What about installing Ubuntu on these and developing on that? Has anyone reliabl...

fmstephe · on Dec 21, 2012

I have done both. I have used a Chromebook to code on a linode vm and I have installed Ubuntu on the same Chromebook to develop locally.

For my purposes they both work very well. The reason I switched to Ubuntu on the Chromebook was that an easy to use installer was available. Now that I can do development on the machine locally I can use it on the train, where previously the 3G connection wasn't reliable enough. I love it.

However, it should be noted that I used vim for both setups. Although I haven't tried, I don't write Java in my spare time, I think that using Eclipse or Netbeans would be disappointing on the Chromebook. But if your tools are simple you can get a great deal of joy from these laptops.

I have really never enjoyed a computer as much as I enjoy my Chromebook. Alas, right now I am typing this from my monster VAIO laptop, because my wife took the Chromebook on holiday.

rwmj · on Dec 21, 2012

I have Fedora on mine and it's fine for light development. Slightly slower, though not noticably for most things, with a smaller amount of storage.

Edit: using these instructions, which work fine despite the slightly scary warning at the top:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Architectures/ARM/Samsung_Chr...

duck · on Dec 21, 2012

From a couple weeks ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4929282. From that though, I got the impression that using linux isn't easier.

magic5227 · on Dec 21, 2012

Do you know if Ubuntu will be addressing the issues that were reported? They must have ARM on the roadmap