Considering Buying A Chromebook?

What a lot of people don't know about a Chromebook is it appears to be the first mainstream device heavily marketed to consumers as a "thin client" to the "Cloud".  Face it.  Most people are used to using their PC's as a "fat client", that is, a computer storing programs run directly by the user from the computer itself.  In fact, your tablets and smartphones are still considered a "fat client" because you have to download apps on your devices to use them directly.  However, the one thing that all these devices have in common, whether they be PC's, tablets, smartphones or even Chromebooks, is that they all can run as a "thin client" off the Internet via your Internet browser.  It's Google's Chromebook that just takes this computing philosophy one step further than everyone else.

What is a "Cloud"?  Well, in computing terms, it's nothing more than a server that is not on your device which runs programs that can be connected directly to your device via the Internet.  There's more detailed explanations of the technicalities of "Cloud computing" which I will leave to Wikipedia.  But that's basically, what you need to know as an end user of the "Cloud".  What do people use the "Cloud" for these days?  Most people use it to store their personal files and to run programs like games or to consume content such as viewing Youtube videos.

I'm an Industrial Engineer by trade and one of the things I've had to do for work is do time studies.  Time studies capture the time spent at various activities of a worker's shift.  Well, if I had to apply time studies to how consumers use computers, this is what I would find:

 

Activity	Smartphone	PC	Tablet
Entertainment	24%	24%	50%
Communication	47%	36%	26%
Production	18%	30%	15%
Research	9%	11%	9%
	98%	101%	100%

 

I took research conducted by Gartner and GfK’s “Multimedia Mentor” study and compiled the results above.  Notice which device is dominant for a particular category.  For Entertainment, it's the Tablet (50%) which is dominant compared to a PC or Smartphone.  For Communication, it's not surprisingly the Smartphone (47%) which is dominant compared to a PC or Tablet.  For Production, it makes sense that the PC (30%) would beat out the Smartphone or Tablet for usage with the advantage of a larger screen size and processing power.  As for Research, you will notice the percentage is almost the same across each type of device.

How does this relate to a Chromebook?  Well, it depends on what you primarily use a computer for.  If you are mostly using the computer for Entertainment, Communication (Social Networking), Research and light Production work, the Chromebook seems like a good fit for your needs.

Here are the Hardware Manufacturers who either sell or will be selling Chromebooks:

Mfgr	Retailers	Model	Price	Weight (lbs)	Screen Size (in)	Res	Battery	Proc (GHz)	RAM (GB)	Stor(GB)
Acer	site lists online and offline retailers	C720-2103	249.99	2.76	11	1366 x 768	8.5	1.4	2	16
Asus	To be released Q1 2014		249.99
Dell	To be released Jan 2014	Chromebook 11		2.9	11.6	1366 x 768	10	1.4	2-4	16 or more
HP	site lists online and offline retailers	11-1101	279	2.26	11.6	1366 x 768	6	1.7	2-4	16
Lenovo	site lists online and offline retailers	ThinkPad X131e	429	3.9	11.6	1366 x 768	7.5			16
Samsung	site lists online and offline retailers	XE303C12-H01US	329.99	2.43	11.6	1366 x 768	6.3	1.7	2	16
Toshiba	To be released Feb 2014		280	3.3	13	1366 x 768	9		2	16

The whole idea of using a Chromebook is to run most of your daily computing tasks off the Chrome broswer, which enables you access to Google's ecosystem of apps using their web store.  It looks very similar to Google Play from a Smartphone or Tablet.



Once you've chosen apps to install, they display on your Chrome browser like this.



I've been doing quite a bit of research on Chromebooks lately and have found for the average user, it can viably serve as a PC replacement.  Why?  Because, if most of your tasks are conducted using the Internet anyway, why do you need a beefier PC?  I would say if you are heavily into Gaming, Video Editing, Graphic Design or Computer Programming, then a low end PC like the Chromebook is not suitable for the type of tasks you do.  It's not that it's impossible to do them.  It's just that the screen size and processing may present some problems if you want to get your work done quickly.  For those kinds of tasks my Linux Mint or Ubuntu PC does just fine.

One of the concerns people have with this new mode of computing is that if they have no reliable Internet access, what are they do?  Well, Google, provides users with the ability to work offline with Gmail, Calendar and other apps.  Heck, I can even read my Kindle Content without Internet access.  As long as I downloaded my content for offline use, I can easily access it on Chrome.  The same principle holds true with Google apps.  For example, there's an app called "Gmail Offline" that you can install from the Chrome Web Store to download your Gmail when you are offline.  It allows you to sync your Gmail once you have Internet access again.

You also have the ability to access apps from other Cloud providers.  For example, I created this tutorial using LibreOffice Calc from the website www.rollapp.com.

Finally, for more advanced users, yes, the 16GB storage is a limitation but you do have the ability to use Crouton to install a light Linux distribution (i.e. Ubuntu derivative) on the Chromebook.  Crouton allows you toggle back and forth between the Chrome OS and your installed Linux distro.  The advantage of doing this is using the Linux distro for the heavier processing say using Open Shot Editor for Video Editing or LibreOffice for offline document processing.  I cover this in my blog.

So, if you are considering buying a Chromebook, consider what you are using your computing devices primarily for and it will enable you to determine whether it is a suitable PC replacement or an additional portable device supplement to your collection of computing devices for personal use.

 

Buying a Laptop for Linux Use

Now that Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) has replaced the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) on most new laptops these days, especially the ones with Windows 8 on it, it's time to educate a Linux user on what they should be considering when in the market for a new laptop.  What this means is you won't be able to easily install Linux on PC's with UEFI on them unless it's one of the three Linux distros which supports UEFI.

You have five options:

1.  Pick a Linux distro which supports UEFI. - As of this posting, there are only three:  Fedora 18, openSuSe 12.3 and Ubuntu 12.10.  However, just because you pick one of those 3 doesn't meant it's guaranteed to work on all UEFI laptops.  You need to pick a Manufacturer which allows those 3 distros to be installed on it.  I've read that Samsung's UEFI boot options have caused their laptops to be inoperable so you might want to choose a different laptop manufacturer.

2.  Disable Secure Boot on your UEFI PC. - To install Linux distros, other than Fedora 18, openSuSe 12.3 and Ubuntu 12.10, you "may" be able to disable  the Secure Boot option on UEFI and enable their installation on your UEFI laptop.  The best thing to do if you are going with this approach is to find out directly from the manufacturer of your laptop, how to disable Secure Boot on UEFI.  That is, if they give you the option to.   Not all manufacturers will allow you to do this.  Try installing the Linux distro you've selected after you've disabled Secure Boot.  Some distributions like Ubuntu will have instructions on how to deal with Secure Boot on UEFI.  Others may not so be aware of this before you go through all the work of trying this approach.

3.  Buy a Non-OS laptop. - Instead of dealing with the hassle of UEFI, you can buy a laptop with no OS installed from these vendors.  Then install your Linux distro of choice on it.

4.  Buy a laptop with Linux pre-installed. - Instead of dealing with the hassle of UEFI, you can have the vendor install your Linux distro choice on the laptop of your choice.  See the Linux Friendly Vendors tab on this site.

5.  Buy a Chromebook and install Linux on it. - You can install a Linux distro in a dual boot situation with Chrome OS on a Chromebook.  Or you can install your chosen Linux distro to replace Chrome OS.

Obviously, there are pros and cons with each method above.  It depends what you are using it for and what you are willing to pay in additional costs for the convenience of ease of use.  If you are an average user and do not want to deal with the hassle of researching and preparing a laptop for Linux use, you are better off buying Linux pre-installed even if it costs slightly more than a Windows 8 laptop.  Over time, you will accrue the benefits of using Linux over Windows, when you don't have to deal with annual anti-virus licenses or additional licenses for Office or other Windows compatible software.  You will also no longer need to defrag your laptop.  If you are not using your laptop for Development, Graphic Design or CPU intensive processing and just want to get the cheapest laptop possible with Linux on it, you should consider buying a Chromebook and installing Linux on it.  If you are a Developer, a Graphic Designer or Video Producer and you don't mind doing some extra "prep" work yourself, consider options 1-3.  However, I think option 2 should be the last resort for everyone, considering it requires the most research.

 

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