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Comment by dijit | Hacker News Reader

Last time I ran chromeOS it was those unofficial builds by a guy called “Lex”, needless to say it was a long time ago.

Back then it wasn’t possible to run anything other than Chrome itself outside of dev mode, but I’ve seen people running/installing VSCode on chromeOS (not in the web browser). Is that feasible?

At the same time as I was seeing this, it appeared that the OS actually has a windowing system now, so you can move windows around and have one on top of the other, is that the case? Any quirks with that?

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By default, there is only web browsers and no Linux. Which is nice because by default there can be no malware and it's a good OS for non technical users.

But with one click it installs and makes available Linux. It appears to the user as a debain variant. You can install anything and when you run apps they seamlessly work with the window manager. I've used VScode for software development and it works great. Steam is even available for games, but I haven't tried it.

Window manager is the right balance of powerful and simple. Great at manipulating web browser windows (has virtual desktops if you want them), but works fine interacting with Linux apps as well.

Is it Google in name only or does it send telemetry of my every click to the mother ship? Would be interested in trying it as a VSCode remote development + minimal Linux utilities platform.

I don't know what sort of telemetry exists. It is easy to try out. From my memory you can use the install USB just as a normal boot drive without installing. So you can go try it out and see if you like it before you install it

What makes you think websites can't give you malware for your Chromebook?

That's like the number one way to get it.

What are you referring to? Chrome extensions?

I'm referring to the fact that it's connected to the internet.

The same way all browsers prevent malware? Sandboxing and regular patches to patch holes in the sandbox?

The Chrome team is very responsive to vulnerabilities in my experience, they roll out security patches extremely quickly and chrome autoupdates you to the latest version soon after.

Yes, the same way. That's literally the point I'm making. OPs original comment, "By default, there is only web browsers and no Linux. Which is nice because by default there can be no malware and it's a good OS for non technical users."

As if ChromeOS isn't going to get malware the same way all OSes do.

What's also great is you can install apps through Flatpak and Chrome OS Flex will recognize it and you can pin it to your shelf. There's a fork of VSCode called VSCodium through Flatpak, which doesn't send telemetry to Microsoft. I've also installed Steam, Discord, Libreoffice in Flatpak without any issues.

Microsoft has a whole blog post about VSCode on Chromebooks in their Crostini Linux environment. Which is just... gah:

https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2020/12/03/chromebook-ge...

I mean, the fact that it can be done is neat, but on most entry-level Chromebooks it will be a memory hog, and you might be better served with vim or emacs (one or both of which should be learned to functional competence levels by every programmer), because then you'd have more room for running stuff.

The days of underpowered chromebooks is gone.

They're still pretty brutal.

The BestBuy around the corner from me, for example, is selling an Asus Chromebook with a Celeron N3350/4GB RAM/64GB eMMC and 15.6" 720p screen for $400 CAD.

Is this not underpowered? Sure there are other options, but to most people the appeal was the low cost. For $799, I'd just buy a PC.

my 4 core top of the line intel 10th gen i7 with 16GB of ram i got for 750$ begs to differ

A number of models with 4 GiB RAM are still floating around out there; I consider that underpowered if you are going to be running a browser + heavyweight apps (Visual Studio Code is heavyweight). For Windows 1x, 4 GiB is barely usable; ChromeOS does better but today's memory-hungry apps can take that advantage away.

I’ve seen such models for 200$ apples and oranges

There is absolutely none of my daily workflow where vim or emacs would be a better experience than a full blown modern IDE.

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