I can agree that Ubuntu is vastly better than ChromeOS. Chrome in Ubuntu is far faster than Chrome in ChromeOS. That having been said, the rest of the environment is still too slow for my taste, even with a conservative window manager, and that's with me shelled into my server for compiles and the like.
Also, I've not fired it up since my free subscription expired, but the latest version of Ubuntu very happily sees and offers to enable the 3G card.
(final note, if this spurs anyone to google "install ubuntu on cr-48", I will advise you that opening the cr-48, taping the bios-write-protection to disable it, and installing (32-bit) Ubuntu from a jump drive is vastly easier than the other two options which require VirtualBox and/or replacing the user filesystem in place with scripts that haven't been updated for some time)
Also, I've not fired it up since my free subscription expired, but the latest version of Ubuntu very happily sees and offers to enable the 3G card.
(final note, if this spurs anyone to google "install ubuntu on cr-48", I will advise you that opening the cr-48, taping the bios-write-protection to disable it, and installing (32-bit) Ubuntu from a jump drive is vastly easier than the other two options which require VirtualBox and/or replacing the user filesystem in place with scripts that haven't been updated for some time)