It is an inconvenience and a danger, yes. But the tradeoff with having crouton is having full access to a Linux environment, with all of the tools and programs

It is an inconvenience and a danger, yes. But the tradeoff with having crouton is having full access to a Linux environment, with all of the tools and programs that enables. Short of System76/Entroware/Dell XPS Developer Editions, the fact remains that moddable, Intel-series chromebooks are some of the best preconfigured Linux laptops you can buy, once you peel back the ChromeOS layer. I mentioned above that I think Caret is a great Sublime clone, but I also like having the real SublimeText, with its awesome add-on packages, Git integration, etc. The article's recommendation that you must stick with Android-enabled Chromebooks limits your options, and the only reason the recommendation exists is that he needs some way of getting access to the developer tools--gcc, etc. A crouton chroot gets you there the same way, and I'd argue it's better since the programs are running natively rather than through an emulated Android layer.