
Chromebook can make a surprisingly sweet machine for a developer - mzehrer
http://pbrisbin.com/posts/chromebook
======
jkldotio
I don't see the point in using a crippled operating system when it will
prevent you from quickly editing a low res screen cast or editing an image in
the GIMP. Machines in that price range have enough performance to do some of
these tasks even if they're not optimal for them. If I'm on the move away from
a bigger system I might still need to do it though, so not having that
capacity just because of someone's "in the cloud" dream is silly.

It's already bad enough that Google maims some of the Nexus line by disabling
tethering. Android is also inflexible in many ways regarding having a local
easy to use file system etc. I personally can't wait to get off Android and
onto Ubuntu mobile or Firefox OS.

~~~
bobbydavid
As stated in the article, the "point" is to have the same functionality for a
fraction of the cost. You can still run image editing software or whatever
you'd run on your workstation using NX. That's somewhat inconvenient, but then
it boots faster with no malware, and you are guaranteed nothing important is
only stored locally. So it's a trade-off, not a "crippling" as you've put it.
Some folks, like the author, barely notice a difference in quality yet save
$1000, and that feels good.

~~~
jkldotio
I can get the same functionality in terms of hardware at the more or less same
cost, certainly not $1000 more as you claim. A 1.7gighz ARM or the other
versions aren't more powerful than a 1.6gighz or higher Atom processor at the
same price point.

And I can run a real operating system on that hardware with no problems. My
laptop boots in less than 10 seconds and I trust Ubuntu just as much as a
Chromebook for security. If you are worried about the security of local files
you can encrypt your drive, very simply in the last few versions of Ubuntu but
I don't bother, if needs be.

None of the points you make in favour of the Chromebook are exclusive to it,
what's exclusive to it though is you can't get access to the vast flexibility
of a local system and have to go through NX.

That's all fine for people who only do back-end stuff, or Google if they want
their employees to "dog food" living in the cloud, but for someone who wants
to be able to do normal everyday things like edit images, test locally or any
of the many other advantages of a flexible system it doesn't really cut it. If
there were locally running JavaScript equivalents for image editing and
everything else we'd be a bit closer to feature parity but I still wouldn't
see the major attraction.

~~~
lelandbatey
Can you link to this notebook you're talking about? I'd love a $200 notebook
that's better than a Chromebook.

~~~
alphamale3000
It's called a Chromebook with Ubuntu on it.

------
Zenst
Any cheap old laptop works just as well if not better if you just want to use
ssh into another box!

I personaly snapped up a nice Asus netbook with built in 3g modem, wifi and
bluetooth and cuts a lovely battery life.

But a nice cheap chromebook is probably the best option for most unless you
can find a cheap netbook of comparable use.

Though ironicly none have beat my old psion 5mx
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_Series_5>) for battery life and that can
do ssh as well, sadly though IRDA and serial are not the cutting edge comm's
standards. Have been a few that come close, but just not jumped out at me.

That said I'm still awaiting for something of that form factor with some
modern love.

That all said if Mr Linux Linus is happy with a chromebook as a dev machince,
then they must be doing something right, though a Chrome pixel just for SSH
would be fiscal perversion on my budget.

~~~
mtgx
A cheap netbook of the same price will invariably be worse in some way, since
the Windows license cost is included, so they've had to cut corners somewhere,
and it might not show in the specs list, but in the build quality of the
device, its thinness/lightness, the quality of the display, etc

~~~
untog
Not necessarily. Dell sold Ubuntu laptops that cost more than the Windows one,
because they made money by charging software companies to have their software
bundled with Windows. There's also the issue of scale- a production run of
Linux laptops would sell considerably less than Windows ones.

------
habosa
I say this on every Chromebook thread but I'll say it again because I see a
lot of the same negativity as usual: the Samsung ARM Chromebook is f*cking
awesome.

It's $250 so there's no argument about buying X or Y netbook instead, you can
barely get anything with a keyboard that browses the internet for that price.
Also for that price you get 2 (3?) years of 100GB on Google Drive and 12 Gogo
WiFi passes, which together are already worth over $250. So you can throw the
device in the trash and still come out on top. Now to the computer itself:

First, the battery life is awesome, 6.5 hours of solid use (WiFi model) and
since it turns on from cold in ~7 seconds you can turn it off between sessions
and not lose any power at all. If that's too long for you just close the lid,
you'll lose about 1% per hour but everything resumes instantly when you open
it (and I do mean INSTANTLY).

Second, the hardware is really excellent for the price. The keyboard is my
favorite laptop keyboard out there (even against my MBP) and the trackpad is
second only to Apple devices imo. It's the same weight/size as a MacBook Air
but maybe 0.2" thicker. The only hardware downsides are the plastic chassis
and the screen's somewhat bad viewing angles.

Third, it runs most of what you need right out of the box. I don't even have
my in developer mode, you don't need that to use Google's Secure Shell and
Remote Desktop Chrome extensions. It has an Offline version of Google Drive so
you can keep your most important documents local and everything syncs when
you're connected.

Fourth, it's stress-free. Because everything is synchronized to the cloud and
the hardware is so cheap, you never have to worry about this thing. If it
breaks (which it won't easily), just go to your nearest Best Buy, drop $250,
and sign in with you Google account and you'll be back exactly where you left
off (even down to the tabs you had open).

I really can't recommend this device more highly. It's definitely not the
right device for full-time development but as a companion to a larger laptop
or a desktop it's a perfect second machine and much more useful than an iPad
or Transformer-style tablet (I've had both).

------
vittore
I just don't understand this attempts to use shitty and cheap piece of
hardware to do development. You are not coding for food, right? Why bother
yourself trying to use something that will make you so counterproductive?

Need powerful something - get desktop.

Need something slim and sexy - get f __ __* macbookair

Need both - get pro

Need internet connection on the go - get nexus if you use tablet.

Oh don't need it -use tetering on your phone.

It is expensive - get Clear device

Yes, it will need more money than shitty chromebook, but you are making money
with it, so it's worth _investing_ in your everyday companion a little.

What I'm missing?

~~~
llgrrl_
I need my balls not to be cooked by the power-hungry processors.

I need a light shit because I walk with my backpack a lot.

I need the key layout on the keyboard not a pain in the ass.

I need my palm to be like little Fonzie. What Fonzie like? It's cool.

I need standard linux, because I don't care enough to learn about all the
quirks of Apple.

I need to have a thing that is light, 3G-capable, has good key layout, cool,
and I forget to mention, I'm cheap too. So ask me why do I need to spend 5
times as much for your Macbook again?

~~~
workbench
To be fair a Macbook is going to support Linux much better and longer term
than the Chromebook.

Seen as it's an actual computer and all not a locked down Google product that
needs to be rooted to install an OS in the first place.

~~~
llgrrl_
Last time I tried installing Linux (/Ubuntu) on a Macbook it was a balls
cooking experience with the combination of NVidia and Intel. Pure intel HD
might be better, but why do I want to solve those problems in the first place?

------
rwmj
I used one (running Fedora 17) for a couple of weeks as a light development
machine, and wrote about it here:

[https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/some-thoughts-
after-2-...](https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/some-thoughts-
after-2-5-weeks-with-the-samsung-chromebook/#content)

Note I was using it for disconnected development on the road, not as a fancy
ssh client as in the article.

The upshot is that it's not too bad as a development machine. But you
definitely want to root it and put something other than ChromeOS on it.
Fedora, Ubuntu and other regular Linux distros are available.

------
johnbellone
I am not sure I actually see myself doing development on this hardware. Maybe
it is due to the type of work I am doing now and the requirement of the sheer
amount of data/services running locally. But I wouldn't mind using this
essentially as an operating environment with a few tmux sessions open.

The more that I tinker with OpenStack and generally setting up virtualized
services I am beginning to be sway towards never necessarily needing to buy a
desktop machine again.

Up until a few months ago my machines sat around just to collect dust. But I
see a future where a Chromebook style machine can easily connect to a VPN with
an OpenStack cloud powering development. Its actually quite damn easy now if
you invest the time.

The only reason I do not do this now is that I have been unable to find a
machine with decent enough resolution and great battery life. But I've told
myself that my next laptop (right now a 15 inch MacBook Pro) will be something
significantly smaller.

I just hope that the retina displays catch up with the rest of the industry.

~~~
seabrookmx
The Samsung Chromebooks get 6-7hours of battery life.

You aren't getting Retina/Pixel resolution with the cheap Chromebook, but my
Series 5 is 1280 x 800, which is the same resolution as the 13" Macbook Pro's
(pre-retina) were. This is quite decent considering the average 15.6" cheapo
laptop runs 1366 x 768.

------
jbeard4
I'd be curious to hear more about installing chrooted Debian/Ubuntu to provide
a full GNU userland locally. I'm still not quite sure what this would look
like, or what the limitations might be.

~~~
andrus
Crouton is awesome—you get a chrooted Ubuntu accessible via crosh. You have
CLI access with `sudo enter-chroot` and can launch XFCE4 with `sudo
startxfce4`.

I never use XFCE, but if you do, you can seamlessly toggle between ChromeOS
and XFCE with a keyboard shortcut (e.g. a YouTube video playing in ChromeOS
remains playing if you switch to XFCE).

~~~
workbench
Can you not replace ChromeOS completely?

Seems a bit of a hacky mess if not TBH

~~~
andrus
Crouton is actually a breeze to use. While the crouton script itself might
have a few hacks under-the-hood, the end result is quite slick. Everything
just installs under `/usr/local/chroots'. Removing one of your potentially
many chrooted installs is just an `rm -rf'.

I prefer keeping ChromeOS primary and just opening a crosh window to expose
one of these chroots (a browser and terminal is similar to my work environment
on a Mac). Granted, XFCE can act weird if you choose to launch it, but I've
never needed that functionality.

If you do want to completely replace ChromeOS, there's Chrubuntu.

~~~
workbench
Crouton is interesting and I can see why people would like it. It's just I
couldn't invest long term in something that requires effort on Googles part to
support as they could drop support at any point.

Haven't heard of Chrubuntu I'll definitely check that out thanks!

------
sxp
Dropping down to dev mode to get access to ssh is overkill. I suggest
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/secure-
shell/pnhec...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/secure-
shell/pnhechapfaindjhompbnflcldabbghjo?utm_source=chrome-ntp-icon) which lets
you run SSH as a normal Chrome extension.

~~~
georgemcbay
You can just ssh via crosh without having to install anything extra. ssh in
crosh does not require developer mode to be on.

~~~
andrus
Also, last I checked, Secure Shell relies on an NaCl plugin incompatible with
the Samsung ARM Chromebook.

~~~
packetslave
ARM support for Secure Shell was released in 0.8.8 in December.

~~~
andrus
I picked up a Samsung ARM Chromebook two weeks ago, installed both the latest
Secure Shell and the Development version. Neither worked :-/

------
gregulrajani
I have a chroot'ed Samsung Intel Chromebook that makes an OK development
machine for small projects using Eclipse/Java/H2/Jetty. If I fully rooted it
the extra ram would make the machine a bit more useful.

<https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton/wiki/>

~~~
seabrookmx
crouton runs surprisingly well. I've noticed a few hiccups though - I still
can't get my trackpad to work smoothly on my original Series 5.

------
jebblue
>> Right out of the box, things work quite well. The Secure Shell browser
extension can give you an xterm-compliant terminal directly in a browser tab.
>> Be sure to install the Crosh Window browser extension. It allows you to
pull the browser-tab terminal out into its own window. Without it, many
important key bindings will be swallowed by the browser.

Or just buy a new laptop, delete Windows and install Ubuntu and have a real
machine with real software, not browser based similarities.

edits: fixing my brain's desire to misspell buy.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Can you (or any of the others making this same argument) explain to the rest
of us why one bunch of bits running in environment a is 'real' and another
bunch running in environment b is 'fake' (or 'unreal', or 'toy', or whatever
disparaging term you care to use)? Last time I looked, JavaScript IS turing-
complete.

~~~
jebblue
I can't speak for others, when I was a kid, computers were powerful machines
locked away and operated by seemingly mythical people. When I started reading
about them I realized quickly there's nothing mythical, magical or mysterious
about them at all. Then I wondered why isn't this power available to anyone,
to everyone? It dawned on me in a flash, power and control.

I keep the cloud at an arm's distance, those computing resources are not owned
or controlled by me. The cloud, given full control like a ChromeBook, takes
all of the control away from me.

------
cpursley
With Nitrous.io (previously action.io) <https://www.nitrous.io/#aio> any
device with a large enough screen and a modern web browser makes an excellent
dev machine. Been using it for the past several weeks. For web apps, it's the
future. Basically no configuration and you get a linux environment that is
similar to most production environments.

------
hollerith
This is the $250 ARM Chromebook he is writing about BTW.

------
sramsay
I'm so tempted to get one of these. With the shell plugin, I have access to my
very high-powered servers, and Chrome comes with a nice development
environment. Besides that, it's cheap and light -- a perfect roadkit.

The only problem I see is the keyboard. I _hate_ typing on netbook keyboards.
I don't even like the keyboard on the Macbook Air.

Maybe I'd get used to it after awhile?

~~~
habosa
I love the keyboard on my Chomebook however it's very similar to a Macbook Pro
keyboard (which is similar to Macbook Air)

------
jerrya
What I want is a Chromebook that can use a Nexus 10 (or two), or Nexus 7 as an
additional display.

~~~
idiot900
Not quite the same thing, but you can get a Bluetooth keyboard for your Nexus
10.

------
macspoofing
It's a sweet machine because you're able to use ssh ... using a special
"developer" boot option? Come on people.

~~~
packetslave
SSH does not require a "special developer boot option". You install the
SecureShell chrome extension and you're done.

~~~
tmzt
It's actually included on the ARM Chromebook now, I was able to launch it in
Best Buy after search for the instructions on my phone (it's Ctrl-Alt-T).

The author is referring to launching normal ssh instead of the version
included in cros shell which has a weird runtime configuration menu (much like
ftp) and some limitations.

You do need dev mode to start bash even as a non-privileged user
unfortunately.

------
rorrr2
Chromebook Pixel is $1,300. For that amount of money you can get a really
really nice laptop. It won't have a super-high-res screen, but it will have a
proper high-end i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM, 500GB SSD, video card enough to play
modern games, etc.

I don't know about you, but performance matters for me. I don't want to wait
twice as long for a DB to import, or a SQL query to run.

------
workbench
> sweet

Is a massive exaggeration

