I don't have a Pixel Chromebook, but I recently bought a Toshiba Chromebook two and installed Linux without X11 http://blog.markwatson.com/2015/07/ubuntu-linux-on-my-chrome...
I like running Linux with multiple shell windows along side Chrome OS, but for me having a good emacs setup and Haskell, Clojure, and Ruby installed is fine. I also use nitrous.io for development.