Samsung’s Chromebook Plus now supports Linux apps | Hacker News Reader

Samsung’s Chromebook Plus now supports Linux apps

theverge.com

119 pointsartsandsci59 comments

I have the chromebook plus and just want to caution that this support is super early and there are significant shortcomings at the moment (lots of apps crash when trying to use the clipboard & java based apps seem to crash intermittently for unexplained reasons) but likely this will clear up in the coming weeks, given the fast pace of bug fixes in crostini so far.

In contrast, the Pixelbook (currently on sale for $750) has the exact same feature set but is very stable- This is the one I'd recommend any person to buy who wants to use a chromebook for development.

Also, I have a clojure project and it takes 24 seconds to build on the Pixelbook, but takes 64 seconds on the Chromebook Plus- Keep in mind the Chromebook Plus uses the same ARM processor as a typical phone, so this is still very impressive for a compiler running inside a VM.

How's the Pixelbook? Anything missing for software development? Can you run everything without needing crouton/ubuntu installed?

Works great, just enable linux support and you can apt-get whatever you want and run UI apps right next to chromeOS windows. Glitches are few and far between, though it's still only a beta feature.

EDIT: Yes, the lack of GPU support is still a major limitation.

What's your to go IDE / text editor to code in Chromebook?

debian version of UI emacs works great

The GPU (or lack of it) leaves something to be desired if you want to build anything graphics intensive, but its quite a nice machine otherwise.

I imagine Android apps have to be emulated on the x86 chips, just like they were on Atom phones.

Been using for a bit now and not even turned on my Mac since buying the pixel book. Everything has worked so far.

Love being able to use the exact same containers on my laptop I use in the cloud.

The Pixelbook is available only in US/Canada/UK, I wonder what the story is there.

Do you have to do that weird thing of not hitting the space bar on boot up to get into developer mode?

It's still very early on, but I feel like this is a game changer for Chromebooks. Between web apps, Android apps and now Linux apps, they will become very developer friendly.

This is the thing that I have been waiting for to try one for development: A non hacky way to use linux tools on their lightweight machines.

A lot of people use termux on android/chrome-os for that purpose. I haven't done real work on it though I am absolutely in love with it, after trying tons of apps having the ability to just create a script with some rsync commands for syncing pictures etc. is a godsend.

I tried to use termux. It doesn't support openjdk which makes it useless to me.

I've used it, I haven't found much that doesn't work yet, aside from a couple of ruby gems.

It will be huge. Make gnu/Linux so much more accessible. Exactly what we needed. Plus the high school no longer will need to use Crouton for AP CS 1 and 2. Now they can write Java on machine native and keep all the security.

I love how Google implemented. Did not give up any security. MS could really learn from Google.

This is cool. I've got a couple Chromebooks where I re-flashed the firmware (SeaBIOS or, more recently, Tianocore UEFI) to get a full linux distro running, but it looks like this will get you full linux software with Chrome OS's security and containment features.[1]

Plus, it looks like Samsung's Chromebook Plus is ARM based - I've wanted an ARM-based laptop for a while, where I'm willing to trade some power for battery life. And using a non-Intel machine is also just fun for the novelty of it.

[1]: https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/08/you-can-now-run-linux-apps...

Make sure you get the Plus version which has the OP1 ARM processor according to the article below:

https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/10/14570480/samsung-chromebo...

Processors:

Plus: OP1 ARM Pro: Intel Core m3-6y30

I have a Chromebook Plus, and I have to say, it's not a device I'd recommend. I only use it as a tablet replacement (watching video and reading digital comics), and if manages to fail miserably at both of those.

As someone who uses Linux on all of his desktop and laptop devices, it kills me to say this, but if you're looking for a tablet-like laptop, I'd recommend getting a previous generation Surface, which is about the same price, and a vastly better device.

I'll just copy my previous comment[0] about the Chromebooks here.

I have a Samsung Chromebook Plus, and I absolutely despise it as a tablet. Compared to my Nexus 9 (which is still kicking), it's a far inferior device. My primary uses for my tablet are watching video and reading comics. It manages to fail at both of those two things.

1. No system-wide support for red-tint (aka "night mode", Flux, Twilight, etc.)[1]

2. Buggy rotation lock - this works very inconsistently across apps.

3. Heavy (compared to keyboard-less tablets)

4. Buggy soft keyboard (sometimes the soft keyboard just straight-up doesn't work in certain apps, so I have to unfold the device from tablet mode just to use the hardware keyboard to type).

I still use my Nexus 9 over the Chromebook Plus every time I can. When my Nexus 9 dies, I'll probably end up getting a Surface to replace it.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17213097

[1] There is finally support for it on a per-user basis, but it took years for them to introduce this. And even now, if you close your tablet and have to unlock it again, you'll be blinded by the unlock screen.

>I only use it as a tablet replacement (watching video and reading digital comics), and if manages to fail miserably at both of those.

As another Chromebook Plus owner I find this really surprising. I see your list there but I'm not sure how the video and digital comics fail. I've found it a pretty versatile device.

> As another Chromebook Plus owner I find this really surprising. I see your list there but I'm not sure how the video and digital comics fail.

Lack of red tinting (system-wide) is a non-starter. If I'm reading late at night, I don't want to blind myself.

The rotation lock is really buggy and app-dependent. On Android tablets, it just works.

Night Light works system-wide for me, including the lock screen. Samsung Chromebook Plus, single user, stable channel. If yours is bugged, perhaps setting a dark wallpaper background might help mitigate the issue?

The rotation lock, I can't say I've had any issues with it, but I don't think I use the Chromebook Plus in tablet mode nearly as much as it sounds like you do.

I have the small Asus Flip Chromebook which I like but not as a tablet. When I travel with it I bring a tablet or Kindle along as well.

Why did you get a device with a physical keyboard when you only needed a tablet?

> Why did you get a device with a physical keyboard when you only needed a tablet?

Because the last true flagship tablet Google released was the Nexus 9 in 2014. I actually still prefer to use that over the Chromebook, but it's clear they want the Chromebook to be the replacement for their flagship tablet lines (Nexus/Pixel).

Not counting the Pixel C, I suppose?

It's too bad Chrome OS wasn't ready for the tablet/convertible form factor in time for the Pixel C's release, given the rumors that it was originally supposed to be a Chrome OS device.

Perhaps Google's next Pixelbook will be a convertible like the new HP Chromebook X2: https://chromeunboxed.com/news/hp-chromebook-x2-first-impres...

Wife has a CB+ and loves it. I have a PB as my only issue was the keyboard. I am sensitive to keyboards and the keyboard on the Pixelbooks is the best keyboard I have seen on any laptop.

Since getting my PB have not turned in my Mac. I love having gnu/Linux on my laptop and able to run the same containers I use in the cloud.

So easy to pull something down and play with it and learn. So much better than alternatives. OS x is close but still not Linux.

Yesterday had to help someone with an issue with reddis and not in my PB. Grab a container and up in minutes and can focus on the issue at hand.

But why on Earth has it taken so long?

Do you have to do that weird thing of not hitting the space bar on boot up to get into developer mode?

I'm somewhat torn about feature creep on Chromebooks.

On the one hand, I like Chromebooks a lot and frequently travel with a small one.

On the other hand, as price tags creep up for the fancier models and laptop capabilities start getting added, at some point, I wonder why not just use a Linux laptop (or other laptop of choice). There are some tradeoffs like battery life but it almost feels that we're recreating this sort of odd web browser/laptop hybrid.

On still the other hand though, I suppose if an Android or Linux app gives you that one capability you feel you can't live without on a Chromebook, what's the harm?

You can't fuck up a Chromebook.

I've been using Linux distros on and off on personal and work computers for something like 15 years, I don't really want to deal with administration for a Linux machine unless I have to. Especially on a laptop, which like you said has power management challenges.

I'm typing this on a corp-managed Linux laptop and I get intermittent screen flickering that I would consider completely unacceptable from anything else. We have corp-managed Linux desktops and those sometimes just have the entire UI lock up if you use too much RAM. I did some Deep Learning work at home on a Ubuntu partition and that would also have the UI freeze up sometimes until I rebooted the computer.

I try to avoid using a graphical display while doing deep learning (or any gpu intensive work). It reserves some, albeit not much, vram and while it shouldn't cause issues like the one you're stating, it definitely can.

A bunch of chrome tabs can quickly use enough vram that a model which trained fine yesterday fails today.

Sshing to the machine from another makes it far more consistent in that regard.

It's stuff like this that is necessary to at the very least give "Linux on the desktop" a fighting chance.

It's very welcome to me. I love where Linux has quietly got on the desktop over the last five years, sort of below the radar during all the Windows 10 ruckus and mobile OS happenings. Something like Linux Mint or Ubuntu strangely now feels friendlier and more fun than Windows (what happened there!) and with a higher average quality "app store" too, i.e. the good old repositories with friendly UI's. Microsoft Store is still a cesspool in many respects and so sad to watch at times.

I think this new wave of Chromebooks will be very useful at least to me, especially as complements to my stationary PC and smartphone, instead of a tablet. They seem to get what it takes to be so versatile and fun to use, as a home user and developer catching a breath after the work hours.

My concern with this is how well such apps will integrate into the native Chromebook environment. I don't think just being able to run arbitrary Xwindows apps will be all that interesting outside the geek/developer community. To be truly useful the apps need to work well with each other, with ChromeOS services like notifications, etc. How will application storage and file sharing, and backups be managed? How will integration with Google Drive work?

On all these points, the details of how the user experience works really matter. I hope Google has seriously thought all this through for once, and isn't just throwing this in as a feature because they think it's easy. I would actually much rather this was a custom native app framework specifically for the Chromebook environment, than just putting in a Wayland server and calling it done.

ChromeOS supports Wayland and the gnu/Linux applications integrate well as they go in the app drawer.

It will be better for people new to gnu/Linux as more familiar. This will open up use of gnu/Linux in a big way. Especially for schools in the US as the defacto standard is Chromebooks and Google ecosystem.

Now with also Android ChromeOS becomes a great option and perfect for my needs. Have not turned on my Mac since getting a PB.

Big thing is ChromeOS is the most secure desktop OS you can buy.

I'd be interested but ...

4gig ram.

Nice screens, reasonable processing power but they throttle the ram to make you want to spend the $500-750 for the "power" of.... 8 gigs of ram. But with the bloat of a useless(to me) windows license included.

How long is the chromebook spec going to stay like this? It's awful and holding them back.

It's nonsensical in 2018 to have this little ram on a laptop,chromebooks included but there it is still.

Have you used one? The OS is so lightweight, it doesn't seem to matter.

there are models with 8gb. with the expanded scope (android, linux), there will be pressure to increase RAM.

Just like Android already increased the storage availability (3 years ago people would have laughed about a chromebook with 256gb storage - what's the point? And now there's Pixelbook)

Yes and the 8g models of chromebook (there are 2 right?) are $750+

HP Chromebook G1 goes up to 16GB with the M7 model. I have the M3 one with 4GB RAM and it works well for me with either ChromeOS + crouton or plain Ubuntu 18.04. It should get Linux app support too, it's a fairly recent device.

EDIT: looks like you can get the M7 for <600$ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M29N9BR/ref=as_li_qf_sp...

You know I'd rather see some of these chrome books with 8g and still in the $300 range.

But thanks, that's actually a nice little machine.

I just got a chromebook plus 12 hours ago. Nifty.

Maybe I gave up too soon, but I could not get either Android Studio or VS Code Studio running, because of ARM. I figure those issue get solved by people who know better than me soon.

Anyone able to point to simpler instructions on how stand up containers on CB+?

I've been using Termux to run linux software on a chromebook for about a year now.

Very nice.Been using the bsd/Linux support to run all my favorite Android apps. X11 throguh xiwi is seamless and already provides the gnu/Linux apps I need.

The problem is that it is Samsung so I'm assuming they put a bunch of their custom shit software on it.

I had one of these machines for a few days and I can assure you that Google handles the OS side, and there is no pre-installed crapware from Samsung.

Same goes with other Chromebooks I've used (ASUS and Acer).

Is this particular Chromebook US only?

Amazon US ships it internationally, at least to my country.

True, but then you're stuck with a US keyboard. At least USB-C means you can easily use your native power plug.

Is it VM or native support? Also, what kind of display server does it use in such case?

Google hardened the KVM and what is used. So native instruction execution but sandboxed.

Then the gnu/Linux applications run in containers.

So do not lose the secure aspect of Chromebooks but get native gnu/Linux.

Do you mean it runs a whole OS in the container, or it binds application to the host OS?

Google has created a hardened KVM that it is using. So the GNU/Linux instruction run native on the processor but just sandboxed from the Linux kernel used by ChromeOS.

Then they use containers between the GNU/Linux applications.

This is different than how they did Android. Android is done using the same kernel as ChromeOS and using containers. But it is locked so can be secure.

Google implementation of GNU/Linux is going to be far more secure.

But all of this is hidden from the user. From the UI standpoint the user has no idea what is happening under the covers. You install a GNU/Linux application and it is added to the app drawer like an Android app or anything else.

> Google hardened the KVM and what is used. So native instruction execution but sandboxed.

That makes no sense. KVM is used for virtualization, e.g. I use it to run windows VMs. So not native and not a sandboxed container but a VM? Or is the KVM part wrong and it actually uses containers like crouton?

Stupid question: how is this better than crouton?

Been using the new gnu/Linux support on my PB and has been really stable and just love it. My wife does have a CB+ I got her to replace her iPad but she uses to play animal crossing with a stylus more than anything and not into software development.

Finally having a big company like Google supporting gnu/Linux with a commercial offering is a big plus. But then also get Android.

Love how they implemented as secure and separate. So containers between gnu/Linux applications and then gnu/Linux sandboxed from ChromeOS and Android.

I have heard Chrome OS is going to support Android apps and Linux apps yet these rollouts are always so delayed and limited that it's not even worth discussing.

Wow, 2% of the Chrome OS ecosystem now has access to something that will barely get used and may or may not actually end up in future releases. The Google ecosystem could not be any more fragmented.

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