"Why Chromebook Pundits Are Out of Touch"

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by ApK

And since the 11"" 2GB was $199 last year. As I said, these things are supposed to get cheaper....

Innovation has trained us to think that way but I wonder how long it'll still hold true.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by ApK

Even if we allow that the inclusion of both Metro and Desktop is good thing for the convergence of computing device types, the changes to the desktop are negative. They changed or removed proven, popular conventions for no good reason. The changes add nothing positive. If Win8 is indeed faster and more secure than Win7 (Is it really? By what standards? How do you judge such a young, unproven OS as "more secure.") it is certainly not because they removed the Start button and obfuscated the program list.

It's interesting to see each desktop OS try for convergence and end up harvesting consumer annoyance -- Apple for concealing the file tree and cloning iOS limitations in Mountain Lion, Windows 8 for the reasons discussed above, and Linux Ubuntu for its Unity GUI. A friend who just installed Ubuntu 13.10 has been telling me that (a) installation was the smoothest he'd ever experienced on his tower -- every driver worked perfectly -- and (b) Unity is a horrorshow. He had the same reaction to the new Linux GUI that many Windows users have had to 8's (i.e., he found a way to delete it).

And Mountain Lion annoyed two developer friends so much that they've been talking -- ever since ML was first introduced -- about buying Windows desktops after decades of development solely for Apple devices. Another friend who's a soundtrack composer in LA hates Logic 9 and Pro Tools 11 (both eliminated third-party TDM plugins) so much that he's just returned to Leopard so that he can run Logic 8 and an earlier iteration of PT.

Perhaps Google has the right idea: Creating a laptop/desktop OS that's meant not to be convergent (Android isn't Chrome) but to extrapolate on the laptop-idiomatic ramifications of ideas typically confined to mobile devices without proper keyboards.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Perhaps Google has the right idea: Creating a laptop/desktop OS that's meant not to be convergent (Android isn't Chrome) but to extrapolate on the laptop-idiomatic ramifications of ideas typically confined to mobile devices without proper keyboards.

Is that what ChromeOS is doing?

I see it the other way, not that ChromeOS is extrapolating from the mobile world, but that it's been pared down from a laptop/desktop OS to only the essentials that the consumers on the left half of the bell curve care about most of the time.

ie, Why should users who only care about 20% of what a PC can do need to learn/maintain/pay for/deal with the other 80%?

Android, (and iOS) on the other hand, extrapolated from the single-purpose devices people had in their pocket -- phone, media player, camera -- and grew to a full general purpose computing system.

ApK

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

It's interesting to see each desktop OS try for convergence and end up harvesting consumer annoyance -- Apple for concealing the file tree and cloning iOS limitations in Mountain Lion, Windows 8 for the reasons discussed above, and Linux Ubuntu for its Unity GUI. A friend who just installed Ubuntu 13.10 has been telling me that (a) installation was the smoothest he'd ever experienced on his tower -- every driver worked perfectly -- and (b) Unity is a horrorshow. He had the same reaction to the new Linux GUI that many Windows users have had to 8's (i.e., he found a way to delete it).

I'm running Ubuntu 12.04LTS and it was my first introduction to Unity. Holy Crap!!! What a mess. Luckily Google is your friend and it took a single search, a couple of minutes downloading and installing classic gnome, and I was back in business. Not looking forward to upgrading, but the LTS is supported until April 2017 and I'll just wait.

[AndrewH]

Thankfully Ubuntu isn't the only version of Linux available. I use openSUSE (KDE desktop) myself.

The Chromebook is incredibly attractive though. I'd strongly consider one, but I'm still tied to a traditional computer for Calibre, Sigil, and ADE.

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by AndrewH

Thankfully Ubuntu isn't the only version of Linux available. I use openSUSE (KDE desktop) myself.

Yeah, maybe. I *had* been using Kubuntu until the KDE team made a horrid mess of KDE and pushed me back to Ubuntu and gnome. Everybody seems to want to cater to the lowest common denominator.

The Chromebook is incredibly attractive though. I'd strongly consider one, but I'm still tied to a traditional computer for Calibre, Sigil, and ADE.

And chromebook is worthless to those of us who live too rural to be connected to broadband. Dialup is your friend...

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

I'm running Ubuntu 12.04LTS and it was my first introduction to Unity. Holy Crap!!! What a mess. Luckily Google is your friend and it took a single search, a couple of minutes downloading and installing classic gnome, and I was back in business. Not looking forward to upgrading, but the LTS is supported until April 2017 and I'll just wait.

I think people need to keep in mind that unlike say Windows or OS-X, Linux does not tie you to a particular desktop environment. If you want to run Ubuntu with a different desktop, there is Kubuntu, Xubuntu and Lubuntu (there might even be an Ubuntu that ships with something from the Gnome family). And as you pointed out, installing an alternate desktop environment is not that big of a deal.

--
Bill

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

The larger screen isn't worth $80.

How about the full size keyboard? And sometimes, a larger screen (even if the resolution is not higher) can be useful.

--
Bill

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Sure it's fair to compare the two; especially since these devices are aimed at casual users. They'll be more interested in a $199 price tag versus a $279 price tag.

As to the 2GB, I was referring to the price point. $249 will get you a 4GB Acer.

Memory is just one thing to judge a computer on. You can get an Acer for $199, but that has a regular harddrive (which may or may not be an advantage depending on your POV); that will mean that you will loose the quick boot feature (again, if that is important to you... having more built in storage might be instead).

But we also need to judge the quality of the screens, the keyboard, the quality of the parts, etc. Frankly unless you absolutely have to, shopping on price point alone in the sub $300 area could be a costly mistake.

--
Bill

[ApK]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

Memory is just one thing to judge a computer on. You can get an Acer for $199, but that has a regular harddrive (which may or may not be an advantage depending on your POV); that will mean that you will loose the quick boot feature (again, if that is important to you... having more built in storage might be instead).
Bill

The $199 Acer is (or at least was when we bought ours) available for the same price with a 320GB HDD or a 16GB SSD. We have one of each.
(I have the HDD for the Linux system, my wife has the SSD.)

We note that while the boot speed of the SSD is impressive, The HDD boot is pretty darn fast, too. More importantly, we have almost never had to reboot these things. Unless the battery goes totally dead, there is almost no reason to.
They both wake from sleep very quickly.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

I think people need to keep in mind that unlike say Windows or OS-X, Linux does not tie you to a particular desktop environment. If you want to run Ubuntu with a different desktop, there is Kubuntu, Xubuntu and Lubuntu (there might even be an Ubuntu that ships with something from the Gnome family). And as you pointed out, installing an alternate desktop environment is not that big of a deal.

--
Bill

There is also Linux Mint, which I intend to try out myself. It is based off Ubuntu (and uses their repo's) but with a few tweaks and a choice between the MATE and Cinnamon desktop install versions, both of which sound pretty good. MATE is a fork of gnome2 and should be much closer to the good old days, GUI-wise.

[ApK]

By the way, during the ChrUbuntu install on a Chromebook, instead of Unity, you can opt for KDE, LXDE, XFCE or no GUI at all.

Unity has actually grown on me, except that I object to the idea that they don't let me move the launcher to the bottom of the screen where God and Nature intended it to be.
Seems like a very un-Linux thing for Canonical to do.

ApK

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by ApK

The $199 Acer is (or at least was when we bought ours) available for the same price with a 320GB HDD or a 16GB SSD. We have one of each.
(I have the HDD for the Linux system.)

We note that while the boot speed of the SSD is impressive, The HDD boot is pretty darn fast, too. More importantly, we have almost never had to reboot these things. Unless the battery goes totally dead, there is almost no reason to.
They both wake from sleep very quickly.

I checked the Acer website before I posted... So I am going by Acer's official prices. That being said, it is always possible that Street Prices will be less... But that would be true of Acer's competitors as well.

--
Bill

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

Memory is just one thing to judge a computer on. You can get an Acer for $199, but that has a regular harddrive (which may or may not be an advantage depending on your POV); that will mean that you will loose the quick boot feature (again, if that is important to you... having more built in storage might be instead).

But we also need to judge the quality of the screens, the keyboard, the quality of the parts, etc. Frankly unless you absolutely have to, shopping on price point alone in the sub $300 area could be a costly mistake.

It has an SSD. Outside of the screen, the specs are pretty much the same.

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

There is also Linux Mint, which I intend to try out myself. It is based off Ubuntu (and uses their repo's) but with a few tweaks and a choice between the MATE and Cinnamon desktop install versions, both of which sound pretty good. MATE is a fork of gnome2 and should be much closer to the good old days, GUI-wise.

Cinnamon, not so much...

I'll have to take a closer look at MATE. Looks pretty much like the gnome I'm running here on Ubuntu. I'll have to see what/if the differences.