On 19 February 2014 23:56, Tim Serong <tim@wirejunkie.com> wrote:
On 19/02/14 12:00, toby@dryft.net wrote:
Hi, Samsung have had an ARM-based laptop for a while, sold as a Chromebook. (ie. with an Android-like Linux kernel and the Chrome browser as the whole OS)
The little ARM cpu means the laptop doesn't need much power and can run for quite a while, despite being lightweight and cheap with a small battery.
I was wondering how it'd go running a full version of Linux; just running a bunch of terminal emulators more of the time, and maybe Chromium from time to time.
I've heard of people managing to get Ubuntu or other linux variants installed, but I wondered if anyone here has done it? Was it worth the trouble?
I've run openSUSE on mine as described here:
http://en.opensuse.org/HCL:ARMChromebook
There's an image you can put on an SD card, then with the Chomebook in developer mode[1], you boot off the SD card (have to hit CTRL-U at each boot to do this). This means you can have a play without trashing or otherwise repartitioning the SSD.
Last time I tried this, *something* didn't work (might have been not waking from screensaver? I forget exactly), and I never got around to figuring out what it was. This may well have since been fixed.
I ultimately ended up just running my Chromebook in regular ChromeOS mode, as I'm really only using the thing occasionally as a a slightly glorified web browser, and I got sick of it whining loudly at me on every boot about the possible doom associated with being in developer mode.
Hi Tim, Thanks -- your first-hand experiences were exactly what I was after. I think you've confirmed others' suggestions that the chromebook is going to be more hassle than it's worth to run Linux upon, at least at the moment. -Toby