Comment by whodidntante
18 hours ago
Chromebook users.
I loved my Pixelbook, fantastic piece of hardware. When that ended, I went with an Acer Chromebook. Works fine, just not the same.
I would go for a Mac Air or Neo, but only if I could install ChromeOS.
I will most likely get a Googlebook, and would be more likely to do so if it was not named Googlebook and did not have Gemini built in.
> I would go for a Mac Air or Neo, but only if I could install ChromeOS.
To each their own, but this is absolute insanity.
I used DOS,then Windows, then Mac for a total of almost 40 years. I think using Windows and OSX are insanity, but to each their own.
I now have a machine that boots almost instantly and just works without maintenance, upgrades, or compatibility issues. I can throw it in the river, and for $300 get a machine that will be up and running in about one minute. I can use multiple machines (small/cheap to bring on a trip, laptop for casual working, larger machine for more serious work, even at the same time. I have full access to everything from my iPhone, or access to some computer anywhere. I use remote VSCode via Crostini to do development work (terminal, vi, Codex, Claude Code) on a bunch of beelink boxes and Hetzner servers.
I cannot run installed software and I am dependent on Google for email, files, photos. For the latter, I have backups of my email and files (photos are not as easy).
Life is simpler this way.
Do you not want to be able to develop while being offline?
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I feel like we are of a similar age. This is great advice. My small company is growing and i'm thinking this is the path so I don't need an IT helpdesk.
Do you still use vi or were you meaning vi(*) and actually use something else? I've been on vim for a while but happy to go back to vi
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I'd love to read more about your setup. I'm doing about half of what you have.
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You can use Google services on a Macbook and have installed apps.
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I don't get how life is simpler.
We are way out of context window, occupied by OS chores.
Life was simpler when we were dumber, but now, no. Stop lying.
ChromeOS is a very competent, fast, and easy-to-use operating system. For my family, it's basically perfect. It's virtually unbreakable and anyone can pick it up quickly.
Windows is a hot mess and frankly I wouldn't recommend it to anyone outside of gamers. For the technically competent, there's nothing to gain on Windows, and it will just get in the way. For the those less technically inclined, Windows means complexity and viruses. Also most Windows laptops suck major ass.
MacOS is better, especially if you have an iPhone. But even MacOS is a bit too complex for the less technically inclined. If you have an android phone, then a chromebook is 100% the way to go for those people. Also, chromebooks get crazy software support these days, on par with macbooks.
> ChromeOS is a very competent, fast, and easy-to-use operating system.
It also locks you into the cloud services of an advertising company that loves harvesting your data to help find new ways to sell you things.
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Counterpoint. I use Windows and MacOS daily and they are both awful (and occasionally wonderful) for different reasons. Windows on a laptop sucks simply because I can't close the lid and put it in my bag without it catching fire, but apart from that I don't care too much either way.
I use Linux CLI all the time but every time I've tried to use a Linux desktop as a daily driver, it's stopped working one day for reasons that are beyond my ability to care enough to figure out.
I used to think so too, but when my extremely-non-techy mother's Chromebook died, she was able to switch from chrome OS to Ubuntu with minimal fuss. Chrome OS has some specific features, but if you just need a web browser Ubuntu works fine.
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I support a lot of old folk on laptops that are less technically inclined. All they want is Windows because familiarity, despite Microsoft making things unfamiliar every release.
MacOS is too complex? What web site even is this?
Please refrain from making claims like "absolute insanity" without backing it with some sort of commentary on the claim. It really isn't worthy of HN.
see guidelines https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
It's the only OS for my 93 year old mother. I can manage it remotely, too, and she can't mess it up.
My mother (80+) runs Fedora, and I believe she is incapable of messing it up, even if she did have the root password. Doubleclicking random exe files off the internet is almost uniquely a Windows problem. I dunno about Macs - its users are usually technically illiterate, but Apple has done a pretty good job of locking users out of their own machines.
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I work for organizations that spend thousands per year on MDM to turn macOS running on Macbook Airs into effectively ChromeOS.
For certain use cases, a computer that can do nothing whatsoever except run the absolute latest version of production Chrome is better than any other device.
A computer filled with great hardware that gets its hands held behind its back by shit software sounds like the soup de jeure for apple.
The HP Dragonfly Chromebook is pretty good. The Asus models are also very nice. The Acers are hit or miss; quality is iffy on those and there's a zillion models so it's impossible to find a specific one.
I wish Framework would keep supporting ChromeOS but alas. You could put ChromeOS Flex on one - it doesn't have Android apps, which is fine for me, and it does support the Linux environment, which is excellent.
Why would you want ChromeOS and not Linux?
With ChromeOS you get both.
I have used Linux for 20 years, but only for development, and I will only develop on Linux.
For everything else (email, files, photos), I want a browser. Used to be Mac/Osx, but got tired of being managed by it.
Just my preference. You can do everything on Linux, just never felt comfortable with it.
You want a browser for files?
b/c you don't have to think about the operating system and updates. I posted about my experience here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48051902
...basically, I have "nerd cred" and run linux on my desktop, but for my laptop I wanted: disposable (no leaky hard drive), zero maintenance (no kernel modules for sound drivers), battery-portable.
90% of the time I'm wanting `vim` + `git` + `ssh`, and 20% of the time i'm wanting to run some random stuff locally. Chromebook is basically zero friction and 1/10th the price (and 1/10th the capabilities) of a "very nice mac laptop", plus you can pop into a very capable linux VM (w/ passthrough GUI support) without a lot of ceremony.
Windows laptops are out of the question, and pure linux laptops (until only very recently) were of marginal support and low battery capabilities (especially "close it and stuff it in a backpack for 3 days").
> (no kernel modules for sound drivers)
What century did you write this in?
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> Windows laptops are out of the question, and pure linux laptops (until only very recently) were of marginal support and low battery capabilities (especially "close it and stuff it in a backpack for 3 days").
Dell has sold laptops with first-party Linux support for nearly fifteen years, to say nothing of other smaller OEMS.
As for the battery issues during sleep: that actually has to do with a combination of the BIOS settings + downstream ramifications of secure boot (and how the old-fashioned "hibernate" used to work). Unfortunately, that isn't specific to Linux. My MBP has the same problem, and so do the same laptops running Windows.
ChromeOS is linux. It's a Linux distro that works correctly out of the box, setting it apart quite strongly from all other Linux distros.
Then why do people install Linux in Chrome books?
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"Works" is kind of generous. Try connecting a printer for example.
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You can install ChromeOS on a Mac: https://chromeos.google/products/chromeos-flex/
It's a great stopgap OS for older hardware.
> I would go for a Mac Air or Neo, but only if I could install ChromeOS.
Similarly, but I would extend that to mac mini/studio, but I would like Linux on it. I like hardware, but I hate the OS there.
As a linux desktop user, I would buy it only if I can wipe ChromeOS out of it.
> I would go for a Mac Air or Neo, but only if I could install ChromeOS.
Is this satire?
We tried Chromebooks for our kids, and the instant I could buy Neos I did. It might just be that we're fully bought into the Apple ecosystem, but I had a hell of a time trying to get stuff like parental controls figured out on ChromeOS.
You don't need parental controls at all. Google will make sure they see exactly what they need to see...
/s