6 ms·

I'm in the market for a new development machine, and wholly afraid of the new Macbooks. What do develop on the Pixelbook? Are you using Linux or Cloud IDEs?

williamstein 8y ago
I have a the i7 pixelbook for dev work and I love it. I use both a cloud ide (CoCalc) and Crostini for local Linux and Docker dev work. This is an awesome machine. Very ergonomic, fast, etc. and 2.4 pounds weight. I use the stable channel also and do not use crouton. I don't have trouble with sound.
- apatheticonion 8y ago
  Wait wait wait wait wait wait. ChromeOS is Linux now? Is it as good as using a full blown Linux distro for development? What languages can you program in? Bash? Is Docker running natively? My head is spinning. I don't want to buy a MacBook, but I'm unhappy with the polish of the Linux world. Is ChromeOS a legitimate alternative?
  - xrd 8y ago
    Yes, you can run any Linux program on it. It has Wayland which converts x11 to the Chromeos windowing metaphor. You can install things using apt-get on your local instance of Linux or use -X with ssh and it just works. It's amazing. But the sound issues, sigh.
    - giancarlostoro 8y ago
      Is it regular x11 apps with ChromeOS' own window manager / skin theme or some weird hack?
      - derekp7 8y ago
        x11 apps talk to XWayland, which then talks to Sommelier (a Wayland forwarding agent), which then talks to the Wayland server running on Chrome OS. Other communications between Chrome OS and the Crostini system happens using the gRPC protocol. There is a program called Concierge on the Chrome OS side, that talks to Maitred inside the VM, to get it to do things. And apps inside the container use Garcon to talk to a service called Cicerone on the Chrome OS side (again, both these are over the gRPC protocol). All this is layed out here: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/docs/+/master/containers_and_vms.md https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/docs/+/master/c...
        giancarlostoro 8y ago
        That sounds a little saner though still convoluted. I hope they eventually don't have to run through so many hoops to run Linux apps.
        xrd 8y ago
        Hey, it's still less of a hack than using crouton was!
      - xrd 8y ago
        I don't fully understand it all but I don't think it is a hack. It's the "new way" to do x11 type applications. I'm not at liberty to read the article on Wayland right now (alone with the three kids tonight and bedtime looms...). But I remember reading and thinking it wasn't complicated to understand and that this way of doing things is the future. It makes ChromeOS into a really powerful terminal. You can run stuff locally that's best to be run locally. Then you can run applications that don't run locally (like that need access to special hardware like a gpu) on the machine itself via x11 forwarding. It's very flexible and works. As a separate issue from mine (faulty ChromeOS sound), currently you can't use the sound hardware inside the container. But that'll get fixed soon. Just means there is no way to run Linux music making apps yet.
  - giancarlostoro 8y ago
    ChromeOS has always been based off Gentoo. It's still a slapped on browser, but if I remember correctly there are things you can do to toggle regular Linux apps on, or you know, you could also just install another distro over it.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - gh02t 8y ago
      This is not really accurate, especially nowadays... * Based on Gentoo- it was actually based on Ubuntu during development, and I believe it switched to a Debian base (from Gentoo) a year or two ago. * A slapped on browser - it's a lot more than that. It has its own window manager and many other things. It's closer to normal Linux than Android is, but there's quite a lot of differences. * Toggling Linux apps on - you have been able to install a chroot unofficially and can run Linux apps that way, but integration with the GUI is pretty janky. Official support for Linux apps is very new and not supported on a lot of hardware. * Install another distro - not always an option. A lot of the machines have spotty driver and/or firmware support, e.g. my Acer Chromebook is a big headache to get working. Some are supported pretty well though.
  - derekp7 8y ago
    Project Crostini. "Native" Linux is Debian, run inside of a container, which is in turn run inside of a restricted VM. You don't get root in the VM, but you get access to commands for manipulating containers. Inside the container you have full access, but no devices. Current limitations: you don't get accelerated graphics, no sound, and can't access USB or SD storage from the Linux container (yet). Things that look really good, you can install .apt packages from the Chrome file manager, and anything with a .desktop file shows up in the Chrome launcher. Looks like there are a bunch of patches with accelerated graphics coming in, and audio should be coming sometime too. Better storage should be available once they re-baseline on kernel version 4.18+, as that has non-root fuse mounts. BTW, the reason for a lot of limitations of for security, so that a Linux app can't possibly negatively affect the rest of the system. For that reason, they don't have a mechanism to run Linux programs on system startup -- you have to purposely launch any apps.
    - apatheticonion 8y ago
      Ah, sounds like a way to go before it's a serious contender as a daily development machine
xrd 8y ago
Emacs. ;)
- xrd 8y ago
  But I've used Android Studio successfully as well as vscode and atom. They are pretty heavy and it does show on these machines.
leetcrew 8y ago
i recommend you get the xps 13 or 15. once you swap out the killer wifi card for an intel solution, you have a solid machine that's ready to run your favorite distro out of the box. or you can get the developer addition that actually has dell support for ubuntu. idk why you would prefer the pixelbook to this unless you really like chromeOS.
- voltagex_ 8y ago
  This is the annoying thing - I've got the 9350 and I had to swap the Broadcom card for an Intel card to get any kind of stability in Windows. Well known error: https://www.dell.com/community/Laptops-General-Read-Only/bcmpciedhd63-sys-Blue-Screen-Dell-XPS-13-QHD/td-p/4677205 https://www.dell.com/community/Laptops-General-Read-Only/bcm... At one point, the crashes even managed to corrupt my filesystem. What I will say is that it's super easy to swap out the wifi and M.2 SSD - took 2 screwdrivers and about 10 minutes. I may have lost Miracast but does anyone actually use that?
  - PascLeRasc 8y ago
    YMMV but a former coworker had a 2016 XPS 13" and swapped out the wifi card for some Intel one and Miracast still worked for him.
- jcims 8y ago
  My only word of caution with the xps is to mind the keyboard layout. I returned an xps 15 because I was constantly needing to use the Fn key to get what I wanted. Stopped back in the store and the xps 13 key layout solved all those problems. Just not sure I can handle that small a screen all day.
- craftkiller 8y ago
  Well that's interesting, I did the opposite. I bought the xps 13 9350, and the Intel 8260 in there was terribly unstable. I opened it up and put in a killer 1525, which also was unstable. Then I replaced it with a killer 1535 and it's worked perfectly ever since. Perhaps the 8260 was just a bad model?
pjmlp 8y ago
I just use Thinkpads or Asus laptops.

williamstein 8y ago

I have a the i7 pixelbook for dev work and I love it. I use both a cloud ide (CoCalc) and Crostini for local Linux and Docker dev work. This is an awesome machine. Very ergonomic, fast, etc. and 2.4 pounds weight. I use the stable channel also and do not use crouton. I don't have trouble with sound.

apatheticonion 8y ago
Wait wait wait wait wait wait. ChromeOS is Linux now? Is it as good as using a full blown Linux distro for development? What languages can you program in? Bash? Is Docker running natively? My head is spinning. I don't want to buy a MacBook, but I'm unhappy with the polish of the Linux world. Is ChromeOS a legitimate alternative?
- xrd 8y ago
  Yes, you can run any Linux program on it. It has Wayland which converts x11 to the Chromeos windowing metaphor. You can install things using apt-get on your local instance of Linux or use -X with ssh and it just works. It's amazing. But the sound issues, sigh.
  - giancarlostoro 8y ago
    Is it regular x11 apps with ChromeOS' own window manager / skin theme or some weird hack?
    - derekp7 8y ago
      x11 apps talk to XWayland, which then talks to Sommelier (a Wayland forwarding agent), which then talks to the Wayland server running on Chrome OS. Other communications between Chrome OS and the Crostini system happens using the gRPC protocol. There is a program called Concierge on the Chrome OS side, that talks to Maitred inside the VM, to get it to do things. And apps inside the container use Garcon to talk to a service called Cicerone on the Chrome OS side (again, both these are over the gRPC protocol). All this is layed out here: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/docs/+/master/containers_and_vms.md https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/docs/+/master/c...
      - giancarlostoro 8y ago
        That sounds a little saner though still convoluted. I hope they eventually don't have to run through so many hoops to run Linux apps.
        xrd 8y ago
        Hey, it's still less of a hack than using crouton was!
    - xrd 8y ago
      I don't fully understand it all but I don't think it is a hack. It's the "new way" to do x11 type applications. I'm not at liberty to read the article on Wayland right now (alone with the three kids tonight and bedtime looms...). But I remember reading and thinking it wasn't complicated to understand and that this way of doing things is the future. It makes ChromeOS into a really powerful terminal. You can run stuff locally that's best to be run locally. Then you can run applications that don't run locally (like that need access to special hardware like a gpu) on the machine itself via x11 forwarding. It's very flexible and works. As a separate issue from mine (faulty ChromeOS sound), currently you can't use the sound hardware inside the container. But that'll get fixed soon. Just means there is no way to run Linux music making apps yet.
- giancarlostoro 8y ago
  ChromeOS has always been based off Gentoo. It's still a slapped on browser, but if I remember correctly there are things you can do to toggle regular Linux apps on, or you know, you could also just install another distro over it.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - gh02t 8y ago
    This is not really accurate, especially nowadays... * Based on Gentoo- it was actually based on Ubuntu during development, and I believe it switched to a Debian base (from Gentoo) a year or two ago. * A slapped on browser - it's a lot more than that. It has its own window manager and many other things. It's closer to normal Linux than Android is, but there's quite a lot of differences. * Toggling Linux apps on - you have been able to install a chroot unofficially and can run Linux apps that way, but integration with the GUI is pretty janky. Official support for Linux apps is very new and not supported on a lot of hardware. * Install another distro - not always an option. A lot of the machines have spotty driver and/or firmware support, e.g. my Acer Chromebook is a big headache to get working. Some are supported pretty well though.
- derekp7 8y ago
  Project Crostini. "Native" Linux is Debian, run inside of a container, which is in turn run inside of a restricted VM. You don't get root in the VM, but you get access to commands for manipulating containers. Inside the container you have full access, but no devices. Current limitations: you don't get accelerated graphics, no sound, and can't access USB or SD storage from the Linux container (yet). Things that look really good, you can install .apt packages from the Chrome file manager, and anything with a .desktop file shows up in the Chrome launcher. Looks like there are a bunch of patches with accelerated graphics coming in, and audio should be coming sometime too. Better storage should be available once they re-baseline on kernel version 4.18+, as that has non-root fuse mounts. BTW, the reason for a lot of limitations of for security, so that a Linux app can't possibly negatively affect the rest of the system. For that reason, they don't have a mechanism to run Linux programs on system startup -- you have to purposely launch any apps.
  - apatheticonion 8y ago
    Ah, sounds like a way to go before it's a serious contender as a daily development machine

xrd 8y ago

Emacs. ;)

xrd 8y ago
But I've used Android Studio successfully as well as vscode and atom. They are pretty heavy and it does show on these machines.

leetcrew 8y ago

i recommend you get the xps 13 or 15. once you swap out the killer wifi card for an intel solution, you have a solid machine that's ready to run your favorite distro out of the box. or you can get the developer addition that actually has dell support for ubuntu. idk why you would prefer the pixelbook to this unless you really like chromeOS.

voltagex_ 8y ago
This is the annoying thing - I've got the 9350 and I had to swap the Broadcom card for an Intel card to get any kind of stability in Windows. Well known error: https://www.dell.com/community/Laptops-General-Read-Only/bcmpciedhd63-sys-Blue-Screen-Dell-XPS-13-QHD/td-p/4677205 https://www.dell.com/community/Laptops-General-Read-Only/bcm... At one point, the crashes even managed to corrupt my filesystem. What I will say is that it's super easy to swap out the wifi and M.2 SSD - took 2 screwdrivers and about 10 minutes. I may have lost Miracast but does anyone actually use that?
- PascLeRasc 8y ago
  YMMV but a former coworker had a 2016 XPS 13" and swapped out the wifi card for some Intel one and Miracast still worked for him.
jcims 8y ago
My only word of caution with the xps is to mind the keyboard layout. I returned an xps 15 because I was constantly needing to use the Fn key to get what I wanted. Stopped back in the store and the xps 13 key layout solved all those problems. Just not sure I can handle that small a screen all day.
craftkiller 8y ago
Well that's interesting, I did the opposite. I bought the xps 13 9350, and the Intel 8260 in there was terribly unstable. I opened it up and put in a killer 1525, which also was unstable. Then I replaced it with a killer 1535 and it's worked perfectly ever since. Perhaps the 8260 was just a bad model?

pjmlp 8y ago

I just use Thinkpads or Asus laptops.