I think this is great. I bought a chromebook flip a couple of years ago, with the intention of putting Linux on it---only to find that the hardware is depressingly bad and the ARM processor makes the Linux experience terrible (had to install Arch, never did manage to make basic things like the JVM work right, eventually gave up on it). Since then, I've been very skeptical of the notion of buying chromebooks as cheap and lightweight mobile working tools.
But I will buy a pixelbook in an instant if I can get a fully functional, no bullshit with having to install custom kernels or new firmware or god only knows what and what will happen to the hardware and what just won't work despite The Internet insisting it does, insisting! Oh Lordy. A Linux environment available on decent hardware, without having to MacGyver it together with bubble gum and safety pins? Where things like power management actually work? What other options are there, really, for that? Purism? Dell XPS13! All of those are actually more expensive than the Pixelbook. (Though the Dell thing does look pretty sweet.) Hell, I may go order one now.
> Since then, I've been very skeptical of the notion of buying chromebooks as cheap and lightweight mobile working tools.
You have to be careful about which processor powers your Chromebook if you want to do non chrome os things. The processors from the mainstream core line (Haswell, Skylake) etc do pretty well, although they're usually fairly low clocked. The chromebooks with Atom or ARM processors usually have a harder time booting other things, and the ARM linux ecosystem is a lot trickier than the x86-64 ecosystem.
Avoiding Atom processors is harder than it looks, because Intel keeps changing the branding, probably to confuse users.
By the same token... if you want to run Android applications the situation is much worse on x86 processors, because while Android is supposed to be agnostic the reality is that there hasn't been any requirement for developers to target x86 market wise for a long time, and anything that goes remotely near direct graphics rendering or video DRM tends to break quite badly.
This isn't my experience. I have a Chromebook Pixel, which is x86, and games and movie apps work fine on it. I think anything major is likely to be cross-compiled, and it's only niche apps that won't run.
The raspberry pi has done a lot to improve the Raspberry Pi Linux ecosystem, with some effects for the ARM Linux ecosystem, but the fact that there's a difference between the two ecosystems is the problem with the ARM Linux ecosystem.
The other good thing about this is that the Pixelbook is a 3:2 screen, so finally there's a laptop with a proper display resolution that can run Linux nicely.
It depends on what you do. 16:9 is better for wathing 16:9 movies. But if you read lots of text, narrower, longer columns are usually a lot more handy. We have way more vertical than horizontal scrollbars.
I prefer 16:9 or 16:10 because I have a lot of windows side-by-side most of the time. I don't have 1 file open while coding, most of the time 2 or 3, in that case a wider screen is better in my opinion.
I've got a surface and in my opinion 3:2 is actually better for multitasking. You can fit two windows vertically. So you end up having 4 windows side by side.
Because 16:9 ("shortscreens") was a ploy by manufacturers to sell a smaller screen for the same diagonal. Combined with much of the vertical dimension being eaten by the general pattern of window decoration + app taskbar + app toolbars + OS taskbar, and well, at least they're good for watching movies!
3:2? No thanks I don't really want black bars when watching movies...
What I'd really really like is something with the build quality (especially the touchpad!) of a MacBook Pro, with decent and recent hardware, first class Linux support for all features, support for both USB-C and "old" USB and a decent keyboard with it. And that without paying more than for an technologically outdated yet still top-of-the-line MBP...
Wow. Thanks for sharing. This is amazing... it's like it was made for me but I'm sure my wife won't approve the idea of buying yet another computer. Good daydreaming material, though!
Because they are Clevo. In my opinion the whole "linux laptops" are just a scam in general. Virtually all of them are just slapping their logo on top of generic machine from vendor like Clevo or Compal and are saying that those are "machines designed for linux" ... no they aren't. The most that they are doing is to negotiate with Clevo to put a WiFi card that will work with linux out-of-the-box, which is basically the same what you can do yourself.
Cool, so buy something else; literally every laptop on the market is catering for you, and I'm genuinely happy for you--
but those of us who prefer taller aspect ratios have nothing.. please let us have this.
Give me a Thinkpad with a full aluminium body, a touchpad with a size that's actually usable and we'll talk. Sorry but I have developed a real dislike for small touchpads incapable of reliable gestures and full plastic bodies.
A metal body is heavy, prone to dents and attenuates radio. Why are you so keen on having one? The X1 Carbon is lighter, tougher and more serviceable than a MacBook Pro, in part because of a better choice of materials.
As for trackpads, Apple keep making them larger and larger, so a ThinkPad trackpad is no smaller than a MacBook from a few years ago. The keyboard is surely the primary concern.
This. I don't buy MacBook Pro because it has Aluminium body, but because of the quality of the components inside, and how they integrate well with the OS.
My dream computer would be
- ThinkPad like casing. Light weight, yet durable. Not some cheap flimsy plastics.
- XPS like thin bezel display, with Apple like screen with colour calibration. While at it, please give me a 16:10 or some other tall displays where I can have more vertical space. 16:9 is only good for media and it is a secondary use-case on my laptop.
- Components with wider/open source drivers like intel wireless card instead of the Broadcom stuff. Some bluetooth module that has proper working Linux drivers.
- Trackpad - Mac like smooth trackpad. It's been decades and nothing comes even close to what Apple could do.
- Decent 12 hour real world battery life. I don't care if it makes the laptop slightly thicker or heavier - it is worth it.
- Keyboard with a good bit of travel - Like a ThinkPad.
- No Dongle life. Want USB-A, USB-C, HDMI, MiniDP, Full size SD card slot.
So far, only MacBook pro (with VMs running Linux) comes closest with several compromises.
The trackpad is also terrible compared to modern MacBooks aside from the size. It flexes, feels worse and does not reliably track gestures. The whole thing feels stuck a decade ago.
I want to agree with you, I want a Linux daily driver with the quality I am used to from the Mac. But I guess we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on the new mac keyboard being a dealbreaker.
Being an UNIX is irrelevant for Apple related development, it is just a side effect of being based on NeXTSTEP, which also only used POSIX compatibility as an attempt to take business away from SGI and SUN.
If you want UNIX development, without any regard for OS X and iOS, then go sponsor hardware vendors selling Linux and BSD based systems.
If you cannot see anything immoral in Apple, or if you're unable to see anything immoral/fascist beyond murder and WWII then I'm not sure you're ready to discuss this subject.
I suggest you educate yourself on the matter, because judging by your comment, I can clearly see you're ignorant about the subject.
> A metal body is heavy, prone to dents and attenuates radio. Why are you so keen on having one?
I like how it feels and looks. Is that so wrong?
I have used an X1 Carbon for the last year but when I can I will probably go back to the MBP for the trackpad. I guess different people just have different preferences?
Let's be happy there's enough choices to hopefully satisfy everyone.
Yes choice is good. But my concern is that consumers start demanding metal bodies, zero-travel keys and touch-bars everywhere, because Apple, and choice will be reduced. For example, I can no longer buy a mobile phone that doesn't have a glued-in battery.
at least for me, the answer is yes. I'm unsatisfied with almost all the options in laptop market based on my requirements. I just have to choose one, that makes me less unhappy.
Asus and Lenovo have great ultra books running Win10. Ultimate Office 365 support + good battery life. But it lacks a terminal + integrated UNIX utilities.
I prefer to use Linux on my laptop, but at the moment, it is lacking office 365 support. On some brands there is a serious battery issue.
Next option is macOS which has sane shell. But I don't understand, why is there such a huge race toward making thinner laptops? Previous generation MBP, was already thin enough. Consumers demanded thinner laptops. And now I have to bare with thinner MBP but less reliable battery power, fewer ports and a very noisy keyboard (which is disturbing everyone in library).
I'm not going to prescribe any feeling to them. I don't think they 'should' do anything. Just found it curious to be concerned about other people having different opinions.
I don't think the concern is other people having different opinions in itself. The concern is that by having preferences that are not represented by consumers in general, it is less likely that you'll find your preferences satisfied by a product on the market. If the mainstream is heading towards a set of standards that are uncomfortable to you, I think it's a valid cause for concern.
I can't remember consumers demanding glued-in batteries. I think decisions like this are taken for all kinds of reasons (CEO preference, ease of design and assembly, lock-in, etc) and then presented to consumers as packages that they can accept or decline. But it's too simple to say that this is solely driven by consumer choice.
Consumers demanded slimmer designs over glued in batteries, soldered RAM chips, etc. So the market responded by gluing in batteries and soldering ram. In a way, the consumers did demand that.
Modern plastic composites with carbon fiber / glass fibers can perform as well or better than metals with regard to strength-to-weight. Plastics also have many other properties that make it preferable for a laptop case. Apple have chosen aluminium to give the impression of build quality. The competition are too often judged by their plastic cases instead of other attributes, such as the lack of glued-in batteries and unreplaceable components.
> Apple have chosen aluminium to give the impression of build quality.
My MBP is going on 6 years old and I have not been gentle with it. In fact I have dropped it on concrete multiple times. It is dented and scraped, the hinge is crooked. It still works perfectly. My previous, plastic laptop (also a Mac) had to have its shell replaced twice (under warranty) in less time than that.
You may feel that aluminum is not worth the trade-offs or the cost, and that's fine, but I want to be clear, the MBP's build quality is not just a shiny facade.
This is pretty subjective, but I spend a lot more time typing than using the touchpad and while the MBPs touchpad may be nicer, I think the MacBook keyboards can't hold a candle to ThinkPad keyboards. I'm happy to trade a worse touchpad for that any day.
I use a Thinkpad with Linux for work and I agree that the keyboard is better than a MBP's.
However, even though I use the keyboard more than the trackpad, I find that I still rather use a MBP because the difference between the trackpads is greater than the difference between the keyboards. Also I like the screen on the MBP better.
I wrote off the Trackpoint back in its glory days, but I recant my former position. Trackpoint is the bees knees once you get used to it. The Apple touchpads have gotten huge and easily triggered, Trackpoint is the cure.
On macOS trackpad rejection is quite good, but if you're running anything else it's very frustrating. One of the primary reasons reinstalled macOS... too many triggers on Fedora :(
> No thanks I don't really want black bars when watching movies...
I genuinely never understand people that watch movies on laptops. I find it a wholly unenjoyable experience.
Do you own a TV? You’re missing so much of the experience watching a movie on anything smaller than 45” and TVs are dirt cheap these days. I saw a 65” the other day for $250...
> You’re missing so much of the experience watching a movie on anything smaller than 45”
genuinely curious: given the same resolution, what's the difference between watching a e.g. a 45" from your couch and watching something like a 20" while getting closer to the screen until it covers the same angle of view? Just the fact that it's (probably) more relaxing for your eyes to focus on relatively distant objects?
My kids have nice TVs in their room and a rarely see them use them. Instead they watch movies on their Chromebooks majority of the time.
Are go to for the kids are the Acer 14s. Just incredible machines for the money. All aluminum chassis, peppy performance, long battery life, etc. Get them Acer refurb for about $200. Best value you can get.
Wife uses a CB+ and me a PB.
Wife spends a ton of time on her CB+ and does often time watch movies on it. While I never do on my PB. Often times she will be watching a movie on hers laying in our bed while I am watching something on our TV in our bedroom.
The TV itself may be cheap but the space it requires probably isn't. How do you fit one 45" screen per person in a small appartment?
I genuinely don't understand why people put huge TV screens in their small rooms given that a smaller screen at closer distance produces the same visual effect.
In my case, I live on a boat so don't have the room for a 45 or 65 inch TV. Laptop it is.
But there are many, many circumstances why you'd watch TV on a laptop. I don't believe airlines would look too fondly on someone dragging their 65" TV on board.
$899 definitely a steal, if it starts running Linux easy. Damn, my 2013 MacBook pro getting old, so this looks like an awesome deal. Since Apple wants to put shitty keyboards
I have a Dell XPS 15 at work and it's so difficult to install and setup Linux between the M2 SSD drive and the Nvidia Optimus GPU. Would not recommend.
I run Arch on my XPS 15, too. Had it up and running after the usual Arch Wiki binge reading and a couple hours of trial and error. But that's what I always do when installing Arch.
A couple weeks ago I did a fresh install with Manjaro. With this the installation process goes down to around 10 minutes and everything (bluetooth, touchpad, function keys, optirun etc.) works out of the box.
I'm using a XPS 15 9550 with Arch linux installed, didn't have to setup up anything special apart from bumblebee I suppose it works really well for me.
crostini does not need developer mode to run.
what happens is that it is still in chrome os developer channel, which means is still in beta and can have bugs, but is something diferent then developer mode, just to make things clear.
Oh great. Thanks for clearing that up. I'll still wait until it's on the release channel but it's good to know I don't have to turn on developer mode to use it.
I was gonna suggest the Dell until I read the end of your message. I have one and haven't regretted the purchase. Pretty much everything works out of the box except for the fingerprint scanner.
But I will buy a pixelbook in an instant if I can get a fully functional, no bullshit with having to install custom kernels or new firmware or god only knows what and what will happen to the hardware and what just won't work despite The Internet insisting it does, insisting! Oh Lordy. A Linux environment available on decent hardware, without having to MacGyver it together with bubble gum and safety pins? Where things like power management actually work? What other options are there, really, for that? Purism? Dell XPS13! All of those are actually more expensive than the Pixelbook. (Though the Dell thing does look pretty sweet.) Hell, I may go order one now.