Next computer platform after Chromebook

Posted by jaslar
Jul 27, 2020 at 03:43 PM

Thought I’d post my final decision. I bought a Pixelbook Go, a Chromebook with 8 gigs of RAM, 64 gigs of storage, and a memory card reader. Why?

- the build quality. It’s super light, speakers on top, surprisingly wide and bright screen
- the end of life. The device will no longer receive security updates after 2028. 8 years is a good guarantee.
- Linux support. This worked a treat. Turn on the option, wait a few minutes, and you have a virtual machine version of Buster Debian, 10.4, released May 9th, 2020. From there, apt install emacs, freeplane, etc. And you can set things up to share certain directories between ChromeOS and Linux. Bottom line: what Google doesn’t offer as software, I can get from the Debian repositories. But my use of software is definitely narrowing. It happens that you can use the Google Suite offline, but having emacs (mostly for org-mode) means that I can still work when I’m far from a hotspot. Incidentally, emacs runs while ChomeOS is running, and I can copy back and forth between OSs.
- low maintenance. Part of me loves the care and feeding of a Linux computer. But with a Chromebook, there just isn’t that much to do but turn it on.
- battery life. I’m getting 12 hours of intense use.

It wasn’t cheap. $649 at Best Buy. But if I’m ever able to travel again, I’ll love the portability and power of it.

Thanks, all, for your comments and opinions.