4 ms·

The CR48 was over a decade ago wasn't it? I was also a cr48 beta user and I recall being a teenager, which I have not been for a while. Comparing chromebooks to

The CR48 was over a decade ago wasn't it? I was also a cr48 beta user and I recall being a teenager, which I have not been for a while. Comparing chromebooks today to the cr48 feels like comparing... idk, anything from 12 years ago to anything from today? ChromeOS can now run Android apps and a full linux environment.

JeremyNT 5y ago
It's not fundamentally different though. I had the cr48 too and it was just a toy compared to a normal Linux distribution. It didn't displace my similarly underpowered Asus netbook, since the later ran Debian (I think that's the distro I ran back then). Chromebooks of today are more powerful, which they need to be because web developers of today waste more memory and CPU cycles than ever. But fundamentally the concept and limitations of these "online first" devices are similar. The ability to run Android apps is certainly a step forward, but these things are really designed to lock people into Google's cloud products first and foremost.
- lmns 5y ago
  It is different. I can run a Debian VM with GUI applications on any recent x86 Chromebook. It's pre-installed and supported.
- staticassertion 5y ago
  It is so, so fundamentally different. It has been over a decade. Chromebooks today run debian. I've got a debian shell right now where I'm working with intellij.
killjoywashere 5y ago
> anything from 12 years ago to anything from today IDK, I have access to pretty much any hardware I want (cloud GPUs, rack-mounted DGX-type systems, actual supercomputers, yada yada) and in the evening I still sit down to use old ThinkPads. My oldest daily driver is an X201 which actually predates the Cr-48. I don't find my brain working any faster using a 16" macbook. I do find during the workday that the massive amount of screen real estate of 2 XDR monitors is handy to quickly refer across 2 or 3 applications (e.g. scribing for a document under discussion in a video call, while looking at the references under discussion, and checking my calendar with a glance)
- staticassertion 5y ago
  What's different is that ChromeOS was an alpha OS 12 years ago and obviously is radically different today. One major difference is that you can run a full debian environment.
  - killjoywashere 5y ago
    this debian environment is news to me. thanks for that.

JeremyNT 5y ago

It's not fundamentally different though. I had the cr48 too and it was just a toy compared to a normal Linux distribution. It didn't displace my similarly underpowered Asus netbook, since the later ran Debian (I think that's the distro I ran back then). Chromebooks of today are more powerful, which they need to be because web developers of today waste more memory and CPU cycles than ever. But fundamentally the concept and limitations of these "online first" devices are similar. The ability to run Android apps is certainly a step forward, but these things are really designed to lock people into Google's cloud products first and foremost.

lmns 5y ago
It is different. I can run a Debian VM with GUI applications on any recent x86 Chromebook. It's pre-installed and supported.
staticassertion 5y ago
It is so, so fundamentally different. It has been over a decade. Chromebooks today run debian. I've got a debian shell right now where I'm working with intellij.

killjoywashere 5y ago

> anything from 12 years ago to anything from today IDK, I have access to pretty much any hardware I want (cloud GPUs, rack-mounted DGX-type systems, actual supercomputers, yada yada) and in the evening I still sit down to use old ThinkPads. My oldest daily driver is an X201 which actually predates the Cr-48. I don't find my brain working any faster using a 16" macbook. I do find during the workday that the massive amount of screen real estate of 2 XDR monitors is handy to quickly refer across 2 or 3 applications (e.g. scribing for a document under discussion in a video call, while looking at the references under discussion, and checking my calendar with a glance)

staticassertion 5y ago
What's different is that ChromeOS was an alpha OS 12 years ago and obviously is radically different today. One major difference is that you can run a full debian environment.
- killjoywashere 5y ago
  this debian environment is news to me. thanks for that.