Chromebooks

The Asus Eee: How Close Did the World Come to a Linux Desktop?

Jeff Siegel — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 13:30:00 +0000

It was white, not much bigger than my hands held side by side, weighed about as much as a bottle of wine, and it came in a shiny, faux-leather case. It was the $199 Asus Eee 901, and I couldn't believe that a computer could be that powerful, that light and that much fun.

This is the story of the brief, shining history of the Asus Eee, the first netbook—a small, cheap and mostly well-made laptop that dominated the computer industry for two or three years about a decade go. It's not so much that the Eee was ahead of its time, which wasn't that difficult in an industry then dominated by pricey and bulky laptops that didn't always have a hard drive and by desktop design hadn't evolved much past the first IBM 8086 box.

Rather, the Eee was ahead of everyone's time. It ran a Linux operating system with a tabbed interface and splashy icons, and the hardware included wireless, Bluetooth, a webcam and an SSD hard drive—all in a machine that weighed just 2.5 pounds. In this, it teased many of the concepts that tech writer Mark Wilson says we take for granted in today's cloud, smartphone and Chromebook universe.

The Eee was so impressive that even Microsoft, whose death grip on the PC world seemed as if it would never end, took notice. As everyone from Dell to HP to Samsung to Toshiba to Sony to Acer to one-offs and "never-weres" raced netbooks into production, Microsoft offered manufacturers a version of Windows XP (and later a truncated Windows 7) to cram onto the machines. Because we can't have the masses running a Linux OS, can we?

"The Eee gave regular people something they couldn't have before", says Dan Ackerman, a longtime section editor at CNET who wrote some of the website's original Eee and netbook reviews. "Laptops had always been ridiculously expensive. The Eee wasn't, and it gave regular people a chance to buy a laptop that was smaller and more portable and that they could be productive with. I always gave Asus credit—they understood the role of form and function."

Netbook History

The computer world never had really seen anything like the first Eee, which didn't even have a name when it was launched in 2007 (although it later would be called both the 701 and the 4G). In fact, say those who reviewed the 701, it wasn't so much a product but a proof of concept—that Asus could make something that small and that cheap that worked.

There had been small laptops before, of course, like the Intel Classmate PC and the OLPC X0-1, each part of the One Laptop per Child project. But those were specialized machines designed to bring computing and the internet to students throughout the world, and not necessarily consumer products.

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Chrome OS Stable Channel Gets Linux Apps

Philip Raymond — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 11:30:00 +0000

by Philip Raymond

How to get started with Linux Apps for Chromebooks.

After months of user testing in developer and beta channels, the Crostini project at Google finally delivered the goods: Linux apps for most users of Chromebooks in the stable channel—definitely worth the wait. While this still is aimed primarily at developers using Chromebooks, I think there's a good chance these Linux apps will be used and enjoyed by the general public using Chromebooks as well. There's still a bit of a learning curve to overcome before that possibility is realized, but if you already are a user of any Linux distro, it will feel very familiar. Here's an overview of how to install it and what to expect afterward.

After getting the update to version 69, go to Settings and scroll down a bit, and you'll see the option to turn on Linux apps. Figure 1 shows this first step. Note that this isn't available on all Chromebooks; if you're using an older one, you'll have to wait a while before this function is available. If you don't see the option to turn on Linux apps, your Chromebook currently lacks that functionality. But, if you have a Chromebook produced in the past two years, you probably will see the option.

Figure 1. Linux Apps Option

Figure 2. Installing Linux Apps

After it's done installing, you'll see the terminal appear. From here, you can do as you would with any terminal. I chose to sudo apt-get install the GIMP, Open Shot, Handbrake, Firefox and the GNOME Software Center, which I used to download and install Audacity. The GNOME Software Center provides an easy-to-manage GUI method of finding the more popular Linux apps, but if you prefer the terminal method of using apt-get install, that works just as well and provides more app choices than the GNOME Software Center.

One more thing to note about the GNOME Software Center is that you likely will not see any apps in it after first installing it. You need to reboot first before the apps appear.

If you want to run Firefox on a Chromebook, there are actually two ways to do it. One way is to download and install Firefox from the Google Play Store as an Android app. Now with Linux apps via Crostini, you also can download and install it from the terminal using apt-get install, but it needs to be the extended support release version, Firefox-ESR.

Figures 3–5 show some of my installed apps up and running.

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The Chromebook Grows Up

Philip Raymond — Fri, 17 Aug 2018 11:30:00 +0000

by Philip Raymond

Android apps meet the desktop in the Chromebook.

What started out as a project to provide a cheap, functional, secure and fast laptop experience has become so much more. Chromebooks in general have suffered from a lack of street-cred acceptance. Yes, they did a great job of doing the everyday basics—web browsing and...well, that was about it. Today, with the integration of Android apps, all new and recently built Chrome OS devices do much more offline—nearly as much as a conventional laptop or desktop, be it video editing, photo editing or a way to switch to a Linux desktop for developers or those who just like to do that sort of thing.

Figure 1. Pixelbook in the Dark

Before I go further, let me briefly describe the Linux road I've traveled, driven by my curiosity to learn and see for myself how much could be done in an Open Source world. I've used Linux and have been a Linux enthusiast ever since I first loaded SUSE in 2003. About three years later, I switched to Ubuntu, then Xubuntu, then Lubuntu, then back to Ubuntu (I actually liked Unity, even though I was fine with GNOME too). I have dual-booted Linux on several Gateway desktops and Dell laptops, with Windows on the other partition. I also have owned a Zareason laptop and most recently, a System 76 laptop—both exclusively Ubuntu, and both very sound, well-built laptops.

Then, since I was due for a new laptop, I decided to try a Chromebook, now that Android apps would greatly increase the chances of having a good experience, and I was right. Chrome OS is wicked fast, and it's never crashed in my first six months of using it. I mention this only to provide some background as to why I think Chrome OS is, in my opinion, the Linux desktop for the masses that's been predicted for as long as I've used Linux. Granted, it has a huge corporate behemoth in the form of Google behind it, but that's also why it has advanced in public acceptance as far as it has. This article's main purpose is to report on how far it has come along and what to expect in the future—it's a bright one!

Chromebooks now have access to Microsoft Office tools, which is a must for those whose employers run only MS Office products. Although Google Docs does a good job with basic document creation and conversion, and although you can create a slide presentation with it, it won't do things like watch or create a PowerPoint presentation. That's where the Microsoft PowerPoint Android app comes in handy. If you need to watch one, simply download the PowerPoint file and open it with PowerPoint (you can do this without paying for Microsoft office). However, if you want to create or edit one, you'll have to pay for a yearly subscription or use your company's subscription.

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Chromebookify Your Laptop Now!

Shawn Powers — Mon, 14 Dec 2015 20:00:09 +0000

by Shawn Powers

A few years ago there was a project designed to boot generic laptops so they functioned as Chromebooks. It was a cool project, but unfortunately, the compatibility wasn't great, and it wasn't reliable to use on a daily basis. Although Chromebooks are old news these days, it still would be quite useful to transform aging laptop computers into Chromebooks. Because they have such low system requirements, older laptops running the ChromeOS can become quite useful again.

Thanks to the folks at Neverwhere, you can get the CloudReady installer that installs Chromium onto a wide variety of laptops from various manufacturers. (A long list of tested models is available at http://go.neverware.com/certifiedmodels.) I actually have a Dell D420 that is getting very long in the tooth as a Linux machine, but as a Chromebook, it's still quite effective. If you have an aging laptop, give CloudReady a try. It's free, and you even can boot off USB to check it out before installing.

CloudReady from Neverwhere: http://www.neverware.com/free.

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