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Crouton allows exactly that. Except for the limited disk space, I'm a big fan of the ChromeOS/Crouton option. I've used a Toshiba Chromebook 2 (? 1920x1080 scre

by ISL 9y ago

Crouton allows exactly that. Except for the limited disk space, I'm a big fan of the ChromeOS/Crouton option. I've used a Toshiba Chromebook 2 (? 1920x1080 screen) as my laptop for many years now. It's nicer than a dual boot, as you can swap between the runtimes on the fly. Adding dedicated delete, home, page up, page down, etc. keys would make the chromebooks even better.

Nullabillity 9y ago
What do you want ChromeOS for that you can't do from a proper Linux environment?
- ISL 9y ago
  ChromeOS does a great job of providing the hardware interface layer. Furthermore, connecting to a projector on ChromeOS is way less fiddly than fighting with xrandr. (n.b. I've used Fluxbox as my WM since ~2002. Newer interfaces in the Ubuntu strain of things are probably easier/smarter.)
  - Nullabillity 9y ago
    Both KDE and XMonad have Just Worked for me when I have needed to connect external displays. No manual xrandr fiddling required.
  - lathiat 9y ago
    is modern linux any better at configuring displays than my 2002 era WM environment? i lold.
- simonh 9y ago
  A system usable out of the box by non-technical consumers, as an alternative to a Windows or Mac laptop, or an iPad. People used to say the same sort of thing about the iPad. You could put Linux on a tablet for half the price. Yes, but only 1% of the population would be able to use it. Of course Pixels aren’t aimed at ordinary consumers though. They are high end devices aimed at developers, because Google wants to support an active community of highly skilled and capable developers working on apps for the chrome book, or at least ensure that their cross platform web apps are Chromebook compatible and take advantage of the platform’s features. They’re much more likely to do that if they have a Chromebook they actualy enjoy using and do dev work on, rather than just having an extra low end device around for testing.
skybrian 9y ago
Just enabling dev mode on a Chromebook is apparently pretty insecure against local exploits [1]. An officially supported way of running Linux could do better than that. [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/06/how-to-install-linux-on-a-chromebook/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/06/how-to-install-linux...
- nl 9y ago
  It’s exactly as insecure as a standard x86 PC then (ignoring recent Intel issues!). Yes this is less secure than the default config.
  - TheDong 9y ago
    For regular x86 PCs you can use secure-boot and load your own signing keys, then sign your own linux kernel. As far as I know, chromeos has no option for that. Either it has only google's signing keys, or secure-boot is entirely disabled via devmode. That's clearly a massive step down in security from most modern x86 laptops.
    - nl 9y ago
      Yeah fair call. Although I’ve never met anyone who has actually done that.
    - fpoling 9y ago
      On some Chromebooks via relatively straightforward hardware modification it was possible to install bootloader enabling custom code signing.
- isr 9y ago
  Once you put a chromebook into devmode, you can login as the user 'chronos'. chronos does not have a password, and it has full sudo abilities (so you have root access immediately). Also, verified boot is turned off. Ok, but what much of the (sadly) uninformed commentary around chromebooks and devmode fails to mention is that you can turn it all back on - and still keep devmode. There's a simple script left there for you to set a password for chronos, and the big motd thats printed on the console (but not crosh) tells you about it. Run it, choose your password, and those who have physical access no longer have automatic root (or even chronos) access. Turn verified boot back on, and disable legacy and usb booting. Now you have a machine, still in devmode, thats MORE secure that standard x86 machines. - you can't boot from external media - you can't pass args to the internal bootloader, when booting chromeos's kernel, so no more single-user linux kernel tricks (ie: instant root) - you can't somehow modify the on-board kernel and get past verified boot Nothing's totally unhackable, but this seems reasonably secure to me ...

by ISL 9y ago

Nullabillity 9y ago

What do you want ChromeOS for that you can't do from a proper Linux environment?

ISL 9y ago
ChromeOS does a great job of providing the hardware interface layer. Furthermore, connecting to a projector on ChromeOS is way less fiddly than fighting with xrandr. (n.b. I've used Fluxbox as my WM since ~2002. Newer interfaces in the Ubuntu strain of things are probably easier/smarter.)
- Nullabillity 9y ago
  Both KDE and XMonad have Just Worked for me when I have needed to connect external displays. No manual xrandr fiddling required.
- lathiat 9y ago
  is modern linux any better at configuring displays than my 2002 era WM environment? i lold.
simonh 9y ago
A system usable out of the box by non-technical consumers, as an alternative to a Windows or Mac laptop, or an iPad. People used to say the same sort of thing about the iPad. You could put Linux on a tablet for half the price. Yes, but only 1% of the population would be able to use it. Of course Pixels aren’t aimed at ordinary consumers though. They are high end devices aimed at developers, because Google wants to support an active community of highly skilled and capable developers working on apps for the chrome book, or at least ensure that their cross platform web apps are Chromebook compatible and take advantage of the platform’s features. They’re much more likely to do that if they have a Chromebook they actualy enjoy using and do dev work on, rather than just having an extra low end device around for testing.

skybrian 9y ago

Just enabling dev mode on a Chromebook is apparently pretty insecure against local exploits [1]. An officially supported way of running Linux could do better than that. [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/06/how-to-install-linux-on-a-chromebook/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/06/how-to-install-linux...

nl 9y ago
It’s exactly as insecure as a standard x86 PC then (ignoring recent Intel issues!). Yes this is less secure than the default config.
- TheDong 9y ago
  For regular x86 PCs you can use secure-boot and load your own signing keys, then sign your own linux kernel. As far as I know, chromeos has no option for that. Either it has only google's signing keys, or secure-boot is entirely disabled via devmode. That's clearly a massive step down in security from most modern x86 laptops.
  - nl 9y ago
    Yeah fair call. Although I’ve never met anyone who has actually done that.
  - fpoling 9y ago
    On some Chromebooks via relatively straightforward hardware modification it was possible to install bootloader enabling custom code signing.
isr 9y ago
Once you put a chromebook into devmode, you can login as the user 'chronos'. chronos does not have a password, and it has full sudo abilities (so you have root access immediately). Also, verified boot is turned off. Ok, but what much of the (sadly) uninformed commentary around chromebooks and devmode fails to mention is that you can turn it all back on - and still keep devmode. There's a simple script left there for you to set a password for chronos, and the big motd thats printed on the console (but not crosh) tells you about it. Run it, choose your password, and those who have physical access no longer have automatic root (or even chronos) access. Turn verified boot back on, and disable legacy and usb booting. Now you have a machine, still in devmode, thats MORE secure that standard x86 machines. - you can't boot from external media - you can't pass args to the internal bootloader, when booting chromeos's kernel, so no more single-user linux kernel tricks (ie: instant root) - you can't somehow modify the on-board kernel and get past verified boot Nothing's totally unhackable, but this seems reasonably secure to me ...