
Show HN: Visual Studio Code for Chromebooks and Raspberry Pi - headmelted
https://code.headmelted.com
======
Delfino
I got excited for a moment because I thought this might solve one of my minor
problems as a K-12 CS teacher. Every school I've taught at is 1-1 with
chromebooks and to be able to code on them so far I've set up a Raspberry pi
and had students use the Secure Shell App from the Chrome Store to connect to
the Pi. This comes with the overhead of needing to teach them to use ssh,
basic linux commands and text-based interfaces in general and using nano
(simpler than vim). But I'd love to skip all that and just let them code on
their machines. Alternatively, I've used websites like codepen or repl.it to
have them code online but this has the downside of requiring an internet
connection (fails occasionally so need to have back-up lesson plans) and
privacy concerns of having students sign up (my first district required
companies to sign a data sharing agreement before this was allowed).

Unfortunately, I'm not able to install Ubuntu on the student chromebooks and
they don't support linux apps so this solution will work for me.

~~~
robgibbons
Out of the box, Chromebooks are really not intended to do much other than
consume web-based content, including sites like CodePen or other web-coding
interfaces. It seems like you've explored those options fairly well.

If you can't modify the machines to run full Linux environments (ala crouton),
you're mostly stuck with web-based experiences, or the apps provided to you by
the Chrome Web Store.

Teaching your students to SSH into a Linux box and teaching them basic BASH
skills is pretty worthwhile in itself. You seem to have made the best of a
quirky situation.

~~~
skybrian
This is no longer true, at least for some Chromebooks. There is support for
running Linux apps in a container:

[https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/9145439?hl=en](https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/9145439?hl=en)

[https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/docs/+/master/c...](https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/docs/+/master/containers_and_vms.md#Supported-
Now)

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TheLoneTechNerd
I think you'd get far more traffic if you linked to a page that actually has
information ([https://code.headmelted.com/](https://code.headmelted.com/))
instead of to the list of builds!

In any case, this is awesome and I'll definitely give it a try

~~~
sctb
Thanks, we've updated the link from
[https://github.com/headmelted/codebuilds/releases](https://github.com/headmelted/codebuilds/releases).

~~~
headmelted
Thanks for this, wasn't sure which was best to use.

------
0xCMP
Interesting, for what it's worth you can already run VSCode on Chromebooks
using Intel processors.

It's my preferred editor right now on my Pixelbook running from the Embedded
Linux container beta.

~~~
headmelted
I wasn't sure which was the better link to post but I've written about exactly
this here:

[https://headmelted.com/visual-studio-code-for-
arm64-67c19625...](https://headmelted.com/visual-studio-code-for-
arm64-67c19625ba2c)

Basically it's the ARM and ARM64 support that's new. For anyone who has a
device that supports the official Linux apps containers I steer them down that
route, the Crouton method is kept around for older kernel devices (as their
out of luck wrt official Linux support, sadly)

~~~
Theodores
Thanks for your efforts, as a long time Chromebook user I am truly impressed
particularly with the Crouton build for those of us with the original Pixel
and no Android apps.

Currently I am not in Developer Mode and I have a linux box for running a
different IDE. I am okay with my Pixel being for testing and non-dev things.

So, before I powerwash the thing and get Crouton working again (which I am
slightly loathed to do since the five year support period is over), could I
please have a few screen shots? I hope I am speaking here not just for myself
but for others with a loved but dated Chromebook and questions about how this
would work in the file-less world of ChromeOS where I am not so likely to be
able to sync my files to a remote server. If I am to swap over to a different
IDE then I need a few pictures to persuade me that the efforts are worthwhile.
The Pixel (original vintage) has the best
screen/keyboard/trackpad/speakers/design of any laptop ever made even if the
CPU is a bit lame by today's standards and the battery doesn't last all day.
So it would be nice to code on.

------
robgibbons
The main seller here is ARM support for a modern IDE.

A few years back, my "main" machine was a Samsung Chromebook 2 (13") running
Xubuntu (Ubuntu with XFCE) via crouton. Surprisingly snappy and quite useful
as a thin client/web coding machine.

My biggest gripe back then was the lack of Sublime builds for ARM machines.
This then, would be pretty welcome to anyone in that niche.

~~~
jcelerier
> The main seller here is ARM support for a modern IDE.

pretty sure all the common linux IDEs, QtCreator, KDevelop, Gnome Builder,
etc. work fine on ARM

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Trouble is (and I say this as a full-time Linux user and developer) all of the
above are _terrible IDEs_.

~~~
swebs
QtCreator is really great.

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jmkni
Great to see you’re still at this Jay, I remember the original post from a
year or so ago, very nice work!

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michaelbuckbee
This is cool, but I'd love to hear what others have setup as far as developer
setup with their Chromebooks? Do you use VS Code locally and actually run your
servers/terminals on a VPS? Something more clever locally with Docker or a VM?

~~~
ajstarks
See:
[https://twitter.com/ajstarks/status/1076694459717480448?s=20](https://twitter.com/ajstarks/status/1076694459717480448?s=20)

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headmelted
Explanatory post of the new parts (inc. ARM64)

[https://headmelted.com/visual-studio-code-for-
arm64-67c19625...](https://headmelted.com/visual-studio-code-for-
arm64-67c19625ba2c)

------
ardian_b
Apart from the project itself, it seems contact section link does not work. I
guess it should be anchored to page header. Interesting project anyway, +1
star on Github :)

~~~
headmelted
Thanks, will get a look at the contact link and patch it up.

The star is appreciated! :-)

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voltagex_
What (kind of) code changes were required?

~~~
headmelted
No changes to the code itself - these are builds of the OSS Code from MS'
Github.

In terms of the builds themselves, they're using Archie:

[https://headmelted.com/introducing-archie-
cbf77a7a64fb](https://headmelted.com/introducing-archie-cbf77a7a64fb)

(on Github at
[https://github.com/headmelted/archie](https://github.com/headmelted/archie))

------
saagarjha
Has anyone tried this? How does this perform?

~~~
headmelted
I run it on a Chromebook Flip and a RPi 3.

It runs well for the light projects I use it for, and I've yet to encounter
plugins that don't work - although I'm sure they exist.

