3 ms·

Have you kept up with the Pixelbook development? Chrome OS is pretty great for general "cloud" work (AWS management for example). It runs containerized Android

Have you kept up with the Pixelbook development? Chrome OS is pretty great for general "cloud" work (AWS management for example). It runs containerized Android apps (which I use to run the native Gmail app to fly through my inbox). But that's nothing compared to the new stuff. It runs containerized linux with a great abstraction layer that connects GUI calls from linux into the beautiful hi-dpi Chrome OS desktop environment (I think it's still called "Aurora"?) It's still in beta, but they're almost ready to add: - USB support (obviously important here, but they want you to be able to develop android apps on it) - Sound from linux container -> hardware speakers (I believe this is in beta channel now though?) - graphic acceleration (also is in early testing, canary branch maybe?) - backup/restore functionality (lose your laptop? get a new one and restore your container) All of this in one of the sexiest laptops with the best keyboard of any of the ~5 machines I own for $999 I've been using it as my main development machine (a complicated electronJS app that windows substate on linux choked on) and all the backend/database work for over a year and I love it. You could get it on sale for $699, too. Main complaint? If you need to do a lot of work in VM's. You currently can't spin up a Windows VM or anything very easily, but rumor has it they're working on letting you dualboot in the future. I freaking love this machine. They should pay me to evangelize but I promise they don't :)

bubblethink 8y ago
The main downsides are the wimpy processors, soldered ram, storage and wifi cards, poor repairability, non upstreamed code.
- gonesilent 8y ago
  Mostly it's the keyboard that pisses me off on the pixel books
  - automathematics 8y ago
    The keyboard on the pixelbook has been regarded as one of the best keyboards on a laptop nearly everywhere I've read! It's the only non-mechanical keyboard I like!
robocat 8y ago
As the article says "A report from Business Insider claims that Google has axed 'dozens' of employees from its laptop and tablet division." I would love a Pixelbook, but I need a laptop if I want to work while travelling - I often end up with poor cellular data (or none at all!). Does having both a laptop and a pixelbook make sense? Work also bought a device to get satellite data - so that we can do operational support while in "remote" areas in New Zealand (plenty of areas we go to that lack mobile coverage) or when travelling overseas.
- automathematics 8y ago
  > I would love a Pixelbook, but I need a laptop if I want to work while travelling I don't follow. Pixelbook is a laptop! It's actually the only one I travel with
anonymous_fun 8y ago
I bought the low spec Pixelbook and gave it to my daughter. I replaced it with the high spec Pixelbook for myself. She since replace her Pixelbook with a 32gb 15 inch Dell XPS i9 for VM work specifically. Prior to this, I gave my mom Chromebooks after she kept calling me for tech support for virus infestations, and it worked well. Working with the Pixelbook, I totally agree with the VM bit. I would love to run Vagrant, MiniKube, KubeFlow, etc. The Linux emulation is good, but It's Google. 'We' can do it better. They probably did, but missed the adoption / backwards compatibility curve. I hung out with a ChromeOS dude last weekend and he told me about how the Linux emulation is controlled by 'vsh' using their own replacement for QEMU, and inside that is an LXC container. Great for security, and I believe him. I entered one of the system vm's and saw LXC/LXD. The security seems great, but again, I can't do what I want to do. I felt dumb asking him about my 'emacs' in the ChromeOS Linux emulation. It always had a huge title bar on the top that took a bunch of the little screen real estate available. His answer was 'hit the full screen' button. I felt dumb. Usability for us dumb engineers will sell your product. Apple has abandoned the engineer market. The XPS flexible, but the Pixelbook is still sexy. I can't get my son to take my daughter's Pixelbook though, so maybe I am just old.

bubblethink 8y ago

The main downsides are the wimpy processors, soldered ram, storage and wifi cards, poor repairability, non upstreamed code.

gonesilent 8y ago
Mostly it's the keyboard that pisses me off on the pixel books
- automathematics 8y ago
  The keyboard on the pixelbook has been regarded as one of the best keyboards on a laptop nearly everywhere I've read! It's the only non-mechanical keyboard I like!

robocat 8y ago

As the article says "A report from Business Insider claims that Google has axed 'dozens' of employees from its laptop and tablet division." I would love a Pixelbook, but I need a laptop if I want to work while travelling - I often end up with poor cellular data (or none at all!). Does having both a laptop and a pixelbook make sense? Work also bought a device to get satellite data - so that we can do operational support while in "remote" areas in New Zealand (plenty of areas we go to that lack mobile coverage) or when travelling overseas.

automathematics 8y ago
> I would love a Pixelbook, but I need a laptop if I want to work while travelling I don't follow. Pixelbook is a laptop! It's actually the only one I travel with

anonymous_fun 8y ago

I bought the low spec Pixelbook and gave it to my daughter. I replaced it with the high spec Pixelbook for myself. She since replace her Pixelbook with a 32gb 15 inch Dell XPS i9 for VM work specifically. Prior to this, I gave my mom Chromebooks after she kept calling me for tech support for virus infestations, and it worked well. Working with the Pixelbook, I totally agree with the VM bit. I would love to run Vagrant, MiniKube, KubeFlow, etc. The Linux emulation is good, but It's Google. 'We' can do it better. They probably did, but missed the adoption / backwards compatibility curve. I hung out with a ChromeOS dude last weekend and he told me about how the Linux emulation is controlled by 'vsh' using their own replacement for QEMU, and inside that is an LXC container. Great for security, and I believe him. I entered one of the system vm's and saw LXC/LXD. The security seems great, but again, I can't do what I want to do. I felt dumb asking him about my 'emacs' in the ChromeOS Linux emulation. It always had a huge title bar on the top that took a bunch of the little screen real estate available. His answer was 'hit the full screen' button. I felt dumb. Usability for us dumb engineers will sell your product. Apple has abandoned the engineer market. The XPS flexible, but the Pixelbook is still sexy. I can't get my son to take my daughter's Pixelbook though, so maybe I am just old.