Chromebook.....

[TubeHiFiNut]

Anyone else using one of the Chromebooks?

Had mine for a couple of years and it works really well for general email, web, documents, etc. Lightweight, fast, great battery life.

Hopefully Chrome will approve a Sonos Controller app soon and my Chromebook will completely replace my iPad.

 

[airdronian]

I'm not yet, but a Chromebook is where I'm heading once I'm done with my MacBook Pro. It turns 10 next year ! My use is strictly web based and I'm accustomed to using Gmail, Docs, Drive, etc. Looks like a good solution for my needs.

 

[TubeHiFiNut]

I'm not yet, but a Chromebook is where I'm heading once I'm done with my MacBook Pro. It turns 10 next year ! My use is strictly web based and I'm accustomed to using Gmail, Docs, Drive, etc. Looks like a good solution for my needs.

Hopefully you will be very happy when you make the change.

Several friends also have them and love them.

 

[mhardy6647]

No but Mrs. H had (actually, still has) a little HP "netbook" (remember those) that served her well for a while prior to her finally capitulating and getting a smart phone.
My phone is (still) pretty stoopid

 

[GreatDane]

I use a little HP netbook in my music room as a remote for my music server. Works great.

 

[mcgsxr]

I am using an Asus netbook (with 2GB RAM) as my dedicated music server. Runs Logitech Media Server just fine, and with a 5TB drive hung off it, is perfect as a small, quiet music solution.

 

[airdronian]

Hopefully you will be very happy when you make the change.

Several friends also have them and love them.

The change has been made ! Acer Chromebook 14 is in the house. Now I can see how poorly the old Macbook Pro was doing. So far so good - really enjoying it.

 

[airdronian]

There was one consideration that I had given some thought to - how to use Audirvana + on the Mac Mini dedicated for audio playback. (aka Music-Mini here) My Macbook was usually running screen sharing to the Music-Mini and I would control it that way. (Audirvana only has an iOS remote app, no good for my Android phone)

I figured there would be a solution - and it is Chrome Remote Desktop (CRD). I don't have any Google products installed on the Music-Mini and wanted to keep it that way. As we (were) mostly a Mac household there is another MacMini downstairs. So that runs Screen Sharing to the Music-Mini and I use CRD from the Chromebook to the desktop MacMini.

Sounds clunky but it works pretty well - I don't spend any time on the Music-Mini aside from selecting albums and pressing Play. For general background listening with Spotify my phone serves that purpose well.

Maybe Audirvana will develop an Android remote app one day, if so I will be all over it.

 

[gable]

I've been thinking about a chromebook. I think some of them are easy enough to install Linux on. I'm primarily a Linux user (Linux Engineer for the last ~10+ yrs). I just bought a new Lenovo X1 Carbon that I love, but would really enjoy a small, light laptop for casual reading, etc.

If CRD isn't quite what you want, there are quite a few VNC* applications out there that work very well. There is also Synergy which is a sort of software based KVM (keyboard, video, mouse, ie: screen share type app). I used to use Synergy from my Linux laptop and workstation to control my old Mac Mini based music player and it worked very well. Synergy is a paid product these days, fwiw.

I've heard great things about the Acer Chromebook 14, how do you like it so far?

Cheers,
Gable

 

[TubeHiFiNut]

I've been thinking about a chromebook. I think some of them are easy enough to install Linux on. I'm primarily a Linux user (Linux Engineer for the last ~10+ yrs). I just bought a new Lenovo X1 Carbon that I love, but would really enjoy a small, light laptop for casual reading, etc.

If CRD isn't quite what you want, there are quite a few VNC* applications out there that work very well. There is also Synergy which is a sort of software based KVM (keyboard, video, mouse, ie: screen share type app). I used to use Synergy from my Linux laptop and workstation to control my old Mac Mini based music player and it worked very well. Synergy is a paid product these days, fwiw.

I've heard great things about the Acer Chromebook 14, how do you like it so far?

Cheers,
Gable

Mine is an early series 12"(?) screen. Too early to run Linux.

Even with that, it's very portable and flexible enough that I have it in my bag a lot.

Always good to see another Linux user. My service club uses Ubuntu (slightly customized) for our Computers for Kids program.

 

[airdronian]

I've been thinking about a chromebook. I think some of them are easy enough to install Linux on. I'm primarily a Linux user (Linux Engineer for the last ~10+ yrs). I just bought a new Lenovo X1 Carbon that I love, but would really enjoy a small, light laptop for casual reading, etc.

If CRD isn't quite what you want, there are quite a few VNC* applications out there that work very well. There is also Synergy which is a sort of software based KVM (keyboard, video, mouse, ie: screen share type app). I used to use Synergy from my Linux laptop and workstation to control my old Mac Mini based music player and it worked very well. Synergy is a paid product these days, fwiw.

I've heard great things about the Acer Chromebook 14, how do you like it so far?

Cheers,
Gable

I've been enjoying using the Chromebook - typically at least a few hours a day. Completely trouble free. It's primarily just web browsing, so this works really well. The system has updated about 3 times now, the latest has provided some Linux app capability, but I doubt I'd need it. I used Linux quite a bit in the past, but no longer on a regular basis. I do have a Linux Mint VM that I can fire up if need be.

My previous method of remote access to the music server was too clunky (which I pretty much expected). I found a cross platform version of remote desktop software called Splashtop that works really well - it's very much like Teamviewer, etc. and has installers for Android, Mac, Windows.

 

[gable]

I've not heard of splashtop, I'll have to check it out.

The chromebook platform is appealing for that use case certainly, I don't always want my i7 heater laying on my lap!

 

[airdronian]

I've not heard of splashtop, I'll have to check it out.

The chromebook platform is appealing for that use case certainly, I don't always want my i7 heater laying on my lap!

I can understand - the older MacBook Pro I used must have been designed to use the aluminum case as a heat sink. Kind of nice in the winter.

This Chromebook doesn't seem to heat up, and it's silent, unlike the old laptop.