6 ms·

It is a good idea IMO, especially with GalliumOS (a Chromebook optimized variant of xubuntu) so you can run Linux natively. Back in 2016 I picked up a Toshiba

by nickjj 5y ago

It is a good idea IMO, especially with GalliumOS (a Chromebook optimized variant of xubuntu) so you can run Linux natively. Back in 2016 I picked up a Toshiba CB35 Chromebook with a 13" 1080p IPS display, 4gb of memory, 1.7ghz Celeron and a 256GB SSD for $350. It weighs under 3 pounds and has a backlight keyboard too. It still runs great today and despite the low end specs it can deal with some programming work loads (Dockerized web apps, a bunch of browser tabs, mp3 player, editor with 40+ plugins, multiple workspaces, etc.). It's not slow either. Even decently sized Rails apps with Webpacker reload nearly instantly while developing and there's no type delay. It's been a really nice outdoors / travel laptop for someone like me who normally uses a desktop workstation. I wrote up a whole review of it here: https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/transform-a-toshiba-chromebook-cb35-into-a-linux-development-environment-with-galliumos https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/transform-a-toshiba-chromeboo... If you can still find this exact model at that price point I'd consider it today. It's one of those rare combos of hardware that's really good at a fair price. I wouldn't insta buy it, but I'd at least keep it in the runnings vs a 2021 model, especially at that price point. With lower end machines, newness isn't always a deciding factor for goodness.

nyolfen 5y ago
i have one of these with gallium as well -- cannot recommend it highly enough, though i wish the memory weren't soldered in. daily driver for normal web stuff for six or seven years now.
IntelMiner 5y ago
+1 to Chromebooks, though I was never much interested in Gallium I picked up one of the original Acer C720's back in 2013. Anemic 2c1t (dual core) Celeron at 1.2 Ghz and 2GB of memory. But Gentoo on it with XFCE was incredibly nippy. Add a processor optimized Firefox at the time and it was an extremely good tiny laptop A year or so later I upgraded to its "big brother" the core i3 variant (2c2t, quad core) with 4GB of RAM. Same experience. Extremely happy with both machines Eventually as the Chrome browser started to eclipse things though I moved to Dell's Chromebook 13 "Lulu" with a beastly Broadwell i5 quad core and 8GB (soldered) RAM The biggest draw for me is these were the first Linux machines I'd used where everything didn't "just work" or "it works okay but you can tweak XYZ" it worked in the sense it was explicitly designed __to run Linux__ For all the flak Google deservedly gets, the decision to enforce a "no binary blobs, everything must be upstreamed to mainline Linux" kernel and Coreboot (BIOS) as well as making "jailbreaking" the thing with a permanent firmware flash as simple as removing a hardware screw was commendable These days I'm stuck using an MSI Modern 14, which while "okay" is nowhere near as delightful as the Chromebooks were previously
- marktangotango 5y ago
  Chromebooks generally run Linux well, no need for a specialized distro post 2016 or so. De-chrome by installing mr. chromebox firmware and xubuntu (or distro of your choice) and you're set. I still use my acer c720 as a daily driver today.
  - jleahy 5y ago
    It’s started to change unfortunately, for example audio doesn’t really work on skylake or kabylake chromebooks yet. They are moving to more custom hardware.
    - jclulow 5y ago
      The design of the Intel audio stuff in the Skylake systems is pretty horrid. Previously things had HD Audio hardware which was at least sufficiently self describing to be able to attach a general driver. The new stuff depends on this topology file which you have to pull out of your hat -- there's no reason it can't be open source as far as I can tell, but it's maddeningly not something the hardware itself can provide to you. It's not an improvement.
  - forty 5y ago
    Last time I looked (a long time ago) there were some issues with running Linux on Chromebooks, like having to press some combination of keys at each boot and/or risking to erase everything if the wrong combination of keys was pressed (if I remember correctly). Does this mrchomebook firmware fix this kind of problems?
    - pwdisswordfish8 5y ago
      I spent a couple years thinking about this risk every time I rebooted and got the white screen prompting me to press space to restore ChromeOS. In reality, at least for the Dell Lulu platform mentioned above, what will actually happen is it will probe for recovery media first. In the event that it doesn't find any, it will leave the underlying system untouched and just complain at you about it (and tell you to go visit a URL on another computer so you can create a USB/microSD recovery disk).
jdeibele 5y ago
I bought Toshiba Chromebooks (the 2014 variant, which lacks the backlit keyboard but is pretty much otherwise identical to the 2015) for my kids. Two of them have moved onto MacBooks but the youngest chugs along with his Chromebook. I was able to find them online for $85 - $135 over the years. The screens were fairly easy to replace and cost about $45. I also recommended one to my brother-in-law and he totes it on trips. The trackpad stopped working so he uses an external mouse. They're terrific as a travel laptop: plug the SD card into the slot, upload your photos to Google Photos, and don't worry about what happens to your photos if your camera is stolen or whatever. And at that price it's much less painful than if your MacBook Pro is stolen. Plus the 1080P resolution on 13" screen is better than most options for a lot more money.
zumu 5y ago
This is the exact machine setup I used for my first job as a professional developer. It was a contracting position and the unemployment from my barista gig had run out some months prior, so I was running on fumes. For $350, the amount of value I got out of it is staggering. While I unfortunately spilled water on it and broke the keyboard some years ago, it will always hold a dear place in my heart.
- mssundaram 5y ago
  Heh heh, I came to say the same - my first professional development job was on an Acer C720 for which I had barely enough money to buy from my restaurant job.
- taylorfinley 5y ago
  I'm a currently-on-unemployment former barista with years of hobby and freelance coding experience, I've spent much of my time on unemployment getting professional certifications and doing some bigger learning projects. I'm interviewing non-stop these days trying to land that entry level junior engineer role now, and it gives me heart to see other food service refugees have made it. I've passed every coding challenge I've been given but seem to get ghosted when employers learn my most recent gig was hustling my ass off pulling espresso shots just to survive. Back on topic, I didn't go the Chromebook route, instead I got a ten year old HP Elitebook at a second hand shop, added an SSD and maxed out its memory, and I couldn't be happier! I spent less than $300 and it's easily my favorite laptop I've ever owned.
  - forty 5y ago
    Hello, I went to your website, and noticed you don't list those certifications and bigger projects there. You should also tell there what kind job you are looking for, otherwise I doubt anyone is going to click on "wants to hire me", since it's pretty hard to guess what you want to do. Anyway, good luck for the job hunting!
    - taylorfinley 5y ago
      Hey, thanks for this helpful feedback! I will update my page accordingly. I do talk about one of my bigger projects in the blog link, but I agree it should be highlighted up front.
dheera 5y ago
I feel like with new ARM laptops like the Samsung Galaxy Book Go ($349) the advantages of running Linux on a Chromebook (mainly insanely good battery life) are quickly disappearing. I don't actually have the Galaxy Book Go but I'm considering it, pending reports of people actually installing Ubuntu on it.
ac29 5y ago
Unfortunately, GalliumOS / Generic Linux doesn't work on many newer Chromebooks due to not supporting the CR50 EC. My Apollo Lake (circa 2017) Chromebook, for example, doesnt work.
xiii1408 5y ago
+1 to the Toshiba CB-35 Chromebook. It is an excellent laptop fr running Linux, although a bit outdated at this point. If I hadn't shattered mine's screen in a bike crash, I probably would still be using it today. Not sure what the best Chromebook is for running Linux, but appreciate the OP's suggestions.
zodiakzz 5y ago
Every HN thread has to have a comment like this... Look at me, my ancient machine can (barely) get stuff done. But I can't wrap my head around this... why torment yourself like this. Who pays for the lost productivity with these shenanigans? Do you value your time so little? If freelance, do you pass it on to your customers? If job, does nobody notice that you're taking ages getting stuff done? My hourly rate is nearly minimum wage but I have a $5K PC build and the latest MBP. I can't imagine even using a web browser with 4GB RAM. Virtual machines? Android Emulator?? Compiling a Java application?? How...
- fladrif 5y ago
  Personally I've ordered a new thinkpad but it's slated to come in 3 months, with the delivery date extended once already. I went to Target and bought some lowend (slightly higher than chromebook) laptop and ubuntu is running fine on it. Of course I can't do anything too memory intensive, but regular dev work is decent for a <500 dollar machine.
- amachefe 5y ago
  What makes you assume there is a lost productivity? I couldn't find any reference from the post. Besides, it is also stated that it serves as mobile option as the main computer is a desktop. I am also amused that you feel that $5k build is more productive. Productivity is not mostly a function of the system but the user
  - Shikadi 5y ago
    Often depends on the workload. My work requires compiling the kernel regularly (among other things) and 5 minutes saved over 12 compilations in one day is an entire hour saved. Made up numbers, and in the case of a lot of other code I touch it makes even more of a difference. On the other hand, I ssh into a work desktop from a work laptop, so a Chromebook with an SSD would probably still be useful if I could get over the lost screen real estate and low quality keyboards
- nickjj 5y ago
  I primarily have a desktop where I do most of my work (that was mentioned in the post you're replying to), but I'll bite just so folks who might be on the fence about the Chromebook have something to reference. I primarily work with Flask, Rails and Phoenix and most apps I build use Webpack too. I don't have to run an Android simulator or Java apps because I don't use those technologies. With this Chromebook, any multi-service Docker app (web + worker + db + cache + Webpack) can go from not running to accepting web requests in about 5-7 seconds after running a docker-compose up. Every time I make a code change, the code base reloads in 100ms or less so the dev loop is extremely fast. With Tailwind's JIT and Webpack caching to disk even asset changes are fast (100-300ms in most projects). The machine is great for certain types of programming and browsing the internet. My main workstation is an i5 3.2ghz with 16GB of memory and an SSD with a 2560x1440 monitor. It's approaching 7 years old and I paid around $850 for it at the time of building it (+$350 for the monitor at a later time). I still use it today and while it has more resources available it's not that much faster than the Chromebook, I can just run more things at once. Starting up my web apps with Docker happen in 3-5 seconds but I still get the same < 100ms reloads for code changes. I also happen to run WSL 2 within Windows which is where I spend 99% of my time. I also do video recording and editing on this machine and there's no skipping or slowdowns for editing 1080p video. I can also run OBS to record everything while developing normally and it's a non-issue. The reality of the situation is nowadays unless you're doing something very CPU bound, a mid-grade machine with an SSD can be quite efficient for lots of types of web development. I choose not to upgrade because there's no practical incentive. With 16GB of memory I can run my usual dev workload with a 2 node Kubernetes cluster and a separate VM and not feel any slowdowns while developing. This is all while having a bunch of tabs open, image editors, mp3 player and everything else you'd expect while working -- even while screen recording my desktop to make tech videos. I made a video about this once around the topic of "is 16GB of memory enough for web development?" at: https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/for-the-time-being-16gb-of-ram-for-web-development-works-really-well https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/for-the-time-being-16gb-of-ra...
BatteryMountain 5y ago
I have one that's been running Gallium since ~2018.. Asus C202SA. It works like a charm. I update coreboot every once in a while, as it gets regular updates. Just a note for anyone that's going to try it: you will have to open up your chromebook and search for the write-protection screw in order to flash your bios (most models are like this). It is a google search away to find where your motherboard's screw is located, as not all boards are labelled. Another thing to to note is that, as long as you don't brick your device somehow, everything is reversible. You can reinstalled the original bios/bootloader, reinstall ChromeOS and put the write protection screw back in and all is well again. Other than that, just follow all instructions for Gallium & coreboot exactly and it will work fine. Gallium is basically Ubuntu + xfce + mods for keyboard & performance tweaks.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  Is that worth the hassle when PC-compatible hardware with similar specs is widely available and just as cheap?
  - BatteryMountain 5y ago
    Nope. In hindsight, I wouldn't do it again. Reasons: Storage is a problem for most chromebooks and the memory chip is soldered onto the board, so cannot upgrade it. I bought an expensive MicroSD card at the time that is 128GB and can do 100/60 read/write... but the memory card reader seems to be soldered to a Usb 2 header.. thus it tops out at 30mb/s. The updates to the OS and packages delivered via apt is basically very far behind, and many packages get held back. Kernel stays old too. I'm used to Fedora so it is really itching me that it is so far behind. Keyboard is not standard: No delete button, no windows key, no function keys. This is a big problem for me and I didn't check the keyboard before I bought it. A better machine to run linux on in the same manner, is the Lenovo Ideapad (S130-11IGM), it is also a celeron, a 11" screen and supports windows/linux out of the box with a normal bootloader and drivers. Other than that, a 2017 13" Macbook Air with Fedora also works great. What I really want is an 11" laptop with a Ryzen 3 without an active cooler (silent machine) + nvme slot + 2 ram slots + backlit keyboard. I don't want anything soldered except the cpu. Display can be 720p or 1080p.

by nickjj 5y ago

nyolfen 5y ago

i have one of these with gallium as well -- cannot recommend it highly enough, though i wish the memory weren't soldered in. daily driver for normal web stuff for six or seven years now.

IntelMiner 5y ago

+1 to Chromebooks, though I was never much interested in Gallium I picked up one of the original Acer C720's back in 2013. Anemic 2c1t (dual core) Celeron at 1.2 Ghz and 2GB of memory. But Gentoo on it with XFCE was incredibly nippy. Add a processor optimized Firefox at the time and it was an extremely good tiny laptop A year or so later I upgraded to its "big brother" the core i3 variant (2c2t, quad core) with 4GB of RAM. Same experience. Extremely happy with both machines Eventually as the Chrome browser started to eclipse things though I moved to Dell's Chromebook 13 "Lulu" with a beastly Broadwell i5 quad core and 8GB (soldered) RAM The biggest draw for me is these were the first Linux machines I'd used where everything didn't "just work" or "it works okay but you can tweak XYZ" it worked in the sense it was explicitly designed __to run Linux__ For all the flak Google deservedly gets, the decision to enforce a "no binary blobs, everything must be upstreamed to mainline Linux" kernel and Coreboot (BIOS) as well as making "jailbreaking" the thing with a permanent firmware flash as simple as removing a hardware screw was commendable These days I'm stuck using an MSI Modern 14, which while "okay" is nowhere near as delightful as the Chromebooks were previously

marktangotango 5y ago
Chromebooks generally run Linux well, no need for a specialized distro post 2016 or so. De-chrome by installing mr. chromebox firmware and xubuntu (or distro of your choice) and you're set. I still use my acer c720 as a daily driver today.
- jleahy 5y ago
  It’s started to change unfortunately, for example audio doesn’t really work on skylake or kabylake chromebooks yet. They are moving to more custom hardware.
  - jclulow 5y ago
    The design of the Intel audio stuff in the Skylake systems is pretty horrid. Previously things had HD Audio hardware which was at least sufficiently self describing to be able to attach a general driver. The new stuff depends on this topology file which you have to pull out of your hat -- there's no reason it can't be open source as far as I can tell, but it's maddeningly not something the hardware itself can provide to you. It's not an improvement.
- forty 5y ago
  Last time I looked (a long time ago) there were some issues with running Linux on Chromebooks, like having to press some combination of keys at each boot and/or risking to erase everything if the wrong combination of keys was pressed (if I remember correctly). Does this mrchomebook firmware fix this kind of problems?
  - pwdisswordfish8 5y ago
    I spent a couple years thinking about this risk every time I rebooted and got the white screen prompting me to press space to restore ChromeOS. In reality, at least for the Dell Lulu platform mentioned above, what will actually happen is it will probe for recovery media first. In the event that it doesn't find any, it will leave the underlying system untouched and just complain at you about it (and tell you to go visit a URL on another computer so you can create a USB/microSD recovery disk).

jdeibele 5y ago

I bought Toshiba Chromebooks (the 2014 variant, which lacks the backlit keyboard but is pretty much otherwise identical to the 2015) for my kids. Two of them have moved onto MacBooks but the youngest chugs along with his Chromebook. I was able to find them online for $85 - $135 over the years. The screens were fairly easy to replace and cost about $45. I also recommended one to my brother-in-law and he totes it on trips. The trackpad stopped working so he uses an external mouse. They're terrific as a travel laptop: plug the SD card into the slot, upload your photos to Google Photos, and don't worry about what happens to your photos if your camera is stolen or whatever. And at that price it's much less painful than if your MacBook Pro is stolen. Plus the 1080P resolution on 13" screen is better than most options for a lot more money.

zumu 5y ago

This is the exact machine setup I used for my first job as a professional developer. It was a contracting position and the unemployment from my barista gig had run out some months prior, so I was running on fumes. For $350, the amount of value I got out of it is staggering. While I unfortunately spilled water on it and broke the keyboard some years ago, it will always hold a dear place in my heart.

mssundaram 5y ago
Heh heh, I came to say the same - my first professional development job was on an Acer C720 for which I had barely enough money to buy from my restaurant job.
taylorfinley 5y ago
I'm a currently-on-unemployment former barista with years of hobby and freelance coding experience, I've spent much of my time on unemployment getting professional certifications and doing some bigger learning projects. I'm interviewing non-stop these days trying to land that entry level junior engineer role now, and it gives me heart to see other food service refugees have made it. I've passed every coding challenge I've been given but seem to get ghosted when employers learn my most recent gig was hustling my ass off pulling espresso shots just to survive. Back on topic, I didn't go the Chromebook route, instead I got a ten year old HP Elitebook at a second hand shop, added an SSD and maxed out its memory, and I couldn't be happier! I spent less than $300 and it's easily my favorite laptop I've ever owned.
- forty 5y ago
  Hello, I went to your website, and noticed you don't list those certifications and bigger projects there. You should also tell there what kind job you are looking for, otherwise I doubt anyone is going to click on "wants to hire me", since it's pretty hard to guess what you want to do. Anyway, good luck for the job hunting!
  - taylorfinley 5y ago
    Hey, thanks for this helpful feedback! I will update my page accordingly. I do talk about one of my bigger projects in the blog link, but I agree it should be highlighted up front.

dheera 5y ago

I feel like with new ARM laptops like the Samsung Galaxy Book Go ($349) the advantages of running Linux on a Chromebook (mainly insanely good battery life) are quickly disappearing. I don't actually have the Galaxy Book Go but I'm considering it, pending reports of people actually installing Ubuntu on it.

ac29 5y ago

Unfortunately, GalliumOS / Generic Linux doesn't work on many newer Chromebooks due to not supporting the CR50 EC. My Apollo Lake (circa 2017) Chromebook, for example, doesnt work.

xiii1408 5y ago

+1 to the Toshiba CB-35 Chromebook. It is an excellent laptop fr running Linux, although a bit outdated at this point. If I hadn't shattered mine's screen in a bike crash, I probably would still be using it today. Not sure what the best Chromebook is for running Linux, but appreciate the OP's suggestions.

zodiakzz 5y ago

Every HN thread has to have a comment like this... Look at me, my ancient machine can (barely) get stuff done. But I can't wrap my head around this... why torment yourself like this. Who pays for the lost productivity with these shenanigans? Do you value your time so little? If freelance, do you pass it on to your customers? If job, does nobody notice that you're taking ages getting stuff done? My hourly rate is nearly minimum wage but I have a $5K PC build and the latest MBP. I can't imagine even using a web browser with 4GB RAM. Virtual machines? Android Emulator?? Compiling a Java application?? How...

fladrif 5y ago
Personally I've ordered a new thinkpad but it's slated to come in 3 months, with the delivery date extended once already. I went to Target and bought some lowend (slightly higher than chromebook) laptop and ubuntu is running fine on it. Of course I can't do anything too memory intensive, but regular dev work is decent for a <500 dollar machine.
amachefe 5y ago
What makes you assume there is a lost productivity? I couldn't find any reference from the post. Besides, it is also stated that it serves as mobile option as the main computer is a desktop. I am also amused that you feel that $5k build is more productive. Productivity is not mostly a function of the system but the user
- Shikadi 5y ago
  Often depends on the workload. My work requires compiling the kernel regularly (among other things) and 5 minutes saved over 12 compilations in one day is an entire hour saved. Made up numbers, and in the case of a lot of other code I touch it makes even more of a difference. On the other hand, I ssh into a work desktop from a work laptop, so a Chromebook with an SSD would probably still be useful if I could get over the lost screen real estate and low quality keyboards
nickjj 5y ago
I primarily have a desktop where I do most of my work (that was mentioned in the post you're replying to), but I'll bite just so folks who might be on the fence about the Chromebook have something to reference. I primarily work with Flask, Rails and Phoenix and most apps I build use Webpack too. I don't have to run an Android simulator or Java apps because I don't use those technologies. With this Chromebook, any multi-service Docker app (web + worker + db + cache + Webpack) can go from not running to accepting web requests in about 5-7 seconds after running a docker-compose up. Every time I make a code change, the code base reloads in 100ms or less so the dev loop is extremely fast. With Tailwind's JIT and Webpack caching to disk even asset changes are fast (100-300ms in most projects). The machine is great for certain types of programming and browsing the internet. My main workstation is an i5 3.2ghz with 16GB of memory and an SSD with a 2560x1440 monitor. It's approaching 7 years old and I paid around $850 for it at the time of building it (+$350 for the monitor at a later time). I still use it today and while it has more resources available it's not that much faster than the Chromebook, I can just run more things at once. Starting up my web apps with Docker happen in 3-5 seconds but I still get the same < 100ms reloads for code changes. I also happen to run WSL 2 within Windows which is where I spend 99% of my time. I also do video recording and editing on this machine and there's no skipping or slowdowns for editing 1080p video. I can also run OBS to record everything while developing normally and it's a non-issue. The reality of the situation is nowadays unless you're doing something very CPU bound, a mid-grade machine with an SSD can be quite efficient for lots of types of web development. I choose not to upgrade because there's no practical incentive. With 16GB of memory I can run my usual dev workload with a 2 node Kubernetes cluster and a separate VM and not feel any slowdowns while developing. This is all while having a bunch of tabs open, image editors, mp3 player and everything else you'd expect while working -- even while screen recording my desktop to make tech videos. I made a video about this once around the topic of "is 16GB of memory enough for web development?" at: https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/for-the-time-being-16gb-of-ram-for-web-development-works-really-well https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/for-the-time-being-16gb-of-ra...

BatteryMountain 5y ago

I have one that's been running Gallium since ~2018.. Asus C202SA. It works like a charm. I update coreboot every once in a while, as it gets regular updates. Just a note for anyone that's going to try it: you will have to open up your chromebook and search for the write-protection screw in order to flash your bios (most models are like this). It is a google search away to find where your motherboard's screw is located, as not all boards are labelled. Another thing to to note is that, as long as you don't brick your device somehow, everything is reversible. You can reinstalled the original bios/bootloader, reinstall ChromeOS and put the write protection screw back in and all is well again. Other than that, just follow all instructions for Gallium & coreboot exactly and it will work fine. Gallium is basically Ubuntu + xfce + mods for keyboard & performance tweaks.

zozbot234 5y ago
Is that worth the hassle when PC-compatible hardware with similar specs is widely available and just as cheap?
- BatteryMountain 5y ago
  Nope. In hindsight, I wouldn't do it again. Reasons: Storage is a problem for most chromebooks and the memory chip is soldered onto the board, so cannot upgrade it. I bought an expensive MicroSD card at the time that is 128GB and can do 100/60 read/write... but the memory card reader seems to be soldered to a Usb 2 header.. thus it tops out at 30mb/s. The updates to the OS and packages delivered via apt is basically very far behind, and many packages get held back. Kernel stays old too. I'm used to Fedora so it is really itching me that it is so far behind. Keyboard is not standard: No delete button, no windows key, no function keys. This is a big problem for me and I didn't check the keyboard before I bought it. A better machine to run linux on in the same manner, is the Lenovo Ideapad (S130-11IGM), it is also a celeron, a 11" screen and supports windows/linux out of the box with a normal bootloader and drivers. Other than that, a 2017 13" Macbook Air with Fedora also works great. What I really want is an 11" laptop with a Ryzen 3 without an active cooler (silent machine) + nvme slot + 2 ram slots + backlit keyboard. I don't want anything soldered except the cpu. Display can be 720p or 1080p.