Going from complaining about Apple not having enough polish in the fine details of their UI to suggesting we all switch to Chromebooks is so completely inconsistent that there must be other motivations.
In one post they're complaining about things like Apple having the search bar in different locations in different apps, and in the next post they're seriously trying to tell us that a laptop that requires modifying the software and running shell commands copied from the internet so you can run a text editor to change settings and drivers is the solution? They dropped a note about how they haven't actually tried development on the chromebook at the end but say they assume it would be okay. For someone telling us to switch to Chromebooks, they haven't even finished doing their own homework
Linking to an SEO spam website called technical.city for performance comparisons is another clue that this choice was driven by something else first and the reasoning was backfilled. The new MediaTek part is fast, but there's more to laptop performance than a single bar chart from a site citing ancient benchmarks like PassMark.
I can't read this as anything other than an attempt to make a contrarian choice and then present it as the superior alternative.
"After my last blog post I received tons and tons of emails from people mentioning that they switched to X or Y because of Liquid Glass, and much like them, I switched away from the Apple ecosystem thanks to these ongoing issues as well."
Then within 2 sentences: "So this blog post is about my painful journey trying to find a nice piece of hardware that works and feels just as good as Apple's hardware as a web developer."
A Chromebook gets you the elegant UI, touchpad gestures, slim vertically integrated system architecture and the reliable sleep mode of a MacBook without Liquid Glass.
Plus Chromebooks have the better keyboard layout IMHO.
I .. don't get how anyone can consider ChromeOS to have a elegant UI.
I have a chromebook for traveling and light web dev work since years .. and it works, because I rooted it and allmost do not have to use the UI(I need the terminal and chrome dev tools). In general it got better, but is still horrible inefficient and not ergonomic. Or did you mean it looks good? Well, maybe, but for me a elegant UI means it does not get into my workflow and can do quickly what I want. Which .. it nativly cannot.
As someone using a Chromebook as my daily driver, not getting into my workflow and quickly doing what I want is exactly ChromeOS's UI. Especially virtual desktops combined with the touchpad: Switching between tabs, going forwards and backwards in history, switching virtual desktops and apps is all done with a few gestures.
Hm, maybe that part is more polished, but I don't use it. My pain points are very basic stuff, quickly opening a file explorer, finding files, copy paste, navigating folderd. It all improved, but still feels awkward and is way slower (takes more clicks/key presses) than in linux or windows.
Oh I misread the author's complaints about hardware as "software." Ok assuming the author hates liquid glass enough to switch cause of that, and doesn't have the same standard of polish for hardware, at least the post is self-consistent.
I don't believe the claims of Lenovo hardware (esp trackpad) being as good as a MacBook's, but he thinks it is, so up to him. The keyboard layout is annoying cause control-C is both copy and kill.
So select is select or copy, right click is open menu or paste, both depending on whether or not you're in the terminal. Control-C is also copy or kill, and iirc shift-control-c is nothing or copy.
There's a meta key on the keyboard, idk why they can't just do meta-c meta-v everywhere. Same in Ubuntu.
It's possible that your own opinions are coloring this perspective. As a Linux user, if you gave me the choice between switching back to macOS or dailying ChromeOS instead, it's objectively (sadly) true that the ChromeOS machine would do a better job handling my daily tasks. Going back to macOS would require me to keep multiple desktop machines around for gaming, filesystem manipulation and native Linux containers. ChromeOS would be viable for all of those.
> You can technically game on some Chromebooks, but come on.
I just want the Steam edition of Dwarf Fortress, really =)
> If you were trying to do native Linux development on a Chromebook you'd be going through more obstacles.
Not really. Crostini has been supported for years, and it uses less resources than macOS containers while supporting normal filesystems instead of virtualizing it on APFS like Docker does.
According to their GitHub, this should solve the issues you mentioned with Linux development on macOS. Note: I have not used it myself as I find macOS+Brew sufficient for my tasks.
Or just develop your app on macOS and run it on Linux. I’ve been doing that ever since OSX came out and had no problems. Worst case these days I have a virtual machine build an app or library for x86, but I still do all the dev on the Mac.
I find people who make these complaints about Linux just like Linux better. Totally fine. From my perspective, sure, some things are slightly different or need a homebrew install, but there’s plenty about Linux that’s as big or bigger pain as some of the stuff on the Mac.
That said, if Liquid Glass is the complaint and your solution is a Chromebook, wow. Just, wow.
Can I put Ubuntu on this and it works exactly the same as on any other ARM machine? Supposedly yes https://docs.getutm.app/guides/ubuntu/ but have you actually done it?
Honestly this and Crostini both look like there are too many caveats. I'd just SSH into an Rpi for anything that won't natively run in macOS. And would not even deal with Chromebook.
P.S. I +1'd bigyabai's comment only to save it from being marked dead; why is someone downvoting that??
What do you mean by "works exactly the same?" The same as Ubuntu installed on an ARM laptop? No, there is not GUI, DE, and a lot of tools are stripped.
You can literally pull this down and get it up and running in minutes:
Rosetta is not necessary to get this working either. Now, there maybe some warts with DNS that you might encounter depending on if you have a certain VPNs running, use dnsmasq, etc.. But there are potential workarounds for many issues.
If you want a full VM, I would recommend Lima/Colima. If you need a full VM with GUI and all, then maybe use something like Parallels, VMware Fusion, etc..
I mean like same as Ubuntu on an x86 laptop for general work. This is assuming you don't have any specific need for x86 binaries, but you also never know what might randomly require it. Would've tried it myself but I'm away from my Mac rn. I'll try again.
Last time I tried UTM specifically for reading an ext4-formatted SD card in my MacBook's internal slot, I couldn't get it to interface with the reader, but that works on Chromebooks' Linux VM supposedly.
I use this tool all the time. Mainly for running various LLM cli tools and whatnot. No way will I install those tools on my host OS due to my unfounded paranoia.
Container still has a few warts. Mainly, Container and mDNSResponder on macOS do not always play nicely together. If you use a VPN that binds to port 53, you will also have a bad time. Container-to-Container name resolution is also hit or miss.
However, none of these issues have prevented me from accomplishing what I need. Though, I can see where friction may arise between some corporate network environments and Container.
You can even install linux on Chromebooks, and ChromeOS has upstreamed / opensource many of their codes.
In other perspective, ChromeOS supports running Linux apps w/ GUI without much differences. You just open your terminal, type `apt install XXX`, then `XXX` should work out-of-the box.
I don't see any reasons that ChromeOS is less open then macOS
What do you mean by open and closed? ChromeOS is based on ChromiumOS, which is open source. I guess macOS is based on Darwin technically, but the ratio of open source to proprietary is much higher for ChromeOS than macOS, no?
What is it that you want to install on ChromeOS that you are unable to? All of the usual Linux and open-source stuff works fine on the built-in Linux environment on it. Possibly even a little better than MacOS in some cases, since you don't need to worry about Apple app signing. There's not literally nothing you can't do, but the list is a lot shorter than most people think, especially those who haven't really tried ChromeOS in a decade and think they're all a glorified web browser on $200 hardware.
I'm willing to bet it's easier to set up a Linux VM on a Chromebook than on a Mac. But the other side is that anything not explicitly requiring Linux will work natively in macOS, where you also get a nicer terminal. Like I've not needed a Linux VM in years, and the author doing web dev probably won't either.
ChromeOS is the absolute last desktop operating system I would choose to use for myself. Linux, macOS, and Windows would have to be completely dead and buried before I would switch, and at that point I might just consider abandoning tech altogether and joining an Amish commune or something.
...except the operating system. And the silly notch. And the weird keyboard. And the hard palm-cutting corner. And the reflective screen. and the finger-print-magnet materials. And the small amount of RAM. and the small SSD. And the weight.
Other than that, it's perfect!
(On the blance,still better than any other laptop)
Airdrop still doesn't work when I share directly from my phone. If I hit share, and then choose the airdrop target directly, it doesn't work. If I open airdrop and share to the same device, then that works.
For cross-platform local sharing, I use KDE-connect.
I don't really get what the problem with MacOS is. It never gets in my way, so why would I switch? Yes, I found Liquid Glass ugly and two days later I completely forgot about it.
It's like Linux users who scream about Arch KDE Plasma being better than Kubuntu XFCE++ and change their entire GUI every year. They're obsessing over rounded corners lining up. None of this matters that much.
It's more serious on iPhones cause it's glitchy in ways that will interfere with basic usage, also yet another "we need old phones to feel slower" update.
I went the other way: from a Pixelbook to a Macbook Air. I mostly do SW development in the CLI, so the Linux subsystem on the chromebook was fine, as is macports/homebrew/etc. on the mac. I would still be using the Pixelbook if I could have replaced its battery. The low-end Air had good price-performance tradeoff, and the Neo would probably be today's choice.
I am in a similar boat. I already have Mac Mini M4 and don't do any fancy development stuff, especially not in my free time. But can't for the sake of me decide if I should go with Air M4 to match the specs, or just go full lightweight and get Neo.
I don't know why the author plays down the versatility of Chromebooks/ChromeOS so much. You can install the Linux Dev VM with 5 clicks in the settings. You get a fully featured Debian VM with nested virtualization support and seamless Wayland, VirGL and USB passtrough.
That's where I spend all my Chromebook work time. I run VSCode, Claude Code, and Opencode in the VM. The Tailscale package is wonky, so I use the Android app instead. Except for that wrinkle, it all just works.
It's not my main machine, but for $300 (2023 dollars) it's excellent for tinkering on the couch with Netflix on TV in the background.
Not even a Mac user and have been legitimately considering a move like this.
My desktop and Thinkpad run Gentoo. A NAS I have at home is the build host. I am a business software consultant, and a common thread in all of my interactions is: I need to be prepared. If I'm fiddling with "hang on my mic doesn't work" or "i need to reboot", I look silly.
An onsite visit might be in an executive board room, or a closet in the back of a warehouse with a TV from 2007 and a VGA connector.
If I need software installed quick, like Zoom or something, Flatpak gets me 95% there. Yes, I could use Ubuntu or something normal, but I like portage and long for the day I can use FreeBSD seriously on the desktop.
So enter Chromebooks, which come with portage, can use Flatpak, and the OS is basically just a web browser. Plus, I don't have to wrestle with SELinux, or any of the other nitty gritty stuff that gets in the way of real work™. It's either a PWA or an Android app, and it just works.
If you are on a M1 or M2 chip you can live the dream _now_ already and install Asahi (Asahi Fedora Remix or Asahi Alarm https://asahi-alarm.org/ - which I am a maintainer of). It works really great (daily driving it since 4 years now...)
M3 support is coming soon as well...
No. It's all native Arm. In the UTM app, when creating a new VM, there's an option to say it's going to be "Linux" (generically at that point), which exposes a checkbox which allows you to specify use of Apple Silicon hypervisor.framework, and specifically _not_ x86 emulation.
I use hypervisor.framework, never use x86 emulation, and the result is great. Tested with both Fedora for ARM and Arch for ARM (perhaps CachyOS's bundling of Arch works there, but i did it lower level because i'm an old nerd).
Apple portable hardware is unparalleled. Linux is what runs the internet.
For now, my old gaming PC runs as a Linux server hosting all my dev services and home lab projects and my MacBook is where I work with them and build apps that consume them.
It would be nice to have the server setup mirrored on a laptop I could take places with me.
I have to switch between an M4 macbook pro and a Lenovo Chromebook Plus multiple times a day and I will say, while it isn't terrible, the keyboard and trackpad on the Lenovo have nothing on the Macbook. The experience with using USB devices (yubikey in particular) through the android layer is also real shitty.
I really enjoy ChromeOS, though I'm worried a lot of its simplicity will go away as Google transitions to Android-based laptops. My wife and I use an Asus Chromebook Flip as a kitchen/living room computer that we don't need to think about. No software updates, it just surfs the web and we can flip it into tablet mode if we want to.
>> it seems that Signal's team is actively working on linking additional Android devices, and very soon we can simply solve this by using Signal for Android.
Wishful thinking, this has been a problem since tablets (android or ios) were a thing and trying to use one linked to your phone.
Same, but they are a bit expensive. I assume if TFA put himself through the pain of a Chromebook in the first place, it’s because cost was a significant factor.
Even if you can afford a more expensive laptop, there's just something about knowing you can hit Best buy and just grab a $300 laptop and be back at it, if anything happens to your laptop while you're out and about in the world.
If I could choose only 1 criterium to select a laptop, it's the quality of the trackpad. So far, I haven't tried anything that comes close to a Macbook.
*criterion. criterium is not even a typo, it’s an actual word but it doesn’t mean what you think it means, unless you’re planning to use your laptop while bicycling.
I did switch from MacOS to MS Windows in 2023, after being on MacOS from 2015 (and various Linux distros between about 2000 and 2015; before that, Win98 and earlier versions, so help me God).
I did not think anyone would be interested in reading about any of this, and reading the article reinforces my hypothesis.
> no fucking way there's a Mediatek chip out there that's as good as M2?!? right!?
Actually Mediatek is pretty underrated. Isn't the upcoming Dimensity 9600 Pro on par with the M5 [0]? And they also designed the CPU part of the GB10 in the NVIDIA DGX Spark, which is roughly on par with the CPU of the AMD AI Max+ 395 and M3 Max 14 core [1] [2].
I actually tried this last year and the show stopper was Citrix. The version for Chromebooks is some abomination that hasn't been kept recent and so fails validation with my employer's Citrix infra.
My initial guess was that migrating to a non-MacOS machine precludes the freedom to view the original Futura typeface on one's personal website. "The Future" must be some shoddy free alternative.
Except "The Future" is a paid typeface inspired by Futura and designed by the Klim Type Foundry. [0] The odd lowercase "h" is an alternative glyph probably meant for display sizes. [1] In addition to this for some reason the author is using the Light weight font for body text instead of Regular weight...
> - If you rely on / heavily use AI tools, you can easily use Claude's Web App etc so that's super cool but also things like Jan also exist for Linux and I haven't tried, but you can use that as well for a more native experience.
Sure, Claude Web App is an adequate replacement to full-fledged Claude Code, and then there is also something that I didn't bother to try but maybe you can try it after you bought a new laptop. What the hell.
I'm relatively uniquely qualified to weigh in here... I've been linux-native for decades now on my home desktops (debian), and the last time I used windows for work was ~2005-ish with work Mac laptops, and "disposable" chromebooks at home for personal use + travel.
1) It started with Crouton (open source, "let's get access to the underlying linux system"), and worked pretty well. IIRC you had to switch to "dev mode" to get access to it.
2) Crostini and all the layer-cake isolation is wildly impressive! ...it's more VM-based with suuuper adjudicated interaction boundaries between `chromeos` and the underlying linux vm.
3) I've recently (intentionally) switched to their new "Baguette" beta VM/Container (you can talk to google AI mode about it, but general access docs and links are fairly sparse: "...a ChromeOS architectural shift (arriving around v142-146) that enables containerless Linux Virtual Machines, running directly via KVM instead of LXD. It removes the middle container layer for increased efficiency and flexibility, allowing for advanced features like direct PCI passthrough, while providing improved storage management compared to legacy Crostini."
4) I think over the last ~15 years I've gone from 4gb => 8gb => 16gb (just recently) and sticking with "premium-ish" dev-centric laptops (mostly: linux, git, web dev, inkscape, random hacking, etc). Currently the Acer Spin 714, previously Samsung XE930QCA... both "tablet adjacent" with full fliparound or "tent style" for watching a movie or doodling with styluses.
Bang-for-Buck, I was able to get the Spin714 for ~$300 @ 16gb ram (used-ish, off ebay) which is a STEAL, and similar story for the Samsung one. They're definitely very capable machines, and treating them as "dumb terminals with a VM I can pop open and scp files to a remote host or git push" is fantastic!
HOWEVER: beware! Google w/ Baguette is stupidly complicated on how to open a port on the device itself for other computers to be able to access servers on the local device. I argued with the google AI for like an hour trying to figure out the best way to allow `git pull my-chromebook.localdomain:./Git/some-repo` and eventually had to settle on a raw `ssh` reverse proxy pipe where I was pulling from `my-other-machine.localdomain:localhost:2222:./Git/some-repo` which was forwarded back (over SSH) to the chromebook itself.
It used to be that you could rationally: `python -m http`, open an "enable port forwarding" thingy in the terminal settings and be able to connect to the service w/o much ceremony. Nowadays they're effectively nanny-ifying the OS and it's getting much harder to do the same thing (removing visible UI for port forwarding, needing hidden settings deep links or `chrome://flags` stuff to be able to access a server/service RUNNING ON YOUR OWN MACHINE FROM WITHIN YOUR OWN NETWORK). Supposedly the cool kids are using tailscale or whatever, but it's literally `localhost<->localhost` and I don't want to have to set up a VPN or whatever to make that work, I just want to doodle on local web services in a VM on a machine that can get stolen and not end up losing all my personal/private files.
Also, ask google AI mode: "when is google phasing out chromebook and chromeos and presumably near-native linux support on their machines?" => """Court documents and executive statements reveal a plan to retire the existing ChromeOS software stack by 2034. This legacy system is expected to be replaced by a unified platform internally codenamed "Project Aluminium," which migrates ChromeOS fully onto the Android tech stack."""
...so ~8 more years of `chromeos`/`linux` and then it'll no longer be the year of linux on the desktop!
Yes, they can be very comfortable and very capable machines, but they're losing a bit of their central spirit and developer-friendliness over time.
I love Liquid Glass. I think a lot of the complaints are whiny and pedantic. I do agree a bit of tender love and care could be used to clean up some GUI elements, but people act like Liquid Glass fried their logic board and rendered their machine utterly unusable.
The problem is, on iOS it's buggy. Floating opaque rectangles blocking you from seeing what you're doing. Software keyboard not being accounted for in the layout so you can't click buttons. It looks different; sure, whatever. It's getting in the way of actually using it that raises ire.
The idea that I could do the things I do regularly on a Chromebook is laughable in the extreme, and I'm not even that much of a crazy power user. No thanks.
Going from complaining about Apple not having enough polish in the fine details of their UI to suggesting we all switch to Chromebooks is so completely inconsistent that there must be other motivations.
In one post they're complaining about things like Apple having the search bar in different locations in different apps, and in the next post they're seriously trying to tell us that a laptop that requires modifying the software and running shell commands copied from the internet so you can run a text editor to change settings and drivers is the solution? They dropped a note about how they haven't actually tried development on the chromebook at the end but say they assume it would be okay. For someone telling us to switch to Chromebooks, they haven't even finished doing their own homework
Linking to an SEO spam website called technical.city for performance comparisons is another clue that this choice was driven by something else first and the reasoning was backfilled. The new MediaTek part is fast, but there's more to laptop performance than a single bar chart from a site citing ancient benchmarks like PassMark.
I can't read this as anything other than an attempt to make a contrarian choice and then present it as the superior alternative.
"After my last blog post I received tons and tons of emails from people mentioning that they switched to X or Y because of Liquid Glass, and much like them, I switched away from the Apple ecosystem thanks to these ongoing issues as well."
Then within 2 sentences: "So this blog post is about my painful journey trying to find a nice piece of hardware that works and feels just as good as Apple's hardware as a web developer."
So yeah I really don't get the motivation
A Chromebook gets you the elegant UI, touchpad gestures, slim vertically integrated system architecture and the reliable sleep mode of a MacBook without Liquid Glass.
Plus Chromebooks have the better keyboard layout IMHO.
I .. don't get how anyone can consider ChromeOS to have a elegant UI.
I have a chromebook for traveling and light web dev work since years .. and it works, because I rooted it and allmost do not have to use the UI(I need the terminal and chrome dev tools). In general it got better, but is still horrible inefficient and not ergonomic. Or did you mean it looks good? Well, maybe, but for me a elegant UI means it does not get into my workflow and can do quickly what I want. Which .. it nativly cannot.
As someone using a Chromebook as my daily driver, not getting into my workflow and quickly doing what I want is exactly ChromeOS's UI. Especially virtual desktops combined with the touchpad: Switching between tabs, going forwards and backwards in history, switching virtual desktops and apps is all done with a few gestures.
Hm, maybe that part is more polished, but I don't use it. My pain points are very basic stuff, quickly opening a file explorer, finding files, copy paste, navigating folderd. It all improved, but still feels awkward and is way slower (takes more clicks/key presses) than in linux or windows.
Oh I misread the author's complaints about hardware as "software." Ok assuming the author hates liquid glass enough to switch cause of that, and doesn't have the same standard of polish for hardware, at least the post is self-consistent.
I don't believe the claims of Lenovo hardware (esp trackpad) being as good as a MacBook's, but he thinks it is, so up to him. The keyboard layout is annoying cause control-C is both copy and kill.
With the default terminal you copy by selecting, like X11, and paste with right-click.
So select is select or copy, right click is open menu or paste, both depending on whether or not you're in the terminal. Control-C is also copy or kill, and iirc shift-control-c is nothing or copy.
There's a meta key on the keyboard, idk why they can't just do meta-c meta-v everywhere. Same in Ubuntu.
So does a MacBook on Sonoma or Monterey.
I mean, it’s prob easier to run chromeos in utm on the Mac…
It's possible that your own opinions are coloring this perspective. As a Linux user, if you gave me the choice between switching back to macOS or dailying ChromeOS instead, it's objectively (sadly) true that the ChromeOS machine would do a better job handling my daily tasks. Going back to macOS would require me to keep multiple desktop machines around for gaming, filesystem manipulation and native Linux containers. ChromeOS would be viable for all of those.
> You can technically game on some Chromebooks, but come on.
I just want the Steam edition of Dwarf Fortress, really =)
> If you were trying to do native Linux development on a Chromebook you'd be going through more obstacles.
Not really. Crostini has been supported for years, and it uses less resources than macOS containers while supporting normal filesystems instead of virtualizing it on APFS like Docker does.
Have you heard of this?
According to their GitHub, this should solve the issues you mentioned with Linux development on macOS. Note: I have not used it myself as I find macOS+Brew sufficient for my tasks.
https://github.com/apple/container
Or just develop your app on macOS and run it on Linux. I’ve been doing that ever since OSX came out and had no problems. Worst case these days I have a virtual machine build an app or library for x86, but I still do all the dev on the Mac.
I find people who make these complaints about Linux just like Linux better. Totally fine. From my perspective, sure, some things are slightly different or need a homebrew install, but there’s plenty about Linux that’s as big or bigger pain as some of the stuff on the Mac.
That said, if Liquid Glass is the complaint and your solution is a Chromebook, wow. Just, wow.
Can I put Ubuntu on this and it works exactly the same as on any other ARM machine? Supposedly yes https://docs.getutm.app/guides/ubuntu/ but have you actually done it?
Honestly this and Crostini both look like there are too many caveats. I'd just SSH into an Rpi for anything that won't natively run in macOS. And would not even deal with Chromebook.
P.S. I +1'd bigyabai's comment only to save it from being marked dead; why is someone downvoting that??
> have you actually done it?
Yes.
What do you mean by "works exactly the same?" The same as Ubuntu installed on an ARM laptop? No, there is not GUI, DE, and a lot of tools are stripped.
You can literally pull this down and get it up and running in minutes:
https://hub.docker.com/_/ubuntu/
Rosetta is not necessary to get this working either. Now, there maybe some warts with DNS that you might encounter depending on if you have a certain VPNs running, use dnsmasq, etc.. But there are potential workarounds for many issues.
If you want a full VM, I would recommend Lima/Colima. If you need a full VM with GUI and all, then maybe use something like Parallels, VMware Fusion, etc..
I mean like same as Ubuntu on an x86 laptop for general work. This is assuming you don't have any specific need for x86 binaries, but you also never know what might randomly require it. Would've tried it myself but I'm away from my Mac rn. I'll try again.
Last time I tried UTM specifically for reading an ext4-formatted SD card in my MacBook's internal slot, I couldn't get it to interface with the reader, but that works on Chromebooks' Linux VM supposedly.
I use this tool all the time. Mainly for running various LLM cli tools and whatnot. No way will I install those tools on my host OS due to my unfounded paranoia.
Container still has a few warts. Mainly, Container and mDNSResponder on macOS do not always play nicely together. If you use a VPN that binds to port 53, you will also have a bad time. Container-to-Container name resolution is also hit or miss.
However, none of these issues have prevented me from accomplishing what I need. Though, I can see where friction may arise between some corporate network environments and Container.
I can't think of any valid reason for a person with sane mind to do this. Yes, macOS is somewhat closed, but it's definitely more open than ChromeOS.
You can even install linux on Chromebooks, and ChromeOS has upstreamed / opensource many of their codes.
In other perspective, ChromeOS supports running Linux apps w/ GUI without much differences. You just open your terminal, type `apt install XXX`, then `XXX` should work out-of-the box.
I don't see any reasons that ChromeOS is less open then macOS
Any? Crostini is neat and all, but it's a VM running inside of ChromeOS, so it's restricted in what it can do.
What do you mean by open and closed? ChromeOS is based on ChromiumOS, which is open source. I guess macOS is based on Darwin technically, but the ratio of open source to proprietary is much higher for ChromeOS than macOS, no?
I think they mean closed as in it is more difficult to install whatever you want on a ChromeOS machine as opposed to a MacOS machine.
What is it that you want to install on ChromeOS that you are unable to? All of the usual Linux and open-source stuff works fine on the built-in Linux environment on it. Possibly even a little better than MacOS in some cases, since you don't need to worry about Apple app signing. There's not literally nothing you can't do, but the list is a lot shorter than most people think, especially those who haven't really tried ChromeOS in a decade and think they're all a glorified web browser on $200 hardware.
You can technically run anything you want on both without resorting to hacks, it's just a question of how annoying it is.
On a Chromebook you can install the Linux Dev VM with 5 clicks in the settings and get a fully featured Debian VM.
I'm willing to bet it's easier to set up a Linux VM on a Chromebook than on a Mac. But the other side is that anything not explicitly requiring Linux will work natively in macOS, where you also get a nicer terminal. Like I've not needed a Linux VM in years, and the author doing web dev probably won't either.
ChromeOS will run on any standard machine and subsystems (qndroid, linux) work decently good.
What concrete points makes you put macos as more open ?
Root on the host OS. Can't change the MAC on the wifi adapter, for instance.
For small businesses using Google Workspace, Chrome book is so easy to manage.
ChromeOS is the absolute last desktop operating system I would choose to use for myself. Linux, macOS, and Windows would have to be completely dead and buried before I would switch, and at that point I might just consider abandoning tech altogether and joining an Amish commune or something.
Ha, same. I absolutely love everything about my MacBook Pro.
...except the operating system. And the silly notch. And the weird keyboard. And the hard palm-cutting corner. And the reflective screen. and the finger-print-magnet materials. And the small amount of RAM. and the small SSD. And the weight.
Other than that, it's perfect! (On the blance,still better than any other laptop)
I can't think of any sense in which this statement could be supported by facts.
> but it's definitely more open than ChromeOS.
I don't think that's entirely true. For instance, ChromeOS supports Mesa, which macOS has spent the past decade pretending doesn't exist.
> Figma and Spotify have some of the best web apps out there as well, so that's all good too!
The Spotify web app is still much more limited than the desktop app.
> Did you know that Adobe ported Photoshop etc to web, with all the AI bells and whistles and the web apps perform incredibly well?
Perfect if all you need out of Photoshop is the AI portion, I guess.
> As a side note, it is no surprise that Adobe's suite of creative apps [...] now work incredibly well on the web across all operating systems
They literally don't.
> Quickshare (the Airdrop alternative) ACTUALLY WORKS
Saying this like Airdrop isn't one of Apple's most bulletproof "just works" features ever
In my experience it’s definitely not. It works maybe 80% to 90% of the time but it’s still not enough for me to use it with confidence.
Airdrop still doesn't work when I share directly from my phone. If I hit share, and then choose the airdrop target directly, it doesn't work. If I open airdrop and share to the same device, then that works.
For cross-platform local sharing, I use KDE-connect.
Author admitted he did nothing worthwhile that justified a full fledged workstation and adopted a tablet with keyboard.
As a Mac user I was pleasantly surprised when I switched to a arch Linux based distribution.
I don't really get what the problem with MacOS is. It never gets in my way, so why would I switch? Yes, I found Liquid Glass ugly and two days later I completely forgot about it.
It's like Linux users who scream about Arch KDE Plasma being better than Kubuntu XFCE++ and change their entire GUI every year. They're obsessing over rounded corners lining up. None of this matters that much.
It's more serious on iPhones cause it's glitchy in ways that will interfere with basic usage, also yet another "we need old phones to feel slower" update.
How many? Many are using chromebooks and not complaining. Many use Linux and not complaining - as I work at a University.
A majority need only a browser.
It's overall very few. Most people using Chromebook or other Linux or Mac in a university are just using it for work and not obsessing over details.
Kubuntu is Ubuntu with KDE not Xfce
You can install Xfce in Kubuntu (well also Xfce++ isn't real)
This is what happened for me. Total waste of effort complaining about it.
I went the other way: from a Pixelbook to a Macbook Air. I mostly do SW development in the CLI, so the Linux subsystem on the chromebook was fine, as is macports/homebrew/etc. on the mac. I would still be using the Pixelbook if I could have replaced its battery. The low-end Air had good price-performance tradeoff, and the Neo would probably be today's choice.
I am in a similar boat. I already have Mac Mini M4 and don't do any fancy development stuff, especially not in my free time. But can't for the sake of me decide if I should go with Air M4 to match the specs, or just go full lightweight and get Neo.
I don't know why the author plays down the versatility of Chromebooks/ChromeOS so much. You can install the Linux Dev VM with 5 clicks in the settings. You get a fully featured Debian VM with nested virtualization support and seamless Wayland, VirGL and USB passtrough.
That's where I spend all my Chromebook work time. I run VSCode, Claude Code, and Opencode in the VM. The Tailscale package is wonky, so I use the Android app instead. Except for that wrinkle, it all just works.
It's not my main machine, but for $300 (2023 dollars) it's excellent for tinkering on the couch with Netflix on TV in the background.
Choosing an OS 101
https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/mx4dni/cho...
Do you fear technology?
> Yes
Is your daddy rich?
> No
ChromeOS
Not even a Mac user and have been legitimately considering a move like this.
My desktop and Thinkpad run Gentoo. A NAS I have at home is the build host. I am a business software consultant, and a common thread in all of my interactions is: I need to be prepared. If I'm fiddling with "hang on my mic doesn't work" or "i need to reboot", I look silly.
An onsite visit might be in an executive board room, or a closet in the back of a warehouse with a TV from 2007 and a VGA connector.
If I need software installed quick, like Zoom or something, Flatpak gets me 95% there. Yes, I could use Ubuntu or something normal, but I like portage and long for the day I can use FreeBSD seriously on the desktop.
So enter Chromebooks, which come with portage, can use Flatpak, and the OS is basically just a web browser. Plus, I don't have to wrestle with SELinux, or any of the other nitty gritty stuff that gets in the way of real work™. It's either a PWA or an Android app, and it just works.
Chrome OS? No, thank you. I'll stay with macOS and keep hoping for the Asahi Linux dream
If you are on a M1 or M2 chip you can live the dream _now_ already and install Asahi (Asahi Fedora Remix or Asahi Alarm https://asahi-alarm.org/ - which I am a maintainer of). It works really great (daily driving it since 4 years now...) M3 support is coming soon as well...
you can run Arch proper in UTM.app on macos...utm is available on the app store or open source, and wraps the apple silicon hypervisor.framework.
it works fantastic magic. i had dual booted Asahi for a year or so, but really for no good reason once i realized UTM existed.
I'm aware of it, though I would like to have a native solution with GPU acceleration and all the hardware benefits.
Do you use x64 emulation with UTM? If so, how's the performance?
No. It's all native Arm. In the UTM app, when creating a new VM, there's an option to say it's going to be "Linux" (generically at that point), which exposes a checkbox which allows you to specify use of Apple Silicon hypervisor.framework, and specifically _not_ x86 emulation.
I use hypervisor.framework, never use x86 emulation, and the result is great. Tested with both Fedora for ARM and Arch for ARM (perhaps CachyOS's bundling of Arch works there, but i did it lower level because i'm an old nerd).
This is what I thought, but idk why the literature about this is never clear that it's ARM Linux only.
which literature? (that question posed, i had to sleuth around to disambiguate oft repeated misinformation before figuring this all out)
I don't have it in front of me, have just seen conflicting info on a lot on articles about virtualization on Mac.
Well wait, UTM's official website clearly says it does support x86 if you're ok with the emu performance hit. Is that wrong?
Why?
Apple portable hardware is unparalleled. Linux is what runs the internet.
For now, my old gaming PC runs as a Linux server hosting all my dev services and home lab projects and my MacBook is where I work with them and build apps that consume them.
It would be nice to have the server setup mirrored on a laptop I could take places with me.
I try to stay away from Google if I can, I know Apple isn't perfect either but I am more aligned with them despite it.
Talk about throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
I have to switch between an M4 macbook pro and a Lenovo Chromebook Plus multiple times a day and I will say, while it isn't terrible, the keyboard and trackpad on the Lenovo have nothing on the Macbook. The experience with using USB devices (yubikey in particular) through the android layer is also real shitty.
I really enjoy ChromeOS, though I'm worried a lot of its simplicity will go away as Google transitions to Android-based laptops. My wife and I use an Asus Chromebook Flip as a kitchen/living room computer that we don't need to think about. No software updates, it just surfs the web and we can flip it into tablet mode if we want to.
To me the most amazing thing of using Chromebook is that you can run the Tailscale _Android_ app and get your ChromeOS connected to your tailnet.
>> it seems that Signal's team is actively working on linking additional Android devices, and very soon we can simply solve this by using Signal for Android.
Wishful thinking, this has been a problem since tablets (android or ios) were a thing and trying to use one linked to your phone.
Grass is greener works at month two. By month nine your muscle memory is still wrong.
Good Lord, what next? “I switched from Mac to Windows and you can too”?
Might make sense if the Chromebook can be degoogled and set up with a clean Linux distro. Barring that, a regular laptop with Linux may be an option.
Yeah, it's definitely possible. https://github.com/altreact/archbk shows how you might do this end to end on an older machine and this thread https://archlinuxarm.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=17308 shows some progress in that direction on this particular device.
The real question is if you have enough patience to power through making it work.
Framework has always been appealing to me as a Mac competitor
Same, but they are a bit expensive. I assume if TFA put himself through the pain of a Chromebook in the first place, it’s because cost was a significant factor.
Even if you can afford a more expensive laptop, there's just something about knowing you can hit Best buy and just grab a $300 laptop and be back at it, if anything happens to your laptop while you're out and about in the world.
If I could choose only 1 criterium to select a laptop, it's the quality of the trackpad. So far, I haven't tried anything that comes close to a Macbook.
*criterion. criterium is not even a typo, it’s an actual word but it doesn’t mean what you think it means, unless you’re planning to use your laptop while bicycling.
I did switch from MacOS to MS Windows in 2023, after being on MacOS from 2015 (and various Linux distros between about 2000 and 2015; before that, Win98 and earlier versions, so help me God).
I did not think anyone would be interested in reading about any of this, and reading the article reinforces my hypothesis.
> no fucking way there's a Mediatek chip out there that's as good as M2?!? right!?
Actually Mediatek is pretty underrated. Isn't the upcoming Dimensity 9600 Pro on par with the M5 [0]? And they also designed the CPU part of the GB10 in the NVIDIA DGX Spark, which is roughly on par with the CPU of the AMD AI Max+ 395 and M3 Max 14 core [1] [2].
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/1so1wyv/dimensity...
[1] https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/compare/17762799?baseli...
[2] https://browser.geekbench.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=m3+max
I love these articles. I await the inevitable post-mortem 6-9 months down the line.
A Mediatek chip rivalling Apple M2? Is this claim supportable?
It's basically dimensity 9400, and I think it's fairly comparable.
I actually tried this last year and the show stopper was Citrix. The version for Chromebooks is some abomination that hasn't been kept recent and so fails validation with my employer's Citrix infra.
I am not very tech-savvy, mostly into Analytics - DS. I love my Mac. The whole UX is far superior compared to Windows or a Chromebook.
Might become more interesting if the Android powered laptop rumors are true.
Some of us actually want to get work done
no, thanks
I do not agree with what he wrote, but I had an enjoyable reading experience, which is rare these days. That is some clean blog design.
Just look at the submissions from the "speckx" account and you get it. In a nutshell: don't waste your precious time.
speckx didn't author the original article, so I don't care
sorry, what conclusion am i supposed to get from looking at their submissions?
are you suggesting they are a bot? a lenovo employee?
just say what you mean instead of being cryptic about it
Assuming they are pointing out what looks like karma farming which isn't really in the spirit of the site.
Au contraire, your submission history is loaded with Mac app promotions. Your conflict of interest is more obvious than his is.
Ragebait pandemic spread here too?
But I don't want to.
No, no I can't.
What is that terrible font? I've never seen an "h" look like that
My initial guess was that migrating to a non-MacOS machine precludes the freedom to view the original Futura typeface on one's personal website. "The Future" must be some shoddy free alternative.
Except "The Future" is a paid typeface inspired by Futura and designed by the Klim Type Foundry. [0] The odd lowercase "h" is an alternative glyph probably meant for display sizes. [1] In addition to this for some reason the author is using the Light weight font for body text instead of Regular weight...
[0]: I love Söhne – https://klim.co.nz/blog/soehne-design-information/
[1]: https://klim.co.nz/fonts/the-future/#open-type/ss06/example
> - If you rely on / heavily use AI tools, you can easily use Claude's Web App etc so that's super cool but also things like Jan also exist for Linux and I haven't tried, but you can use that as well for a more native experience.
Sure, Claude Web App is an adequate replacement to full-fledged Claude Code, and then there is also something that I didn't bother to try but maybe you can try it after you bought a new laptop. What the hell.
But why?
I'm relatively uniquely qualified to weigh in here... I've been linux-native for decades now on my home desktops (debian), and the last time I used windows for work was ~2005-ish with work Mac laptops, and "disposable" chromebooks at home for personal use + travel.
1) It started with Crouton (open source, "let's get access to the underlying linux system"), and worked pretty well. IIRC you had to switch to "dev mode" to get access to it.
2) Crostini and all the layer-cake isolation is wildly impressive! ...it's more VM-based with suuuper adjudicated interaction boundaries between `chromeos` and the underlying linux vm.
Arch overview: https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-library/guide...
Seneschal (file management/isolation): https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform2/+/HEA...
Sommelier (gui passthrough/punch-through): https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform2/+/HEA...
3) I've recently (intentionally) switched to their new "Baguette" beta VM/Container (you can talk to google AI mode about it, but general access docs and links are fairly sparse: "...a ChromeOS architectural shift (arriving around v142-146) that enables containerless Linux Virtual Machines, running directly via KVM instead of LXD. It removes the middle container layer for increased efficiency and flexibility, allowing for advanced features like direct PCI passthrough, while providing improved storage management compared to legacy Crostini."
4) I think over the last ~15 years I've gone from 4gb => 8gb => 16gb (just recently) and sticking with "premium-ish" dev-centric laptops (mostly: linux, git, web dev, inkscape, random hacking, etc). Currently the Acer Spin 714, previously Samsung XE930QCA... both "tablet adjacent" with full fliparound or "tent style" for watching a movie or doodling with styluses.
Bang-for-Buck, I was able to get the Spin714 for ~$300 @ 16gb ram (used-ish, off ebay) which is a STEAL, and similar story for the Samsung one. They're definitely very capable machines, and treating them as "dumb terminals with a VM I can pop open and scp files to a remote host or git push" is fantastic!
HOWEVER: beware! Google w/ Baguette is stupidly complicated on how to open a port on the device itself for other computers to be able to access servers on the local device. I argued with the google AI for like an hour trying to figure out the best way to allow `git pull my-chromebook.localdomain:./Git/some-repo` and eventually had to settle on a raw `ssh` reverse proxy pipe where I was pulling from `my-other-machine.localdomain:localhost:2222:./Git/some-repo` which was forwarded back (over SSH) to the chromebook itself.
It used to be that you could rationally: `python -m http`, open an "enable port forwarding" thingy in the terminal settings and be able to connect to the service w/o much ceremony. Nowadays they're effectively nanny-ifying the OS and it's getting much harder to do the same thing (removing visible UI for port forwarding, needing hidden settings deep links or `chrome://flags` stuff to be able to access a server/service RUNNING ON YOUR OWN MACHINE FROM WITHIN YOUR OWN NETWORK). Supposedly the cool kids are using tailscale or whatever, but it's literally `localhost<->localhost` and I don't want to have to set up a VPN or whatever to make that work, I just want to doodle on local web services in a VM on a machine that can get stolen and not end up losing all my personal/private files.
Also, ask google AI mode: "when is google phasing out chromebook and chromeos and presumably near-native linux support on their machines?" => """Court documents and executive statements reveal a plan to retire the existing ChromeOS software stack by 2034. This legacy system is expected to be replaced by a unified platform internally codenamed "Project Aluminium," which migrates ChromeOS fully onto the Android tech stack."""
...so ~8 more years of `chromeos`/`linux` and then it'll no longer be the year of linux on the desktop!
Yes, they can be very comfortable and very capable machines, but they're losing a bit of their central spirit and developer-friendliness over time.
Why would I do that?
I love Liquid Glass. I think a lot of the complaints are whiny and pedantic. I do agree a bit of tender love and care could be used to clean up some GUI elements, but people act like Liquid Glass fried their logic board and rendered their machine utterly unusable.
The problem is, on iOS it's buggy. Floating opaque rectangles blocking you from seeing what you're doing. Software keyboard not being accounted for in the layout so you can't click buttons. It looks different; sure, whatever. It's getting in the way of actually using it that raises ire.
Sounds like the author could have used just about any laptop in the world and it would serve him well.
So, what's the point of the article?
Death to liquid glass!
I mean I could. I could also do fent. But I don't.
I'll use Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD, ReactOS, Haiku, anything but not ChromeOS.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
No.
The idea that I could do the things I do regularly on a Chromebook is laughable in the extreme, and I'm not even that much of a crazy power user. No thanks.
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TL;DR: The author traded a full-fledged workstation with “Liquid Glass” for a web browser with a keyboard.
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