My experiences with GalliumOS, a ChromeOS replacement

For some time, I had needed a platform somewhere between my high-end desktop and my cell phone, and I decided to invest in a chromebook to fill the gap. I ended up purchasing an acer c720 haswell edition.

Yes, I know google tracks everything I do.
Yes, I'd like some personal space from their prying eyes.
But my main reason to trade ChromeOS for a replacement was for the additional functionality.

I've heard of people installing various distributions of linux using the crouton method for some time now, but I had been looking for a permanent replacement, and not just something to run alongside the current os. In the past, I had used the crouton method to test ElementaryOS, which had caught my eye. Unfortunately, i'm no linux wizard, and when it threw up in my face a few days later, I opted to factory reset my chromebook.

I still desired the additional functionality, but until i could find another OS limited in size, but with a smooth look and feel, I opted to stay with ChromeOS.

Until I found GalliumOS.

Currently, GalliumOS is still in beta (although for the few hours I have been using it, I have had no issues). I discovered GalliumOS while combing various forums for a specialized version of mint for chromebooks.

Although GalliumOS is basically Xubuntu at it's core, the developers have included driver packages for chromebook touchpads, and as tested, they work out of the box. I am only a mere few hours into testing, but some other things I did during my couple of hours of testing included the installation of steam, and the testing of a few games. I do not have any software to count what fps the games were running at, but I will provide my best estimate as to what the framerate was.

Braid, the time-traveling indie side scroller, ran reasonably well, at what I would perceive to be 30-40 fps.

Terraria barely ran, even on the lowest settings; i would estimate that I achieved ~10fps

Cities: Skylines loaded into the menu, but nothing else was playable. It would crash to desktop during the loading process.

Portal (yes the original, i wanted to test something that ran in source. Lowest settings, btw) was finnicky. At times, I would receive close to what looked to be 60fps, and at others, it would dip to ~15.

An unplanned benefit I noticed through steam was that in-home streaming worked like a dream. As my main computer has no issue running any of these games, although the difference between 1920x1080 and 1366x768 can make some details hard to see.

I plan on testing additional features of the os, as well as how games run on this model, and posting updates here.

Info about GalliumOS can be found on https://galliumos.org/

1/24/2016 update & other notes

Only a few other things of note today.

First, when I shut the screen and re-open it, I am always faced with a lock screen, which can get somewhat annoying. There may possibly be a way to change it, but nothing I have noticed so far.

Second, the screen backlight does not stay on whenever I'm watching videos on the internet. I was watching the most resent episode of The Tek, and it went out on me. Again, just nitpicking.

Third, the volume controller is ATROCIOUS. ChromeOS's simple two-button management does not work, and the volume control in what "system tray" (or at least that what it looks like) does not have a simple master volume slider. This is my first and only major issue with GalliumOS so far.

More updates to follow.

Why didn't you try remix o.s. ?

Because, until this point, I haven't heard of it.

After a short look, it seems to be targeted to run on Mac systems, with a familiar interface for apple users. I have some experience with linux, and I like how it looks and feels over it's apple counterparts.

Its mean to copy windows but o.k...

Start menu, Resizable windows etc.