[HN Gopher] Depthboot - Your Chromebook, your way
___________________________________________________________________
Depthboot - Your Chromebook, your way
Author : lwhsiao
Score : 238 points
Date : 2023-07-27 03:34 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (eupnea-linux.github.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (eupnea-linux.github.io)
| omjha wrote:
| I actually picked up a Pixelbook Go off ebay this week because I
| wanted a really nice quality laptop for Linux. Getting things
| figured out was kind of hellish (I'm working on a guide) but I
| was looking into Depthboot yesterday as a way to see if I could
| get audio working (the custom kernel seemed like it had better
| chances).
|
| Ended up not working, as Depthboot requires you to build your own
| images and there's a problem where the builder gets stuck on the
| DE step (and also the github seems to imply the project might be
| getting sunset?)
|
| In my experience, follow MrChromebox's firmware utility guide to
| set up UEFI firmware, use a recent kernel as they have good
| support for most chrome os devices, and for audio the absolute
| amazing https://github.com/WeirdTreeThing/chromebook-linux-audio
| solved like 3 days of headache for me with one script.
|
| I'd highly recommend it. Picked up an i5/16GB/128GB config for
| ~$200 and it's hardware on par with my M1 Macbook Air, and the
| first x86 laptop I've owned with battery life to match,
| especially with Arch. Amazing value and I think my favorite linux
| device ever.
| zinekeller wrote:
| > (and also the github seems to imply the project might be
| getting sunset?)
|
| It seems that the custom distro (similar to Asahi Linux for
| Macs with Apple Silicon) is the one being sunsetted, not this
| one
|
| > EupneaOS (Discontinued)
|
| > Some of you may have noticed EupneaOS has been removed from
| most pages, this is due to the development of EupneaOS being
| stopped. The sole focus will be on maintaining and improving
| Depthboot, for more information please checkout our Discord.
| amilios wrote:
| Anyone able to give a quick rundown how this works without
| modifying the firmware?
| chronogram wrote:
| By enabling developer mode and running "sudo crossystem
| dev_boot_usb=1 dev_boot_signed_only=0" to allow booting
| alternative images. Then you can boot USB based images and they
| don't have to be signed.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| I have no idea. I was under the impression that only google
| could sign images that the firmware will boot.
| jojobas wrote:
| And why sharing what exactly is "illegal" as per their FAQ?
|
| Edit: apparently anyone can build their image, but distributing
| a ready image would be in breach of trademarks (not licenses).
| shultays wrote:
| it is as if linux desktop people hate having users
| prmoustache wrote:
| WTF are you both talking about? and why legality/illegality
| is even mentionned here?
| jojobas wrote:
| Their FAQ has a "why is distributing our images illegal"
| section.
|
| Not sure why that would mean hating users, distributing
| modified software while keeping their trademarks is
| always a no-no, at least with Linux it's possible to just
| rebrand (which these guys don't want to do).
|
| I guess they could ask to merge their stuff upstream and
| get away from these roundabout ways.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Well it depends of the distro.
|
| - Archlinux has clear trademark policies that allows you
| to distribute derived product as long as it is not done
| with a commercial intent.
|
| - Ubuntu policies mention asking them for permission, I
| guess Eupnea just didn't bother.
|
| - Debian trademark policy do not mention derived work, my
| wild guess is it would be allowed as they say you can use
| their trademark to promote debian and distributing a
| lightly modified version that works on more devices looks
| to me like promoting debian work. In doubt I would still
| ask.
|
| - Pop!OS do not have a public trademark policy, so Eupnea
| would have to ask.
|
| - Fedora trademark says you can do it if you are using
| their secondary mark: Fedora Remix. And they facilitiates
| this with the existence of 3 packages generic-logos,
| generic-release, and generic-release-notes that need to
| replace fedora-logos, fedora-release, and fedora-release-
| notes packages in your distro (you can also do your own
| derivatives). Not a huge deal.
|
| So basically Eupnea is lying. They just don't want to
| bother. In 1 or 2 cases, it is clear that it can
| distribute it as is, in 2 cases it needs to ask
| permission before arguing it is or not possible and in
| the last case they can distribute it as is but need to
| advertise it differently (fedora remix instead of fedora
| and replacing 3 packages).
| jeroenhd wrote:
| This sounds like a pretty annoying thing to keep on top
| of. I would do the same thing in their position to be
| honest.
| igravious wrote:
| They add some of their own sauce to each of the distros.
| (This you're allowed to do (and do very easily because it's
| free (as in freedom) software). What you're not allowed do
| is build an ISO of the result and distribute and still call
| it Arch or Pop!_OS or whatever (because ... _drumroll_ ...
| it isn 't any more). You can't expect Distro makers to be
| getting user support requests from users from custom
| versions of their distros that a 3rd-party made.
|
| All this is obvious and perfectly reasonable when you think
| about it. And without free software it'd be difficult for a
| non mega-corp to create and maintain a project like this.
| So what you see as user hostile is actually users being
| allowed an able to try shiny new software on their
| proprietary hardware/software combo.
|
| So your snark is unnecessary.
| igravious wrote:
| That's answered in the FAQ:
|
| https://eupnea-linux.github.io/faq#why-is-sharing-
| depthboot-...
|
| "The Depthboot base distros all allow image/iso/rootfs
| sharing, but only in an unmodified form. The Depthboot script
| customizes some internal distro behavior (for example it adds
| our eupnea packages) and thereby creates modified images. To
| allow modified images to be shared, all trademarked content
| would have to be removed, i.e. all Distro logos."
| war-is-peace wrote:
| chromebooks can boot from other sources in developer mode,
| pressing ctrl + u on startup brings up a generic SeaBIOS when
| certain flags are enabled from crosh
| burnte wrote:
| This looks great, I'm going to try it on my Galaxy Chromebook 2,
| but aside from that:
|
| "git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/eupnea-linux/depthboot-
| builder && cd depthboot-builder && ./main.py"
|
| STOP GIVING INSTRUCTIONS LIKE THESE. Holy crap, people will copy-
| paste malware right into their boxes if we let this become the
| new normal.
| grrdotcloud wrote:
| Is the alternative to source every dependency and inspect for
| any known exploit?
|
| The (current) repo owner perhaps - is
| https://github.com/QuantumChilipepper
|
| He describes himself as "Spicy Boi"
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| I had a chromebook which required you to open it up and flip a
| hardware switch to allow write access to the OS. Have to open it
| up and push the switch with a little screwdriver.
| brocha wrote:
| My pixelbook is the same way. However, I custom made a debug
| cable so I wouldn't have to pull the battery out which often
| destroys it because of all the adhesives they use
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| That's probably the best way to "lock down" a machine while
| also keeping it in use after the manufacturer decides that it's
| not worth their time to support. Lock it down for most people,
| but unlock it for those who know what they're doing.
| gh02t wrote:
| I had a Asus Chromebox that did this and I actually always
| thought it was a good compromise. Still let me install my own
| OS with minimal hassle (case was well designed, screw was easy
| to get to), but normal users can get the security of a locked
| down bootloader.
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| Ah yes, that was it; a screw. Asus C201 or something like
| that
| asimovfan wrote:
| Somehow this doesn't work in my tiger lake chromebook. Actually
| it works, but the final "install-to-internal" script fails, it
| somehow gets stuck at the wipefs command.
| insanitybit wrote:
| I'm using a Chromebook 100% of the time. It's a great experience.
| The primary limitation is that the dev environment is a bit
| quirky - it's not running directly on the virtual machine,
| instead it's in a container. This can lead to some weird stuff
| when you're trying to do other containery things or if you need
| to run a nested virtual machine.
|
| I've created a script to set up an EC2 instance, rsync changes
| from my project directories over to it, and manage the instance
| state to save money. This pretty much solves any issues.
|
| I really like a couple of things:
|
| 1. It is the only OS that "just works" for me. It's the only non-
| Windows that I can actually plug multiple monitors into and not
| have it flip out and freeze for minutes.
|
| 2. It keeps risky stuff (code development) isolated from
| sensitive stuff (web browsing). If I SSO in my web browse and
| install malware in my devbox I'm actually pretty safe.
|
| 3. I get to use debian, which works well for me.
|
| 4. It's the only OS that feels truly multiuser. I can `ctrl + alt
| + .` to switch desktops to a totally different user and users are
| completely isolated with distinctly encrypted directories so if
| one person is logged in and another isn't you can't just access
| their stuff. This worked really well when I was using ChromeOS
| for work since my work profile was very isolated from my personal
| environment - I could follow 'work profile' stuff like "only
| install these extensions" while doing whatever I wanted in my
| personal profile.
|
| Basically it's everything I want in a laptop and nothing I don't
| want. The main limitation is the VM, but the limitations are
| sorta niche - I doubt many people need to run Firecracker.
| ufmace wrote:
| I pretty much agree. I'd only add that container stuff seems to
| work fine for me, including everything I've tried with docker
| and docker-compose, and I haven't felt the need to do anything
| on a remote instance. The only thing I haven't been able to get
| working locally (yet) is minikube, but I can live with that for
| now.
| insanitybit wrote:
| Yeah actually most container stuff should handle it well,
| it's really nested VMs that are tricky, or if you're manually
| working with user namespaces.
| linsomniac wrote:
| I tried using a Chromebook as my primary home machine (so
| browsing, plus remote access to my work Linux machine for work
| stuff like programming or fixing production issues, ansible,
| etc)... It worked great for 95% of things.
|
| The remaining 5% were mostly small things EXCEPT for one: I'd
| occasionally like to do some video editing (cutting up work
| screen recordings, making youtube videos, family videos). And
| to solve that, I ended up getting my first Mac. It totally
| solves the video editing problem, even allowing me to make
| videos on a laptop rather than being tied to a desktop (the
| only previous option that even half-way worked).
|
| One thing that really irks me about MacOS, that ChromeOS has
| down is updates: ChromeOS it takes <30s to do a full system
| update and be back in business. For MacOS, I can count on my
| machine being out of commission for an hour.
| insanitybit wrote:
| Yeah I think part of the problem is that ChromeOS relies on
| the Android SDK for apps. I'd rather Android provide a native
| SDK for apps that really require fine tuned performance -
| something like video editing is a good example.
| IE6 wrote:
| > 1. It is the only OS that "just works" for me. It's the only
| non-Windows that I can actually plug multiple monitors into and
| not have it flip out and freeze for minutes.
|
| This sums up my experience completely - I used linux for over a
| decade and finally got tired of the little annoyances that no
| desktop environments seemed to solve. ChromeOS wraps it all up
| (presumably because the hardware is known and the OS is built
| against that hardware). And then Crostini allows me to do all
| the fun full stack development things (like k8s, minikube,
| docker, etc.)
| malkia wrote:
| Same here, I'm happy Google Eve user since 2017 or was it 2018.
| The little beast has 16GB of RAM, and initially I was using
| crouton, but one crostini got better I switched to it. There
| are little things that are missing:
|
| - No idea how to compile/link/load kernel modules. This is
| rarely needed, but can happen. - No Vulkan support yet, OpenGL
| / ES seems to be fine.
|
| Mmm.. that's pretty much it... And yes, Bonuses:
|
| - Android! - As posted above said - web browsing, NetFlix (DRM
| support)
|
| And lately, since I've returned to the office and left my
| Windows machine at home while waiting for beefier at the
| office, started using Chrome Remote Desktop and that works
| super well with additional huge monitor and first time noticed
| how well the laptop also supports multiple monitors.
|
| As last bonus: It can flip around and become an "iPad". Perfect
| when we were visiting our niece and I gave their 2 year old to
| watch youtube kinds on it.
| malkia wrote:
| I have only one real complaint: - I can't find any newer
| chromebook laptop with 32GB of RAM (or even 16GB, apart from
| mine). Feel like 32GB is going to make it a lot better to use
| for development.
| seized wrote:
| Then you'll love the Framework Chromebook, up to 64GB RAM:
|
| https://frame.work/laptop-chromebook-12-gen-intel
| malkia wrote:
| Oh thanks a lot! Awesome!
| insanitybit wrote:
| Dell used to sell one with 32GB, and thankfully I grabbed a
| few at the time. Next time I'll probably end up grabbing a
| Framework.
| malkia wrote:
| ditto! THanks a lot for that one!!!
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| This is exciting. I was shocked to discover I could not change
| the OS on the Dell 3120 Chromebook I bought. Nor can I update the
| Chrome browser it includes to a version that understands HBO Max,
| which was why I bought it.
| KetoManx64 wrote:
| Did you remove the write peotection screw?
| https://joshuawoehlke.com/galliumos-dell-chromebook-3120/
| alamortsubite wrote:
| There's no problem changing the OS on your 3120. I have a bunch
| running Debian. As a sibling comment points out, the first step
| is to remove the write-protect screw. It's very easy to do.
| vlark wrote:
| There needs to be a way to do this same thing with MediaTek and
| Snapdragon ARM-based Chromebooks. MediaTek and Qualcomm need to
| let their firmware and bootloaders allow ARM-based Linux distros
| to be installed on bare metal. Too many cheap Chromebooks that
| schools purchase use ARM-processors and get consigned to the
| e-cycle bin when they can continue to be useful low-end machines
| if only we could easily get pure Linux on them.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| FWIW, postmarkos supports at least some ARM Chromebooks -
| https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Chrome_OS_devices
| jordanreger wrote:
| just a note: the owner (?) of the project has gone on some sort
| of archiving spree, and has hacked (?) the discord and github
| accounts of the real owner...
| jonas-w wrote:
| One of the former main devs posted this on discord:
|
| "Sooo here is a timeline: 1. WTT (the other core dev) left 2. I
| decided to also leave (see message in #announcements) 3. I gave
| the discord server, subreddit and github to QuantumChilliPepper
| 4. QuantumChilliPepper didnt really do anything, then went on a
| vacation, came back and went completely m.i.a. for over a month
| 5. Hackernews talks about eupnea 6. QuantumChilliPepper got
| compromised (at least eupnea email, github and discord) 7.
| Hacker deleted a lot of important channels and after messing a
| bit finally have back the server"
| jordanreger wrote:
| yeah i watched this all go down - it was a nightmare lol
| rollcat wrote:
| I always loved the premise of the Chromebook: disposable device
| with a disposable OS; secure by default; your data is always
| backed up; if you have any doubts or problems you can always
| restore to the factory image and be back in action within
| minutes, etc.
|
| I would love to see these principles implemented in a privacy-
| respecting manner: bring your own device, choose your identity
| provider (including self-hosted options that integrate with e.g.
| email or even plain old SSH), choose your storage backend
| (including other clouds but also e.g. Syncthing, SFTP...).
|
| Immutable / secure-by-default OS would also be interesting, but
| nothing else out there is quite like ChromeOS. NixOS/Guix would
| be good candidates, but the underlying scaffolding is quite
| complex. Alpine & OpenBSD are both radically simpler, but lack
| the aspect of trivially reproducible builds. Then of course
| there's the question of providing a good UX on top of that base:
| I want to connect to Wifi, select the ID provider, type my
| username/password, and start working. That's an enormous gap to
| close.
| varispeed wrote:
| > I always loved the premise of the Chromebook: disposable
| device with a disposable OS; secure by default; your data is
| always backed up; if you have any doubts or problems you can
| always restore to the factory image and be back in action
| within minutes, etc.
|
| As long as device can be reused, wiped completely and supplied
| with new OS etc. otherwise "disposable device" we should avoid
| at all cost as that is not green.
| rchaud wrote:
| In this case (Linuxifying Chromebooks), it would be green
| because the supported Chromebooks are pretty ancient and
| available in large quantities from refurbishers.
| ikurei wrote:
| I see disposable as having several meanings here.
|
| If it means crappy quality and unreparable, something that
| will last for a couple of years tops, I agree that is
| terrible.
|
| It could also mean decent quality that will last, but is
| cheap enough that you won't worry too much about it being
| damaged or lost or stolen.
|
| I love my Macbook, and my previous one is still going strong
| after 8 years, in the hands of a family member with lower
| need for computational power, but I hate carrying around a
| device so expensive. I don't dare eat near it, and I wince
| whenever my backpack bumps on something.
|
| I miss the careless freedom of carrying around a cheap,
| crappy linux laptop.
| varispeed wrote:
| Maybe we should use word "reusable" instead. It still
| carries those points, but does away with suggesting that
| device may be tossed to the bin once you are done with it:
|
| > reusable device with a replaceable OS; secure by default;
| your data is always backed up; if you have any doubts or
| problems you can always restore to the factory image and be
| back in action within minutes, etc.
| bzzzt wrote:
| If the result of making hardware inexpensive is people
| getting careless about damage that's a loss imo.
| balder1991 wrote:
| It's not about being careless, it's about not being
| overly worried and limited on what you can do with it.
| rollcat wrote:
| u-24tb1.112xlarge in us-east-1 is $218.40/h and you can
| dispose of it after a few minutes of use. Does AWS physically
| throw away the hardware?
| moffkalast wrote:
| > I want to connect to Wifi
|
| To quote that xkcd, I'll need a research team and 5 years.
| londons_explore wrote:
| A few UEFI firmwares support netboot from a URL over wifi.
|
| With that, you could set up a special secret URL which you'd
| type in on system boot, and have your personal OS loaded for
| you, complete with your settings and data, on any machine.
|
| The local hard drive could be used as an encrypted cache so
| that it's only slow the first time you boot up.
|
| Sadly, support for wifi from UEFI is rare, and bugfree booting
| over the network is tricky to get working on a wide variety of
| hardware.
| rollcat wrote:
| The URL wouldn't have to be secret. You should not be baking
| secrets into an OS image anyway. But this is a very cool
| idea! Just specify e.g. https://start.example.com as your
| boot URL to get to the installer; you can point the system at
| your personal data later.
|
| macOS (at least on Intel) is able to download and start the
| installer from the Internet, straight from the UEFI
| environment - you just have to hold the right magic button
| combination. I've only done this once, but it felt like one
| of those ideas, "why isn't every computer in the world able
| to do this".
| _joel wrote:
| iPXE allows you to do this too, with some hackery. I've also
| done this with wired connection and menus for remote VM
| installs.
| fsflover wrote:
| > secure by default; your data is always backed up; if you have
| any doubts or problems you can always restore to the factory
| image
|
| I found that Qubes OS provides all of that for me, without any
| reliance on megacorporations. All software runs in VMs, which
| are automatically backed up and can be restored to a state
| before reboot easily. VMs run Linux and Windows, so all apps
| are working as expected (except those relying on GPU). And the
| UI is great.
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| I coded on a chromebook throughout college. It was the crucible
| of learning software development in the mid-2010s because you
| had to improvise. Most assignments were in Java back then (from
| what I understand, colleges teach mostly python now) and I
| couldn't run eclipse (the standard IDE used in college at the
| time). I ended up renting a VPS from Vultr for $5/mo and
| SSH'ing in. I coded everything in vim with no debugger or code
| completion, and compiled everything with makefiles.
|
| Classes usually only required a single java file to turn in
| your work, which was then compiled and run automatically with
| the results being verified by another program, so as long as
| your individual java file output the same results as what was
| expected, it didn't matter what build system (if any) you used.
|
| The only other class that didn't use java was systems
| programming, where we did C. I had been doing C since I was 12
| at that point, and since I was already using ubuntu server via
| ssh, it wasn't a difficult class at all for me.
|
| For my OS final, we had to write an operating system simulator
| (a program which simulated the kind of events that would occur
| in an OS: new processes, processes being deleted, memory
| paging, single process multi-tasking with pre-emption). I
| didn't actually read the instructions and ended up writing a
| kind of hypervisor(?) which ran programs in an 8080 emulator
| with some of my own custom instructions for memory banking and
| forking to meet the requirements of the class (your program had
| to be able to do memory paging up to something like 512mb of
| RAM).
|
| You had to have some kind of user interface, so I wrote it as a
| web server in C with a custom HTTP server implementation. The
| program returned an HTML page which looked like a desktop. You
| could spawn terminal windows and run specific programs. I wrote
| a few long-running programs which printed out numbers to
| demonstrate memory paging and process pre-emption. There was a
| special instruction I made to fork the program so you could
| clone a process from another process, and I used one of the
| unused flag register bits to signify which fork the program
| was.
|
| The professor was impressed by the implementation (and I
| implemented all the algorithms required to get 10 points extra
| credit), but because I didn't actually write an OS simulator
| (closer to an actual OS, but not quite there), he gave me 100%,
| but no extra credit. I was happy with that, because I'm not a
| grade chaser.
|
| Unfortunately, I failed the class because I couldn't answer
| trivia on the exam like "What does GRUB stand for" because I
| spent the whole semester working on the hypervisor and not
| actually going to any of the lectures. I just read the textbook
| and coded in C at the library.
|
| Here's the very rough code, with a slightly buggy 8080 emulator
| implementation:
|
| https://github.com/ShortRoundDev/8080-Remote
| rollcat wrote:
| This is one of the most random, slightly off-topic, and
| absolutely amazing stories I've ever read in my life. So much
| of it rings familiar, down to (almost) failing the exam on
| trivia questions :)
|
| BTW have a look at this blog post:
| <https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2023/faas-in-go-with-wasm-
| wasi...>. It uses a lot of off-the-shelf components like a
| WASM runtime instead of a custom 8080 emulator, and net/http
| rather than rolling your own HTTP server - but it's
| fascinating, how close your crazy project ended up from
| actually viable real-world use cases.
| atorodius wrote:
| Is there a Chromebook people can recommend? I would like to
| replace my 7y old MBP woth one for light office work and such.
| grrdotcloud wrote:
| Google Pixelbook Go has been great.
| wgjordan wrote:
| For replacing a MBP, here are some higher-end models I'd
| recommend (2K+ display, 16GB+ ram, 12th gen Intel i5/i7):
|
| - HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook - i5-1235U, super-bright 1200-nit
| display - $999.99
|
| - Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition - i5-1240P, upgradable
| (only 8GB RAM but supports up to 64GB), modular, repairable; no
| touchscreen - $999.00
|
| - Acer Chromebook Spin 714 (specifically CP714-1WN-720J) -
| i7-1260P, solid 360deg hinge - $1099.99
| evilos wrote:
| I had no idea people paid that kind of money for chromebooks.
| I was under the impression it was firmly in the three to six
| hundred dollar range.
| fragmede wrote:
| You get what you pay for, and, well, the $1,000 -$1,200 set
| is nicer than the $300 - $600 set.
| politelemon wrote:
| Can you share what Chromebook you have, and do you use it for
| light programming or something else?
|
| The other day I read that there's an Android Studio for
| Chromebook, which kind of surprised me, in a pleasant way.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Given the experience of using Android Studio on regular
| computers, and the hardware of most Chromebooks, that is most
| likely targeted for people that like to suffer.
| rkeene2 wrote:
| I've been using Linux and UNIX (Solaris, HP-UX) on my
| workstation since 1999. I did a 2 year experiment on using a
| (non-rooted) Chromebook as my only machine and it works fine
| for everything except the terrible window management, very
| basic UI, and occasionally having access to the system to debug
| peripherals.
|
| I'm back on Linux using XFCE, and it's much better being able
| to set hotkeys to what I want.
| jeffbee wrote:
| HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook. I don't use it for "light"
| programming, I just use it for anything. I picked this hardware
| because the display backlight is extremely bright and it can be
| used outdoors under any conditions.
| cj wrote:
| I'm using 4-5 year old Pixelbooks. I think they're discontinued
| now probably because the high price point ($999).
|
| But they last an extremely long time, durable, fast, simple.
|
| I don't use it for development, more so for day to day web
| browsing and when traveling since it's smaller and thinner than
| average laptop.
|
| I really don't know what chromeOS hardware I would go with once
| the pixelbook dies.
|
| Edit: anyone try the Pixelbook Go? Same price point as the
| original pixelbook and upgradable to 16gb ram.
| omjha wrote:
| Picked one up this week! It may seem like there aren't any
| resources online for it (I'm working on a guide) but it
| actually works great! Just use a recent kernel and
| https://github.com/WeirdTreeThing/chromebook-linux-audio for
| audio which works pretty great.
|
| Hardware is amazing, arch flies on this thing and the battery
| life lasts forever.
| jeffbee wrote:
| I owned a Pixelbook Go and it was good but it died after
| getting only slightly damp, wrecked the keyboard somehow. I
| can't imagine getting one today since at the same price point
| you can get the much much faster HP Dragonfly Pro. The only
| real drawback is the 14" HP is bigger and heavier than the
| 12" Pixelbooks.
| mdhb wrote:
| I've been doing full stack web and mobile development on a
| Chromebook for about 18 months now. It's actually the best
| developer experience I've ever had.
|
| Everything is nicely sandboxed, things work well by default.
|
| I probably spend about 50/50 of my development time either
| locally in the integrated Linux developer environment or
| remotely using GitHub Codespaces where I'm just using a PWA
| essentially as my IDE.
| balder1991 wrote:
| What's the specs of your Chromebook? I'm thinking about
| buying one and sell the crappy tablet I almost never use. But
| I have the impression from reading the subreddit that 4GB
| isn't enough to use Android apps on it. Also I'm not sure how
| to know if Linux container is available from random
| Chromebooks in local stores.
| TheCycoONE wrote:
| I have a Samsung Chromebook Plus (v1/kevin). I was looking for
| something that wouldn't be too cumbersome to carry around with
| my work laptop during my 1hr commute and at roughly 1cm thick
| and 2lbs this machine fit the bill. I swapped the OS to
| ArchLinux ARM and used it as a light dev environment sticking
| to nvim+lsp.
|
| These days I work from home and rarely use it - just for
| writing.
| ufmace wrote:
| I'm typing this on a Asus Spin 713. IMO, works great both for
| web browsing and other consumer-level tasks and for development
| and system administration. The Linux container image gives me a
| full command line, and pretty much everything works, including
| my usual Tmux+Neovim development environment. I've never felt
| the need to do any development on a remote VM or anything.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Or better, never buy a chromebook to start with.
| squarefoot wrote:
| I would certainly never buy a new one, but there are tons of
| used Chromeboxes/books for sale on Ebay and elsewhere at very
| convenient prices. I've reflashed a good number of them and
| installed various Linux distros; this can be invaluable for
| people who need an unrestricted OS but have not much money to
| spend on a new PCs, beside repurposing hardware that could end
| up in a drawer or, worse, in a landfill. For those interested,
| my method of choice is described at https://mrchromebox.tech/
| It is not destructive, one can backup and restore the original
| firmware at any moment, although I wouldn't see any reason to
| do that.
| thriftwy wrote:
| If it's cheap, good and you can make a real PC out of it, why
| not?
| arcanemachiner wrote:
| Gallium OS worked great... until it got abandoned.
|
| Then, those seeking updates were stuck finding a distro that
| worked well, with available drivers, had to deal with the
| stupid keyboard and remapping the keys, etc.
|
| I'm not going down that road again.
| jraph wrote:
| A relative still uses an Asus C200 Chromebook. When
| GalliumOS was abandonned, we were able to successfully
| install Linux Mint. Mainline Linux now works correctly, we
| took some packages related to the keyboard from GalliumOS
| and pinned them. A bit annoying but workable.
|
| The sound has always been capricious though, but it was
| also the case on GalliumOS.*
|
| I think buying this machine was a good call at the time,
| almost 10 years ago. Very good battery life, lightweight,
| cheap and now we know, incredibly durable.
|
| But I'm with you. It definitely was a maintenance burden
| and it's good that this relative is patient with the flaws
| that it exhibits, and its slowness.
|
| Today, it would make more sense to just buy a refurbished
| pro laptop and put Linux on it and be done with it. It'll
| be as cheap, but the whole experience will be way better.
| That's what I do for me, and that's what we'll probably do
| with this relative when they or the machine gives up, which
| does not seem to want to happen. Good for the environment I
| guess.
| [deleted]
| thriftwy wrote:
| If it's cheap (and shabby) enough to reason once in 3 years
| upgrade, that is no longer a problem. And that's exactly
| how long my Lenovo laptops tend to survive these days.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Just what the world needs right now, throw away hardware
| every 3 years.
| jraph wrote:
| Yeah, that's crazy. 3 years is barely what we ought to
| aim for _phones_ , let alone laptops.
|
| If only software didn't get more and more heavy.
| sdf4j wrote:
| Debian12 works great out of the box
| pjmlp wrote:
| Because you can also buy a real PC pre-loaded with GNU/Linux
| for about the same price, around 300 euros.
|
| And if one is going for the 1000 euros Chromebook variants,
| then there are certainly real PC deals much better than a
| Chrome kiosk OS.
| toast0 wrote:
| > Because you can also buy a real PC pre-loaded with
| GNU/Linux for about the same price, around 300 euros.
|
| In the US, decent Chromebooks usually go for about 200 USD.
| Decent meaning intel mainstream core processors. From what
| I've seen, those tend to be well supported by 3rd party
| firmwares; Intel Atom based Chromebooks seem to have a lot
| of delays in support, ARM based seem to be mostly
| unsupported, I don't know about AMD based. It's better to
| confirm the 3rd party firmware details before purchase, of
| course, but Intel mainstream core is a good rule of thumb;
| and it's a good rule of thumb for performance too (although
| current AMD is likely better if you know you can boot your
| OS of choice)
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| _Because you can also buy a real PC pre-loaded with GNU
| /Linux for about the same price, around 300 euros._
|
| Not everyone lives in Europe.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Indeed, but they order online.
|
| Also I bet that there are similar offers on their
| continent.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| _Indeed, but they order online._
|
| And pay heavy import duties, or maybe their items seized
| by customs.
|
| _Also I bet that there are similar offers on their
| continent._
|
| Based on what evidence?
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Oh come on. There is no way it is hard to get a Linux PC
| anywhere you can get a Chromebook anyway.
|
| I'll start: Australasia - https://arkpc.com.au/
| djbusby wrote:
| $500 Lenovo in North America, flips all the way open, had
| to swap the WiFI ($25), drop that trash RealTek and add
| Intel. Big SDD, 8 cores. Runs Gentoo+Xfce. Multi touch,
| webcam, all work a treat. I prefer it to a similar sized
| Chromebook ($400) cause it's got more power.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Things you get on a Chromebook that you don't get on a
| 300-euro laptop with Linux include: working multitouch
| input devices, working webcams, working suspend and resume,
| working audio, working wifi, and 7 years of software
| support.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Not everyone chooses which device to have, nor is buying the
| only way to acquire a device.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Most certainly true for Google employees.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I think most Google employees can get whatever device they
| want.
|
| I was thinking of someone who does not have the money for a
| new device, but acquires a salvage one.
| pjmlp wrote:
| They are in good position then, plenty of good deals on
| proper computers as well.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| You're still talking about buying and choosing, and I was
| talking about not doing that.
| pjmlp wrote:
| "....but acquires a salvage one."
|
| => buy or obtain (an asset or object) for oneself.
| n6h6 wrote:
| I encourage you to look up "obtain" and stop being
| intentionally ignorant.
| pjmlp wrote:
| I encourage you to be clever when obtaining computers and
| find one that is actually designed to be a proper PC.
|
| It surely shouldn't be hard for any clever person to find
| out such offers, it might even lie beside that shinny
| chromebook one.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| I am seeing $40 chromebooks on ebay - tempting to buy one
| just for the steal-factor. Why buy an RPi?
| pjmlp wrote:
| I bet you will find other computers for similar prices on
| ebay.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Please forgive me for failing to get this idea across
| clearly, and I will try again, because I consider it an
| important one:
|
| There are people in the world, many people, who do not
| have any access to either money or the ability to choose
| their computing device, and the only devices they have
| available to them, if they are lucky, are the ones which
| they have already been granted by the circumstances.
|
| These people include, but are not limited to, people in
| disadvantaged financial situations, such as countries
| with low monetary flow; those living in abusive
| households, especially minors; those imprisoned or
| otherwise having their freedom restricted; those attached
| to a device for sentimental reasons; those who are able
| to exchange money for a device, as you suggest, and are
| waiting for it to arrive.
|
| To the overwhelming majority of the world, 300 dollars,
| or even 20 dollars, is a huge sum, one that is either
| unattainable, or can only be attained through much
| struggle, difficulty, and sacrifice.
|
| To an individual in such a situation, their Chromebook,
| or 10-year-old Android phone, or 20-year-old PC, may be
| the only option at accessing the digital world. And we
| should do everything in our power to facilitate their
| ability to use such a device.
| madduci wrote:
| I find depressing that there aren't binaries available, as
| everyone is required to build their own distribution from
| scratch.
|
| Why don't they use some hosted workers (GitHub Actions, GitLab
| Runners) to do the job?
| igravious wrote:
| That's answered in the FAQ:
|
| https://eupnea-linux.github.io/faq#why-is-sharing-depthboot-...
|
| "The Depthboot base distros all allow image/iso/rootfs sharing,
| but only in an unmodified form. The Depthboot script customizes
| some internal distro behavior (for example it adds our eupnea
| packages) and thereby creates modified images. To allow
| modified images to be shared, all trademarked content would
| have to be removed, i.e. all Distro logos."
| bhaney wrote:
| > Does the Eupnea Project collect any telemetry?
|
| > No, setting up telemetry services is too much work.
|
| Ha
| moffkalast wrote:
| Security through laziness is a principle I can get behind.
| hattmall wrote:
| Long Live Crouton!
| nextos wrote:
| Very interesting, seems to support fairly new devices (e.g.
| Jasper Lake).
|
| Although newest ones tend to have unsupported boot or audio (e.g.
| Lenovo 100e Chromebook Gen 4, codename rusty): https://eupnea-
| linux.github.io/docs/project/supported-device...
|
| Mapping between devices and codenames:
| https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-f...
| ilaksh wrote:
| I have a very cheap Chromebook that I have been using for
| everything for the last few months since my laptop fan stopped
| working properly.
|
| I have Linux setup in the settings and use it a lot. For work I
| usually end up sshing in to a VPS.
|
| It seems like a normal Ubuntu. What benefit does the Depthboot
| have?
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