Thirteen days ago I switched from a loaded Macbook Air to an HP Chromebook 11 .
Admittedly, software developers are not the target market for Google’s Chromebook and Chrome OS. Most of the developers I know believe that their work requires the most powerful computer they can afford. I was once in this camp as well, and when I purchased my previous machine (even though it was under-powered in comparison to larger notebooks) I made sure that I “optioned it up” so I wouldn’t find myself suddenly trapped without enough processing power to do my daily work. As it would turn out, it wasn’t the limits of the hardware that held me back, but those of the software.
I’ve been a Unix and Linux user for years, and switched from Thinkpads running Redhat to Macbooks when Apple switched to using the NeXT-based OSX, having been a long-time fan of NeXT STEP, but over the last few years I’ve decided to make a conscious effort to use only open technologies, and after multiple failed attempts at getting the MBA to run Linux well, I decided to look for an alternative.
I won’t go into details about the search, but suffice it to say in the end the machine that fit the most of my needs while being great at running Linux turned out to be the surprisingly nice and inexpensive Chromebook 11.
I’ll cut to the chase and say that after having used my daughter’s 11 for a few hours (as we attempted to make it run Minecraft), the only concern I had about making one my “daily driver” was the 16GB of internal storage. All my other needs were met, including a good keyboard (as laptop keyboards go), good battery life, a nice display and a good balance between screen size and portability. On-board processing power seemed adequate under Chrome OS and even better under Linux, and in every other way that matters to me the machine performs as well (or better) than the Macbook Air.
What genuinely surprised me was just how well it runs Linux, and how easy it was to get it setup thanks to David Schnider’s Crouton . Following the instructions on the Crouton Github page, you can have your Chromebook running Linux in about 30 minutes (most of which is waiting for things to download and install themselves). When you’re done, you’ll have a nice fast Linux box where all the hardware works and best of all you can flip almost instantaneously between Linux and Chrome OS using a keyboard combination. This lets you use Chrome OS for the things it does well (web browsing, Google Docs, etc.) and use Linux for what it does well and keep both environments running side-by-side. Save for the fact that you can’t cut-and-paste between the two, it’s quite a seamless setup!
So in my case almost all of my “productivity” work (email, documents, drawings, etc.) are done using web-based applications which work great under Chrome OS. Additionally I do most of my web debugging and testing using Chrome so these tasks can be carried out under Chrome OS as well.
The Linux side comes in to play when it’s time to run code, most of which for me these days is node.js or Python which easily runs well within the limits of the Chromebook’s hardware. Additionally other system utilities (network monitors, etc.) are run under Linux as well as databases (postgresql, redis) and other server components necessary for my software development projects.
The Linux side also gets use running applications that are not available via a browser, such as media management, file conversion and some 3d-printing related things (modeling tools, slicing software, etc.), all of which perform adequately as well.
So with all this good news what about the limited file storage? For now I’ve learned to be cognizant of it and work within the constraints of what’s available. I don’t store media files and other types of storage-consuming things and instead stream the media I need or store it in Google Drive (I should mention that the Chromebook 11 comes with a bonus 100GB of Google Drive storage). That said it’s a concern, and I’m planning to test running my Linux environment on a USB flash drive to give everything a little more room to breathe.
My next post will discuss the process of selecting a device to expand the Chromebook’s storage, migrating an existing Linux chroot environment and an assessment of the impact this has on usability of the environment.