[ale] Ot: chromebook

[Jim Kinney]

I love my new Dell XPS 13. Even better, work bought it. The developer
edition ships with Ubuntu. Fedora22 works great. Thanks to the screen
design, it's a 13" in the same space as an 11". Right around 2 pounds. Not
cheap, though. At $1500 that's a lot of chromebooks (except for the pixel).
On Aug 22, 2015 8:11 AM, "DJ-Pfulio" <djpfulio at jdpfu.com> wrote:

> TL;DR - I travel. Been through a few different devices. A $200-300 Dell
> 11in
> laptop would be my choice today.
>
> How I got there ...
>
> I traveled for a year using only a Nokia N800 and BT keyboard.  Found the
> screen
> size an issue. The BT keyboard was the type that folded in half to reduce
> size.
> No number run, no top row F1-F12 either. To get to those is a chord of
> Fn+alt or
> something like that.  Together, both those devices weigh under 2 lbs.
> Battery
> life sucked - perhaps 4 hrs with after market batteries. Swapping
> batteries was
> a reboot of the Debian-based OS. Had to carry a charger, extra batteries,
> separate GPS device, pretty soon it would have been better to have a
> laptop.
>
> When tablets came out, I got everything setup and attempted a 3 week trip
> across
> Europe with a 10in Acer and USB keyboard portfolio.  In about 40% of the
> locations, I was unable to connect back to my servers. At the time, Android
> didn't have enough tools for me to figure out why that happened.  I was
> addicted
> to the small size.  Some of the hotels didn't have wifi - only wired
> ethernet in
> the rooms. This usually happened at the nicer hotels.
>
> After that trip, I started looking for a netbook ... acquired one for free
> - an
> Asus Eee that a relative had been using. He had claimed an iPad was all he
> needed on travel and I took advantage to get the Eee.  Traveled for about
> 3 yrs
> with that device. Always hated the low resolution - felt like I was
> missing more
> than half the pixels - which was true compared to 1200p home system.  I
> started
> noticing it was getting slower - not really - XUbuntu had just become so
> bloated
> so I felt the GUI as getting slower. the 2G of RAM was never an issue. Did
> 5
> continents with the Asus, It is small, clunky, yet capable.
>
> Eventually, the C720 was released and there were step-by-step instructions
> to
> blow away ChromeOS (ran it here for 5 min before wiping). The CPU inside
> should
> be as fast as a C2D from a few years earlier and have 8hrs of battery and
> screen
> was 768p. I could live with that.  Those are the good things. My travel
> since
> getting the C720 has been mostly USA and only 1 overseas trip, but enough
> to
> know it works.  The weight, size, battery life have me addicted to 11in
> netbooks. Still, for me the keyboard is a real issue - knowing I could have
> gotten a dell with the same CPU, more RAM, nicer keyboard for about the
> same
> price after all the mandatory upgrade really bothers me - even today. The
> 2G of
> RAM was an issue until I figured out to double the swap partition size
> from 2G
> to 4G. Since doing that, the system lockups have completely ended. I blame
> firefox bloat on that. I only run 5 programs on the machine (basically).
> * firefox
> * thunderbird
> * xterm (yes, the pure xterm)
> * KeePassX
> * x2go client
> Sure, there are hundreds of other things on the laptop for convenience
> when at
> home, but outside the house, I use x2go to remote back home and surf from
> there
> almost always. Never trust a foreign network, folks.  Plus, I don't want to
> confuse the NSA by having my traffic come from strange places. ;)
>
> I was like you and didn't get a laptop until very late. I didn't see the
> point
> when I had a POWERFUL desktop available to me from anywhere in the world
> that
> cost 1/3rd what a crappy laptop cost AND the desktop was 2-3x faster.  For
> my
> needs, the portable device is just a remote access thing - not needed to
> compile
> (or run) java.
>
> BTW - I've had a 15in Dell laptop since about 2006 - on the 3rd one now.
> The
> current Core i5 (1st gen) hasn't left the house much the last 4 yrs -
> since I
> got the Asus Eee. It is a boat that I simply don't want to carry. There
> isn't
> any need these days - a chromebook can handle everything now - including
> recording presentations.  I use it daily to run (2) 24in monitors which
> connect
> into my normal desktop - a VM running inside a private cloud under KVM.
> That
> desktop is available to me from anywhere in the world over x2go. Of
> course, the
> 1200p resolution has to be reset to 768p when accessed from the
> chromebook. It
> is a slight hassle, but not too bad.
>
> Get the Dell, dude. ;)
>
> I've been noticing lots of cheap lenovos with respectable specs recently.
> Guess
> people really do care if you screw over your customers with NSA-like
> software.
> Who knew?
>
>
> On 08/21/2015 07:08 PM, Scott Plante wrote:
> > Thanks for sharing your experience DJ--and thank you too Johnny!
> >
> >
> > I guess I'm coming from the other direction--I'm currently using an iPad
> 2 I
> > won with a bluetooth keyboard case, which while much better than the
> onscreen
> > keyboard, is still a long way from a proper keyboard. It had no function
> > keys, no escape key (kills me in vi or bash over ssh), and no delete
> key. It
> > also has no network port, but can't even use a USB NIC. Normally that's
> not
> > an issue, but it would be handy (as a small portable device) for setting
> up a
> > router or bringing into the server room to diagnose problems.
> >
> >
> > I always preferred desktops to laptops for my daily work. I tend to just
> stay
> > at work late rather than work from home much. I mostly use it at lunch
> for
> > reading the paper--we like to read and discuss the news while we eat. I
> also
> > bring it to the pub for those important questions about who was in what
> 1983
> > movie or who sang in what year the currently playing song. The smartphone
> > could work, but the iPad w/ keyboard is easier. It is available for
> > occasional emails and to VPN/ssh into systems at work in case of
> emergency
> > and I've used it to monitor a process running on the weekend while
> watching
> > TV, but I don't do a great deal of work on it. I'll also watch a movie
> on it
> > when stuck in the airport for a long layover. So while the power of a
> full
> > laptop would occasionally be nice, if it gets big and clunky enough I
> don't
> > take it with me (a low bar), then it's lost it's purpose.
> >
> >
> > I would happily accept another new free iPad! But they're pretty
> expensive
> > for what you get if you're paying out of pocket. The lack of Flash
> support,
> > and hence the dependence on devoted apps is sometimes an issue.
> >
> >
> > I think the lack of memory is an issue with all of these devices these
> days.
> > It seems like a lot of websites are expecting a lot of memory these days.
> > Some of it may be the browser, but I think it's more the Javascript
> > programming sucking up more and more memory. But then I tend to keep too
> many
> > tabs open. This one SD Times article titled "The future of Javascript is
> > Now", which I happen to have open at the moment, is taking up 109 MB of
> > memory!!! It displays in several pages, but the one I have open taking
> 109mb
> > contains 4335 BYTES of actual article text. Some of the difference comes
> from
> > the ad graphics, but I'd say a lot comes from whatever Javascript
> framework
> > they're using allocating a ton of memory it doesn't need.
> >
> > Dell has a new Chromebook coming out in Sept that might be a possibility.
> > Escape, but no delete or function keys. The memory goes up to 8GB though.
> > It's hard for me to tell about the form factor until I see it in real
> life.
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> >
> > From: "DJ-Pfulio" <DJPfulio at jdpfu.com> To: ale at ale.org Sent: Friday,
> August
> > 21, 2015 3:23:49 PM Subject: Re: [ale] Ot: chromebook
> >
> > Been running Ubuntu Server + openbox on a C720 for 18 months. I would
> NOT buy
> > this machine again.
> >
> > You can find real laptops, refurb for $140 with normal keyboards. The
> funky
> > chromebook keyboard layout sucks. The missing keys suck. F11, F12,
> DELETE are
> > the ones I miss the most, but there isn't any pgup/dn, home/end either.
> >
> > None of the F1-F10 keys are labeled. I touch type, but sometimes miss
> those.
> >
> >
> > Don't bother with any chromebook is my advice. Took me $140+ to
> "upgrade" the
> > chromebook to make it useful. Out of all those upgrades, the missing
> DELETE
> > key and the 2G of soldered-on RAM were the biggest.
> >
> > There are work-arounds for the limited m2-SSD (violate the warranty) and
> lack
> > of ethernet port (USB3 adapter).
> >
> > Wish I'd have bought the $280 Dell with the same CPU, 4G of RAM, 500G
> HDD,
> > ethernet port AND normal keyboard, dude.
> >
> > Did I mention how much I hate the chromebook keyboard?!!!!!!
> >
> >
> >
> > On 08/21/2015 01:38 PM, Scott Plante wrote:
> >> I guess that would be this Acer. Also available online at that price
> till
> >> tomorrow (8/22).
> >>
> http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/814044/Acer-Chromebook-11-With-116-HD/
> >>
> >>
> >> Have any of you had good luck loading regular Linux distros like Ubuntu,
> >> Fedora, or openSUSE, on these things?
> >>
> >> Scott
> >>
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >>
> >> From: "Boris Borisov" <bugyatl at gmail.com> To: "Atlanta Linux
> Enthusiasts"
> >> <ale at ale.org> Sent: Friday, August 21, 2015 1:21:43 PM Subject: [ale]
> Ot:
> >> chromebook
> >>
> >> I'm in Office Depot on N druid hills and noticed they have chromebooks
> for
> >> $129. Is not on the shelf probably has gone fast. Check your local
> store.
> >>
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