[clug] Anyone using a Chromebook?

Francis Whittle fj.whittle at gmail.com
Sat Feb 1 16:17:43 MST 2014


I have one of the Samsung arm-based Chromebooks.

It's pretty good, on the whole.  Don't try to run X11 apps on it, though
- somehow the driver was made in a way that allows precisely one window
without tile corruption, and that's used up by ChromeOS's wacky display
system.  As I understand it Google's trying to move the whole thing
towards a Wayland-based system, so that may change/become irrelevant.
In the meantime it means that running actual Linux on the thing is an
unaccelerated experience, because it's either use the driver supplied
with ChromeOS (and therefore only one window) or use a VESA fb.

As long as everything you want to do is on the web, you obviously only
need a web browser - and it's really not a lie to say that most things
people do as end users are on the web.

Hardware wise, it's lightweight and fairly tough.  I've occasionally
tossed it across the room to people who want to look up stuff but don't
want to leave the couch, without worry.
Reacts without too much worry to having a mouse plugged in.
WebGL isn't too slick on it.

Most  annoying thing I noticed - if you have a TV that needs overscan
compensation, when you unplug the HDMI the chromebook's screen then
receives blackout bars around the edges in which the pointer cannot go,
but which *do not affect window placement*.  Plugging back into the TV
doesn't fix this, it goes away on reboot or sometimes after an
apparently random interval.  Not good if you want to use it to watch
streaming video (especially subtitled) on the big screen.

Cheers,
Francis

On Fri, 2014-01-31 at 17:57 +1100, steve jenkin wrote:
> I read a piece on ZDnet about using a Chromebook.
> 
> He suggested "Chromebooks are for civilians"...
> 
> Anyone care to comment or offer war stories?
> --
> Steve Jenkin, IT Systems and Design 
> 0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)
> PO Box 48, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA
> 
> mailto:sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 




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