone has put some stuff together to get it setup early https://github.com/lstoll/cros-crostini/blob/master/README.md
I think containers will change chromos quite a bit.
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I’m using my Chromebook (pixelbook) away from home at the moment, so I’ve not played with it yet, I was planning to play around with it later on the weekend or next week. I will report back.
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Do you plan to upgrade to a new chromebook, keep using the one you have or move away from the OS?
@iwbtsa.exe how do you find Gallium OS?
My plan is to get a new Chromebook and install Gallium on the old Chromebook.
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I did not know this…
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I have the original mario cr-48 but I installed debian on it since it recently went out of support.
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For a huge number of use cases it’s a no brainer. They are easy to use and very secure.
Unfortunately I have had the opertunity to come across people who argue that they are unhackable, you never get away from these types of people on any OS. But that’s not the case, they are extremely difficult to break but they have had some flaws in the past and they are susceptible to malware in chrome apps and android apps within a limited scope.
Unlike other OS’ chromeos is built with security from the ground up for almost every aspect of the system. I think it has a lot going for it.
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But can it run crysis?
Besides browsing, accessing gdrive and ssh’ing into machines, what else can it do to replace a Linux laptop?
There’s no Chromebooks with dedicated GPUs that I know of so no 
It depends on your use case.
I’ve been seeing Twitter posts and such of dev types that use Chromebooks, be it through apps or the simple fact most of the work being done is by remoting into dev environments. Work is getting big on thin and even zero clients, so i guess the writing is on the wall…
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It depends is probably the real answer.
Chromium OS is definitely an OS geared towards online work, it works best online than offline. But that is right in the first sentence of their project page.
Chromium OS is an open-source project that aims to build an operating system that provides a fast, simple, and more secure computing experience for people who spend most of their time on the web.
While saying that, the OS is still heavily evolving. We saw android integration come to chromos, so any current gen (at least) Chromebook has access to the play store as well.
Containers are still being moved forward that will provide the ability to run “native” apps in a sandboxed container, this is probably going to be a huge change for the OS and opens up a lot more possibility without breaking their goal on security.
There’s also progressive web apps that both Google and now Microsoft are moving towards that you’ll likely see more and more of everywhere, from traditional Linux and windows desktop to mobile, and likely chromeos.
Unless you need a specific applications like adobe (which you can’t get on Linux anyway), Chromebooks at the moment fit the needs probably of a large portion of people. It would definitely work for me both at home and work in certain use cases as I use other systems for other specialised programs already.
There’s to many use cases to list, but if you had something in mind that could be explored.
I’d say a Chromebook may be of use to people looking for anything that’s lightweight, simple, secure, for web, media, writing, communication, note taking, some design work depending on your tools, Dev work depending on how you do that.
Android really changed the game a bit, containers will change it again (drastically I think). (something I plan to test out).
But again it really does depends on the use case and who it’s for, as there’s many different good reasons to have a Chromebook and to not have one.
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Going to enable dev mode and try out crostini. Will take notes.
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I actually went ahead and installed Gallium OS my Chromebook:
I’ve been very impressed with how it performs. Light Linux. Good Battery Life. I did install Chrome for Amazon Prime and Netflix.
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I successfully setup crostini and a container. Just trying to get an app up and running and see if it works.
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Oh nice. I tried visual studio code, the one that the lstoll guy tried.
It’s not foolproof, VLC worked, but the UI didnt respond. Because its Qt maybe.
@wendell might interest you just out of curiosity.
The instructions weren’t 100% correct, and its not the most elegant thing in the world (run the container, run the program from the command line and it pops up in your main OS. But it is in development afterall.
This is a bit of a game changer.
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Hmmm. 
Might be interesting to get myself a cheap chromebook and hack on it.
Any suggestions for good affordable ones ?
EDIT1: Actually I’ve been looking for an ARM based notebook of sorts for a while now.
Something that can run some light version of linux and allow for really long battery life.
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