Samsung's A15 Chromebook Loaded With Ubuntu Is Crazy Fast

[mendieta]

Besides performance, it would be great to give some installation instructions, and indication of what works and what not. It is very popular in Amazon, where the reviews are quite positive, but it seems like the version of flash in Chrome OS doesn't work with many popular sites.

I HATE how closed chromebooks are: I don't mind for Google to make a chromebook basically an appliance, but they should definitely allow for an easy way to dual boot, and/or boot from USB/flashcard/external drive

[mendieta]

I don't know, in the same ballpark as Atom doesn't sound like "crazy fast" to me. Also, I have a hard time thinking about what I'd use this for.

Yeah, that was my first thought, but then again, this would cost you $250. I am thinking of getting one for my son, who borrows my laptop for (middle) school work, mostly to write docs in Google Drive, research on the web and watch youtube videos. All of that should be fine. Most reviewers in Amazon use it like that: as a light device to take on trips for email, Blogging, text editing, etc. It draws very little power, it is light, decent but not great screen, you know, you kinda of get more than you pay for.

Of course, a really crazy fast processor would cost more than the whole laptop

[89c51]

Does it use Coreboot???

[mendieta]

This is all I found, so far. Not on the "easy" install side!
https://plus.google.com/109993695638...ts/b2fazijJppZ

A lot of the stuff is made of binary blobs, so you need to copy binaries from the SSD into an SDHC, which will be slow as hell. Sigh!

[ninez]

Google is working on an own Chromebook, much like the Nexus series for Android. It might have just that.

Actually, it is VERY likely that it does...although, i haven't looked it up - i do suspect that would be the case...

I also happened to order the 'Nexus 10' the other day from Staples (pre-order, should arrive by the 15th of December), and it sports 2560x1600 (300ppi), with a 8.9 inch display (and obviously it has the A15 processor).

[pepe]

I HATE how closed chromebooks are: I don't mind for Google to make a chromebook basically an appliance, but they should definitely allow for an easy way to dual boot, and/or boot from USB/flashcard/external drive

Are you kidding? It's completely open.

Someone even documented on Google+ right around the time that systems were introduced how to get a regular distro onto a Chromebook by booting from SD cards:

https://plus.google.com/109993695638...ts/b2fazijJppZ

[mitcoes]

Besides performance, it would be great to give some installation instructions, and indication of what works and what not. It is very popular in Amazon, where the reviews are quite positive, but it seems like the version of flash in Chrome OS doesn't work with many popular sites.

I HATE how closed chromebooks are: I don't mind for Google to make a chromebook basically an appliance, but they should definitely allow for an easy way to dual boot, and/or boot from USB/flashcard/external drive

I agree and would add ...

I hate ARM's SECRET DRIVERS. the GPL must ask for, at least PUBLIC DRIVERS if you want to use Linux, of course better if they are open source.

We are not able to install whatever OS we like at ARM devices because there are not PUBLIC DRIVERS for them

I want FREEDOM for ARM devices that are using Linux kernel to make closer devices than Wintel ones even with UEFi secure boot.

As this ARM processor allows XEN and perhaps XEN VGA passthrough, if anyone can post an article with a how to install XEN VGA P at chromebooks and switch OSs with a click he/she will be one of my little heroes. This, if it is done, also can be used for Android + any GNU/Linux.

[asoltesz]

Yeah, that was my first thought, but then again, this would cost you $250. I am thinking of getting one for my son, who borrows my laptop for (middle) school work, mostly to write docs in Google Drive, research on the web and watch youtube videos. All of that should be fine. Most reviewers in Amazon use it like that: as a light device to take on trips for email, Blogging, text editing, etc. It draws very little power, it is light, decent but not great screen, you know, you kinda of get more than you pay for.

Of course, a really crazy fast processor would cost more than the whole laptop

The D525 is a fairly strong Atom-variant, not those ultra-weak ones that were put in netbooks in earlier generation.
This is a dual-core version, clocked for 1.8Ghz and Hyperthreading capable.

[jabbas]

I've made some benchmarks with HP Pavillion tx2550ev: http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1...SU-1211119SU75 it looks quite interesting... But I agree, graphics, webbrowsing benchmarks will tell more!

And merged results with Acer Aspire One and above HP: http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1...SU-MERGE400962

[Pallidus]

the interesting thing here is that given the previous lukewarm reception to chromebooks

both samsung and google had no idea this arm model would prove so popular

so they sold out and now have supply difficulties



also benchmarks don't show you the real picture of how it ACTUALLY runs ubuntu just how well the cpu performs...

unity without a decent gpu driver most be painful