Developing software for something other than a Linux server is not some bizarre edge case. I was reacting to your unqualified claim that a Chromebook is "a more real development machine."
My "special needs" was running popular and well known Linux software. Many people in this thread have said that running Crouton on a Chromebook is just like having Ubuntu or Debian. But this is not so:
1. Google does not reliably update core software
2. It's harder to get help when things go wrong, because the system is sufficiently different from an ordinary Linux box
For those reasons, if you want to run Linux software, it's better to use a familiar Linux distribution, and not ChromeOS.
If you want/need to run a very particular version of Linux software, then maybe a Chromebook's not for you. But many thousands of people successfully run all kinds of Linux software that works just fine inside the Crouton environment. I didn't and wouldn't say you're a bizarre edge case, but xbmc is being far more picky about versions than it needs to be and that's not ChromeOS's or Crouton's fault. It's unreasonable to criticize the platform because it didn't satisfy your one use case, and it certainly does nothing to refute my original point that ChromeOS isn't just for newbies.
My "special needs" was running popular and well known Linux software. Many people in this thread have said that running Crouton on a Chromebook is just like having Ubuntu or Debian. But this is not so:
1. Google does not reliably update core software
2. It's harder to get help when things go wrong, because the system is sufficiently different from an ordinary Linux box
For those reasons, if you want to run Linux software, it's better to use a familiar Linux distribution, and not ChromeOS.