之前尝试过在树莓派上运行 Arch Linux ARM，发现体验非常好，可以很低的能耗长时间运行一些程序（如文件同步、服务监控等），不过由于树莓派的 CPU 性能相对比较低，不能运行一些比较重的任务如Linux桌面以及编译程序，所以这次当 Google 推出 HP Chromebook 11
(https://store.google.com/product/chromebook_hp_11_whiteblue_wifi?playredirect=true&hl=en)时，看到硬件配置不错而且价格只需 $279，就立即拍了一台。经过二十天的等待,终于拿到手了，简单体验了一下之后，下面说说体会。
硬件篇
HP Chromebook 11 的包装非常好，我拿到的包裹有一个角因长途运输而被撞到凹陷进去，幸好里面有两个厚厚的弹性泡沫防撞垫架空，内层的包装盒完好无损。
HP Chromebook 11 采用的是 Google Chrome OS 系统（当然咯，所有Chromebook都是用这个系统的），之前虽然简单看过资料，不过对这个系统的实际使用效果一直很好奇。
正如大家所了解的，所谓的 Chrome OS 就是一个只有 Chrome 浏览器的操作系统，所以我们是没法安装平常看到的 for Windows/Mac/Linux 的软件，能安装的只有 Chrome 浏览器支持的插件和 Chrome 应用商店里面的应用。除此之外，我们只能用来浏览网页。情况更为糟糕的是在国内有些Google服务（比如 Google Drive）不是总能访问到，不过我想对于死技术宅来说，要顺畅无障碍地访问这些优质的服务应该不是什么难事。
Chrome OS 只有一个很简单的文件管理器，在这里只能进行基本的文件操作，比如重命名、删除、复制和移动等以及预览图片、播放音乐等。而用户可使用的内部储存空间只有一个名字为“Downloads”的文件夹，当插入USB硬盘或者SD卡时，这里会自动显示里面的文件。
同时作为 Chrome OS 的“主要储存器”的 Google Drive 也是在这里管理的，因为 HP Chromebook 11 的内置储存器容量很小，所以大部分个人数据都应该拖进 Google Drive。比如电子文档和电子表格等。然后再使用 Google Doc （相当于 MS Office）进行编辑和查看/打印等操作。
Chrome OS 内置了中文字体和中文输入法，包括拼音和五笔，所以处理中文资料并不需要额外的设置。
Chrome OS 内置了 Flash 插件，所以观看在线视频也是没问题的，当然观看 HTML5 视频更加没问题。
Chrome OS 也有“窗口”的概念（虽然都是 Chrome 浏览器），平时大部分情况下都是最大化一个浏览器，然后不同的“应用”在不同的标签页当中运行。除此也可以同时打开多个浏览器窗口，或者把某个窗口全屏显示。在播放视频以及观看图片时，全屏显示是一个常用的操作。
Chrome OS 没有内置的音乐库管理应用，所以比较简单的做法是把音乐同步到 Google Music，相信使用 Android 设备的都不陌生，然后再到 Chrome OS 里打开 Google Music 就可以播放自己的音乐库了。
小结
通过简单的体验之后，发现其实HP Chromebook 11 是满足日常大部分任务需求的，而且配合低功耗以及超廉价的硬件，Chrome OS 系统给人的体验非常好。比如这篇文章都是在这台机器上完成的，过程非常顺利。机器的耗电情况也非常理想，从中午到下午一直开机以及运行下载任务电池仍然有余。考虑到机器使用的是标准的 microUSB 充电接口，出门在外想充电也都不一定需要带上充电器。
另外Chrome OS 加上一些插件之后可以做一些浏览器以外的功能，比如使用 Hangouts 服务可以打开 HP Chromebook 11 的摄像头进行网络视频对话，另外可以通过快捷键 Ctrl + 窗口切换键 进行截图等等。
如果你是 Linux 粉丝，那么你可以进一步发掘 Chromebook 的功能，比如使用 Ctrl + Alt + T 组合键打开控制台/ 终端。 对于解锁了开发者模式的机器，你可以安装完整的 Linux 系统，然后使用 chroot 切换过去。刚才尝试了安装 Ubuntu Linux，然后运行 LibreOffice 以及使用 OpenJDK 编译一个程序 Clobaframe-https://github.com/ivarptr/clobaframe，发现这台机器的性能是完全可以流畅运行一个完整的 Linux 以及一些稍微重一点的任务.
from http://web.archive.org/web/20150810101835/http://archboy.org/2013/11/03/hp-chromebook-11-2013-review/
The HP Chromebook 11 is an affordable laptop that’s easy to tuck in your bag. It has an 11.6 inch display, weighs just 2.3 pounds, boots in seconds and resumes from sleep nearly instantly, making it both easy to use at a moment’s notice and easy to use on the go.
But this little $280 laptop isn’t for everyone. First, it runs Google’s Chrome OS, which is an operating system designed around a web browser. You kind of have to buy into Google’s vision that the browser can be the most important app on your computer, and that there are benefits in running web apps rather than native desktop apps for most activities.
Second, the HP Chromebook isn’t as powerful as some other Chrome OS laptops, doesn’t have as many ports or expansion options, and feels like something that could have been released a year ago. In fact, the spec sheet is remarkably similar to last year’s Samsung Series 3 Chromebook — both laptops have the same Samsung Exynos 5 dual-core processor and both have 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage.
The good news is that the HP Chromebook 11 has a much better looking display and better speakers. The bad news is it lacks an SD card slot, video out port, gets less battery life, and costs more than Samsung’s year-old $249 Chromebook.
Google loaned me an HP Chromebook 11 for the purposes of this review.
So is the HP Chromebook 11 worth your $280? That depends what you plan to do with it. For more details, check out or video review or read on.
Chrome OS
Chrome OS is a Linux-based operating system that puts the web browser front and center. There’s a file manager, image viewer, and media player built into the operating system, which allow you to perform a few actions when your Chromebook is offline. B
ut Chrome OS is based on the idea that the internet is the killer app, and rather than simply use a browser on a Windows, Mac, or Linux computer, Google built an operating system that puts as little as possible between you and the web.
Over the past few years web apps have become more and more like desktop apps, letting you make video calls, edit documents, and perform many other tasks from a browser window.
Google has also been adding features to Chrome and Chrome OS that let developers build apps that function a lot more like native apps, taking advantage of your device’s hardware including the camera or sensors, for instance.
But just because Chrome OS is based on Chrome doesn’t mean that using it is exactly the same as using Google’s web browser on a PC.
A funny thing happens when you start using web apps for pretty much everything. You never have to update those apps — they stay up to date automatically, and as soon as there’s a new version on the server, you can use the new software. And you never even have to manually backup your files or settings. They’re saved online, which means they’re accessible on any machine with a web browser.
If your chromebook is lost or stolen, you can just login with your account details on another machine and pick up exactly where you left off.
When Chrome OS first hit the streets a few years ago, it really was little more than a full-screen browser. Now you can resize and move windows, view and dismiss notifications, set a desktop wallpaper, and much more.
It feels like a real operating system — just one that’s more web-centric than Windows or OS X. But if you spend more time using Facebook and Gmail everyday than you do Photoshop, Final Cut, or Excel, you might already be living in a web-centric world.
Chrome OS is also relatively secure, since web apps are sandboxed from the core operating system. It’s virtually impossible to download and install malware on a machine running Chrome OS.
Some folks will take issue with the idea that a machine running Google software is “secure” since your data is constantly being shared with Google’s servers when you use Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Play Music, and other services. But if you fall into that camp, I suspect you’re not going to buy a Chromebook anyway… unless you plan to replace the operating system with Ubuntu or another operating system.
It’s actually relatively easy to do that. Like all Chromebooks, you can enter developer mode on the HP Chromebook 11. There’s no physical developer switch, but you can enable developer mode by holding the Esc and Refresh keys while pressing the power button to turn on the device to enter recovery mode and then hitting Ctrl + D to start developer mode. From there you can open a terminal window and make changes to the system.
The easiest way to install Ubuntu is probably to use Crouton, a script which loads it and lets you run it side-by-side with Chrome OS, switching between the environments on the fly without even rebooting.
But if you stick with Chrome, you might be surprised just how many things you can do with a laptop that runs web apps. Want to watch videos? There’s Netflix, YouTube, and a thousand other online video sites.
For music, try Google Play Music which not only lets you purchase songs or pay for a music-on-demand susbcription, but also upload as many as 20,000 of your own tracks to stream anywhere for free. Or you could stream internet radio stations from TuneIn or create your own with Pandora.
Need to edit documents? Google Drive, Zoho Docs, or Microsoft Office Web Apps will probably do the trick for most folks (although some more advanced functions may not be available).
Want to play games? You can run Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Bejeweled, or thousands of other web games, including some that can use hardware graphics acceleration or save data to your device so you can play even when you don’t have an internet connection.
The Chrome Web Store is full of games, productivity apps, educational apps, news apps, and many other categories of apps. And if you’re worried about your chromebook turning into a useless lump of plastic when you don’t have an internet connection handy, there’s also a collection of apps that work offline.
Overview
HP’s Chromebook 11 is the second Chrome OS laptop to feature an ARM-based processor. It has a 1.7 GHz Samsung Exynos 5250 dual-core ARM Cortex-A15 with ARM Mali-T604 quad-core graphics.
That’s a low-power chip more often found in tablets than in laptops — but Chrome OS is designed to run on x86 or ARM-based chips. We’ve seen chromebooks with Intel Atom, Celeron, and Core i5 chips as well as ARM-based processors. While those Intel-powered models tend to be a bit faster, there are a few advantages to using a Chromebook with an ARM-based chip.
Samsung’s processor, for instance, is far more energy efficient than most Intel chips — and that means it generates less heat, allowing HP to deliver a notebook that’s just 0.7 inches thick and which doesn’t have any fans. That means it’s quieter than a typical notebook and it runs pretty cool — while the bottom does get a bit warm after extended use, you won’t ever feel a blast of hot air coming from the HP Chromebook 11.
The notebook features an 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel IPS display with 300 nits. It’s relatively bright for a laptop screen, and while it’s a glossy display you probably won’t notice a lot of glare if you crank up the brightness all the way (unless you’re using the notebook outside or near a window on sunny day).
Thanks to the IPS display, the viewing angles are pretty good. You can tilt the screen back or view the chromebook from the side without worrying about pictures or videos starting to look like photo negatives — a problem that plagued last year’s Samsung Series 3 Chromebook (and many other laptops).
It’s a good thing the laptop has a decent display, because it’s the only display you’re going to use. There’s no VGA or HDMI port on the HP Chromebook 11, but you can use a SlimPort adapter with the microUSB port to connect an external display.
There’s no Ethernet jack either, but you can connect a USB to Ethernet adapter if you really need to connect to a wired network.
There’s also no SD card slot, which means you’d best be happy with the 16GB of storage that’s included.
If you’re sold on Google’s idea of living your life in the cloud, you probably don’t need a lot of extra storage on the device — but SD cards aren’t just good for expanding your storage capacity. Without one, it’s tough to treat this laptop as a larger display for photos you snap on your digital camera, for instance. And if you want to load up a few videos to watch on your next airplane trip you’ll have to do download them from the internet or load them on a USB flash drive.
The HP Chromebook 11 features 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 wireless connectivity.
There are 2 USB ports and a headset jack along the left side of the laptop. That’s where you’ll also find one of the most unusual characteristics of the HP Chromebook 11 — the charging port. While most laptops use a power brick and a proprietary charging port, HP’s little Chromebook has a microUSB port.
HP ships the laptop with a small power adapter that looks like something you’d use to charge a smartphone or tablet rather than a laptop. In fact, you should be able to use just about any smartphone adapter to charge the chromebook, assuming it’s a 5.25V microUSB charger. If you’re using a lower-power adapter, it may not provide enough juice to charge your chromebook while you’re using it, but it should be able to (slowly) charge the laptop while it’s powered off.
Note that you probably won’t get enough power if you try connecting the chromebook to a PC with a USB cable though.
Design
Google’s Chrome chief Sundar Pichai says HP worked closely with the team at Google who designed the Chromebook Pixel. That’s Google’s $1299 Chrome OS laptop with a high-resolution touchscreen display, a backlit keyboard, and other premium features including an Intel Core i5 processor.
Does that mean that HP’s $280 laptop is just as good as Google’s showcase device which costs more than four times as much? Not by a long shot. But I can see where HP took a few design cues from Google.
The HP Chromebook Pixel’s bright IPS display for instance, may not be as large or have the clarity of the Chromebook Pixel screen. But the brightness, viewing angles, and color clarity are better than you might expect from a laptop in this price range. It would have been nice if HP had provided an optional touch panel for a higher price though — after using the Chromebook Pixel for a few weeks earlier this year, I repeatedly found myself wanting to reach out and touch the screen on HP’s cheaper notebook.
HP also followed Google’s cues in speaker placement: the Chromebook 11 has speakers hidden below the keyboard and facing upward. They produce audio that’s both loud and clear, and which isn’t muffled when the notebook is sitting on your lap or on a desk. This really shouldn’t be a big deal, but it’s something many laptop makers get wrong.
Audio is still rather tinny, as you’d expect from cheap laptop speakers. But music and videos sound good enough that you might not feel the need to plug in speakers or headphones for casual use. When I was streaming talk radio from the internet, the audio quality was pretty great. Music didn’t sound nearly as good since the speakers don’t offer much bass.
There’s one more element that’s sort of taken from the Chromebook Pixel, but it’s really just kind of a sad echo. The Pixel has a four-color LED on the lid that lights up when you turn on the laptop. You can also make the lights act independently to perform little light shows by pressing a special key combo (the Konami Code).
The HP Chromebook 11 has a 4-color piece of plastic on the lid.
If you cup your hand over it or turn on the laptop in a dark room you may notice that there’s a bit of light shining through the plastic to light it up a bit. But the lights aren’t nearly as pretty or bright as those on the Pixel.
Aside from those Pixel-like elements, the Chromebook 11 is clearly its own device. It has a flat, island-style keyboard that looks a lot like the ones HP has been using for small notebooks for the past 4 or 5 years. And the case if made of shiny plastic rather than matte metal. If there’s one clear nod to the laptop’s Google pedigree though, it’s the logo placement.
There’s a Chrome logo just below the lid, but you have to look at the bottom of the laptop to find an HP logo. There’s no logo at all on the lid, just the dull blue, red, yellow, and green piece of plastic mentioned above.
HP offers the Chromebook 11 with a solid black case or with a white case, and if you opt for white you can get color accents in red, blue, green, or yellow. The demo model Google sent me features blue trim around the keyboard and blue feet on the bottom of the laptop to elevate the base a bit.
Most of the plastic is shiny and reflective — and for some reason has a tendency to attract dust and cat hair which sticks to the lid like magic. But the bezel around the glossy display is made of matte black plastic, which means that while you might get a bit of glare off the notebook case or the screen, you won’t be blinded by the light coming off the bezel.
All the ports are on the right side of the laptop, leaving the front, back, and right edges free. The bottom is a solid piece of plastic with feet at the front and back. There are no visible screws, which is a pretty clear indication HP doesn’t expect you to open up the case.
The RAM and storage are not easily upgradeable, and you can’t even swap out the battery. I guess it’s a good thing the power adapter is so portable.
Image credit: AnandTech
The folks at AnandTech did remove the feet on the bottom of the Chromebook to reveal some screws and they pried open the case to look inside. Not surprisingly the RAM storage, and battery are not designed be swapped out.
Overall, the HP Chromebook 11 is a nice looking laptop. If you hate plastic notebooks, this model probably won’t change your mind. But it feels solid, there’s not much flex in the keyboard, and the notebook is thin, light, and cheap, partially thanks to that plastic case.
Keyboard and Touchpad
It can take a little while to get used to a Chromebook keyboard. The number, letter, and symbol keys are pretty much all where you’d expect to find them. But there’s a Search key where you’d normally find Caps Lock.
There are no dedicated Home, End, or Delete buttons, and the F keys are replaced by actual function keys which let you control audio, screen brightness, and perform specific actions such as returning to the previous web page, moving to the next page, refreshing a browser tab, maximizing your browser window, or switching between windows.
You can use key combinations to perform most of the missing actions. For instance, Alt + Backspace is the same as Del. And Ctrl+ Alt + left arrow is the same as Home (or right arrow for End). But there are no markings on the keyboard to indicate how to use these combo keys, so you’ll have to memorize them or print out a list of keyboard shortcuts and tape it to your screen.
Once you know your way around the unusual layout, the HP Chromebook 11 keyboard is comfortable to use for extended periods. I wrote almost all of this review using a the notebook, and I was able to type at around 100 words per minute thanks to decent travel on the keys and spacing between them.
I just wish I could manage to actually commit the shortcuts for Home and End to memory. It probably wouldn’t be difficult if this were my only computer, but I’m constantly switching between my Windows laptop and desktop PCs and the Chromebook 11 which makes it easy to forget where to find hidden functions that aren’t clearly marked.
I also wouldn’t mind a few dedicated media playback keys designed to work with Google Play Music — but that would be tough for HP or Google to really pull off, since not every cloud media player uses the same shortcuts for play, pause, and skip.
Below the keyboard is a reasonably wide touchpad that supports multitouch gestures. You can use two fingers to scroll or open up a context menu, or tap or press on the touchpad to click on links, menus, or icons.
The touchpad has a matte finish and sits a tiny bit lower than the shiny plastic of the palm rest, which makes it easy to detect the edges of the touch area with your fingers without looking down at your hands.
If you prefer a physical mouse, you can always hook one up to one of the notebook’s USB ports. One of the interesting quirks of Chrome OS is that I find I can plug in the dongle for my Logitech wireless travel mouse and start scrolling and clicking right away without waiting for the the chromebook to load drivers. When I do the same thing for the first time on a Windows laptop I usually have to wait around 20 or 30 seconds for the drivers to install before I can use the mouse.
Performance
The HP Chromebook 11 isn’t the fastest laptop around, but thanks to its light-weight operating system, it feels awfully zippy at times, taking just a few seconds to boot and resuming from sleep almost as quickly as you can open the lid.
Those features aren’t as rare as they once were — most recent notebooks with Windows 8 software, UEFI firmware, and a decent processor can boot in around 20 seconds or less. But if you’re used to older laptops, it’s nice to have a clamshell notebook that feels like it’s ready to use at a moment’s notice, much the way a smartphone or tablet would be.
Lift the lid and start typing to surf the web, respond to email messages, or just look up the name of that actor who was in that thing. When there’s almost zero wait time, I find myself reaching for a notebook much more often than I would if I had to wait 60 seconds or longer for it to be useful.
That said, it can take a few seconds for the HP Chromebook 11 to connect to a WiFi network, so while the laptop wakes up almost instantly, it can take more like 3 to 5 seconds before it’s actually useful. That’s not bad, but it’s also not quite as fast as my phone which is usually within arm’s reach.
Once the device is up, running, and connected to the internet, performance is pretty good. I was able to stream HD videos from YouTube, Netflix, and Hulu. Interestingly, the YouTube videos were the ones most likely to get jumpy, while Netflix and Hulu content looked pretty smooth. The computer was able to handle 720p YouTube videos reasonably well as long as I didn’t have too many other browser tabs open, but 1080p videos look like a slideshow.
That said, the HP Chromebook 11 has a 1366 x 768 pixel display, and not a lot of built-in storage, so there’s really not much reason you’d ever want to watch videos at resolutions higher than 720p.
It was also a bit sluggish when I tried some CPU-intensive web apps such as Full Screen Mario, a re-created version of Super Mario Brothers written entirely in HTML5. But for day-to-day tasks, the HP Chromebook was able to keep up.
I regularly used it to surf the web with 6 or more browser tabs open, and wrote the bulk of this review on the Chromebook while streaming audio from Google Play Music, leaving open my Gmail and Feedly tabs to keep up on incoming news and messages, and using a few more browser tabs to fact-check specs and other details.
I wouldn’t call the experience of using the Chromebook 11 for this kind of work flawless, but it can definitely hold its own as a workhorse machine — if you work on the web like I do.
Web pages might load more quickly, there might be less slow down when you have a dozen open, and games might work better on a model with a faster processor, but even the aging Exynos 5250 processor provides enough oomph to get work done on this laptop.
The bigger challenge can be finding the tools you need to get your work done… if you’re planning to use this device for work. I suspect most users will pick one up for leisure rather than work (unless they plan to install a GNU/Linux distro on it).
For instance, there’s a simple image editor built into Chrome OS, but while I can use it to crop images, I can’t resize them. So all the screenshots you see in this article were taken on the Chromebook, cropped using the built-in file browser and image editor, then uploaded to WordPress where I used a WordPress tool to resize them to fit the page.
ARM-based chips like the Samsung Exynos 5250 are more commonly found in phones or tablets than laptops. But while Intel has been working to make its processors energy efficient enough to compete in the mobile space, ARM designs have been getting more and more powerful, and it turns out that you can actually get respectable notebook performance from a device with an ARM-based processor.
The Exynos 5250 isn’t the most powerful ARM-based chip on the market anymore. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800, Samsung’s Exynos 5 Octa, and NIVIDA’s Tegra 4 should all be able to outperform this year-old processor. But while this notebook has the same CPU as the Samsung Series 3 Chromebook which came out a year ago, Google has done a lot of work to improve the performance of Chrome OS in that time.
That means that whether you’re using a chromebook from Samsung or HP, it’ll probably be able to do more today than it would have a year ago. And that’s borne out in some web-based benchmarks I ran last year on Samsung’s Chromebook and this week on Google’s. Performance in most tests hasn’t changed much at all, but the new HP Chromebook scored much higher in the Google Octane benchmark. I suspect if I ran the same test on a Samsung Chromebook running Google’s latest software, it’d score much better as well.
Interestingly, the Samsung Chromebook scored a little better in the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark a year ago — but it’s also noteworthy that both laptops weren’t all that much slower than an Acer chromebook with an Intel Celeron processor.
HP says you should be able to get up to 6 hours of battery life with the Chromebook 11. I suppose that might be true if you dimmed the screen until you could barely see it (you can make the display almost black if you want), and turned off the WiFi. But then the chromebook wouldn’t be very useful.
In my tests, I found the HP Chromebook actually got closer to 4.5 hours of battery life with the screen brightness just over 50 percent and a few browser tabs open while streaming music.
That’s another thing it has in common with the high-priced Google Chromebook Pixel, I guess. Neither laptop has a user replaceable battery, and neither gets all-day battery life… or even enough run time to last through a cross-country flight.
As I mentioned, the Chromebook 11 does have a very small AC adapter, and since it can use most microUSB chargers you might be able to borrow a cellphone charger if you need to plug in your device and you’ve left your charger at home. But it’d be nice to have an option for a model with a larger battery, or a user replaceable one.
Using Ubuntu
Chrome OS is cool and all, but sometimes you want to run native desktop apps like GIMP for image editing, Audacity for audio editing, or Abiword or LibreOffice for editing documents. It’s remarkably easy to do that by running Ubuntu in a chroot environment.
That basically means you’re installing Ubuntu side-by-side with Chrome OS, with both operating systems relying on the same kernel. It sounds complicated, but the installation process is remarkably simple thanks to the Crouton script which does most of the work for you.
The upshot is that you can install (or remove) Ubuntu without really touching the Chrome OS software on your device. You can easily go back to a stock chromebook experience just by exiting developer mode. Theoretically you could also wipe Chrome OS off the face of the HP Chromebook 11 and install an alternate operating system, but I went for the path of leas resistance when trying an alternate operating system on this demo unit (which I have to return to Google soon).
So how well do Ubuntu apps run on this small, low-power laptop? It depends on the app. Some software isn’t compiled for ARM at all, so it won’t run. Other apps require more CPU or graphics power than the Samsung Exynos 5250 chip offers (or at least they aren’t optimized to utilize what it does offer).
But most basic apps run surprisingly well. I was able to install the Firefox web browser and a few plugins, and it works pretty well. Switching between the Chrome OS and Ubuntu environments is as simple as pressing Ctrl + Alt + Shift + forward or back, so there’s really no need for a separate web browser — you could just use Chrome and switch to Ubuntu only when you want to run a different app. But it’s nice to know that Firefox does work. So does Chromium, for that matter. That’s the open source version of Google Chrome.
The GIMP image editor loads up pretty quickly, which is funny because GIMP for Windows always seems to take an incredibly long time to load on my desktop PC with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor.
Audacity lets me record audio using the HP Chromebook 11 mic, and I can then edit and save audio files.
And I tested the AbiWord open source word processor and found it works quite nicely. You could also install LibreOffice if you want a more full-featured office suite, but it’ll take up more storage space — and on a device with just 16GB of built-in storage, every megabyte is precious.
Out of the box, not everything was set up automatically — you may need a bit of basic Ubuntu or GNU/Linux knowledge to watch Flash video or even to install additional apps. I had to add shortcuts to control the screen brightness manually. While I could open a terminal windows and type “sudo apt-get install <package_name>” to install software, if you don’t know the name of the software you want to install, that won’t get you very far.
Fortunately it’s pretty easy to install Synaptic Package Manager or the Ubuntu Software Center. Just type “sudo apt-get install synaptic” or “sudo apt-get install software-center” into a terminal window and enter your password when prompted, and you’ll install one or both of these utilities that are basically app stores for software that can run on Ubuntu.
From there, it’s easy to search for software you need, from Firefox for surfing the web to VLC for playing videos, to Filezilla for accessing FTP sites. Pro tip: You’ll probably want to install the GNU Gnash utility if you want to watch Flash videos or play Flash games using Firefox.
Some apps will work better than others. I had no luck at all getting SuperTux2 or SuperTuxKart to run at playable speeds. There were audio glitches, slow frame rates, and the games were pretty much too slow to play at all.
If you want to play games, you’re probably better off sticking with casual games like card games… or sticking with Chrome OS, where you can play web games, including some titles that you can download and play even when you’re offline. Angry Birds works particularly well offline.
Running Ubuntu in chroot gives you the ability to run native desktop-style apps on the HP Chromebook 11. But if you want a truly powerful desktop Linux experience, you’ll probably want a machine with a machine with an x86 processor and a fully supported graphics card. But the ability to run Ubuntu side-by-side with Chrome OS sort of turns the HP Chromebook 11 (or any other Chrome OS laptop) into a sort of chromebook plus. You get the full Google experience, but if there are a few desktop apps you just can’t live without, you can run them in Ubuntu.
There doesn’t seem to be any notable difference in battery life when using Ubuntu in chroot — unless you’re doing some really heavy-duty multitasking or running some really CPU-intensive apps (which would probably slow the system to a crawl, so odds are you wouldn’t want to do that anyway).
I suspect you might see a bigger difference in battery life if you were running Ubuntu or another Linux distro as a standalone operating system rather than using chroot — because in that case you wouldn’t be relying on Google’s Chrome OS to handle power management duties.
Verdict
Chrome OS still isn’t for everyone, and neither are ARM-based laptops. The HP Chromebook 11 can’t run all the software that you might get with a Windows or Mac laptop. There’s no iTunes, Microsoft Office, or QuickBooks. But there’s always Rdio, Google Drive, and QuickBooks Online if you really need those features.
I’m already sold on the idea of using Chrome OS as an operating system for a portable, inexpensive sceondary laptop though. Having tested a few chromebooks in the past, I didn’t need to be convinced that the platform was viable. I wouldn’t recommend this sort of machine as your only computer unless you really don’t need desktop-style apps. But a chromebook makes a decent alternative to a tablet as a secondary device if you’d rather have a physical keyboard than a touchscreen.
But why pick up HP’s Chromebook 11 rather than a new Acer C720 Chromebook or even last year’s Samsung Series 3 Chromebook? The new Acer C720 has a faster processor, more RAM, and it’s about $30 cheaper than HP’s Chromebook 11. And the Samsung Series 3 has the same processor, same RAM, and is also about $30 cheaper than the HP model.
In the end, the Chromebook 11 has a decent design, interesting color options, a fanless, silent case, and acceptable performance. It’s arguably more attractive than the Samsung Series 3 Chromebook, unless you prefer Samsung’s faux-metal finish to HP’s embracing of the color options that come with plastic. And it has a much better display, but no SD card port.
The HP Chromebook 11 should also be more quiet than Acer’s latest Chromebook, thanks to the fanless design.
But really, if you’re sold on the idea of Chrome OS, there’s no really bad option on the market at the moment. While the earliest chromebooks were hobbled by the limitations of an operating system that was still rough around the edges and pokey Intel Atom processors, pretty much every Chrome OS laptop on the market today has enough power to offer a decent web browsing experience, and most offer it for around $300 or less.
The bigger question is whether chromebooks continue to make sense in a world when Windows 8.1 tablets like the Asus Transformer Book T100 with Intel Atom Bay Trail processors, 10 hours of battery life, and keyboard docks are on the way for as little as $349.
from http://liliputing.com/2013/10/hp-chromebook-11-review.html
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Customer Reviews of the HP Chromebook 11
Strengths: "The HP Chromebook 11 is an affordable laptop ($280.00) that’s easy to tuck in your bag. It has an 11.6 inch display, weighs just 2.3 pounds, boots in seconds, and resumes from sleep nearly instantly, making it both easy to use at a moment’s notice and easy to use on the go." The HP Chromebook 11 got a 4.5 star rating for a reason... It comes in several colors (blue, green, yellow, red, and black), although it has a large screen it is very lightweight, and it's extremely affordable. The HP Chromebook 11 also has very good speakers, and an astounding display. By choosing this computer, you get many luxurious features for less than half of the price of it's competitors。
Weaknesses: Although the HP Chromebook 11 has many great features, there's also a few downsides to it. For example, it only has 16GB of memory, it runs on Google's Chrome OS, it's not as powerful as other HP laptops, and it feels older than it really is... But, once you weigh out everything you get for the cost of this computer, these few details don't make a significant difference in your enjoyment when operating this laptop.
These reviews are courtesy of the following website:
from https://sites.google.com/a/westcta.ccsd.net/the-hp-chromebook-11-laptop/strengths-and-weaknesses
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HP Chromebook 11: How to enable dev mode
The HP Chromebook 11 is a thin and light laptop which runs Google’s Chrome OS software. But what if you want to break out of the confines of a browser-based operating system, access a command line terminal, repartition the storage space, or even install an alternate operating system?
Every chromebook that’s shipped to date has allowed users to switch to a developer mode which allows you to access settings and features that wouldn’t otherwise be available. The earliest models actually had physical developer switches. More recent chromebooks don’t have an actual switch, but you can enable developer mode by hitting a few keys on the keyboard.
Just hit Esc + Refresh and you’ll reboot to a scary screen that tells you OS verification is disabled. That’s the recovery screen. From there you can reboot into developer mode by pressing Ctrl + D.
Note that doing this will wipe all data from your device. Basically the HP Chromebook 11 will reformat your storage space and set you up with a fresh version of Chrome OS with developer privileges. Once you login with your Google account info, all of your settings, apps, and extensions will be re-downloaded, so there’s not much risk involved, but you will lose any files in your downloads directory, so make sure to back them up if you need them.
Also note that any time you reboot the Chromebook now, you’ll be greeted by the OS verification screen. You can either wait for it to go away or hit Ctrl + D to bypass it and boot into Chrome OS.
Open a terminal
Want to start mucking around once you’re in developer mode? Just hit Ctrl + Alt + T and you can open up a terminal windows. Type “shell” and you can start entering Unix/Linux style commands.
Boot from a USB drive
You can boot your computer from USB drive, but first you’ll need to enable support. Open a terminal window. Type “crossystem dev_boot_usb=1” (without the quotes), and hit enter. Then reboot your device.
Plug in your flash drive, and this time when you see the OS verification menu, hit Ctrl+U to boot from the drive.
This won’t work with any old USB flash drive running Ubuntu or another operating system. You’ll need to have a drive with software that’s prepared to run on this system — but the good news is there’s a much easier way to get Ubuntu up and running by using Crouton to run it in a chroot environment.
Exit Developer mode
With great power comes great responsibility… you can now mess up your device’s disk partitions. Want to remove the temptation and go back to a normal Chrome OS environment?
Just reboot the device, but this time when you see the OS verification screen follow the on-screen instructions, starting with hitting the space bar.
This’ll re-install Chrome OS and remove your developer privileges.
from http://liliputing.com/2013/10/hp-chromebook-11-enable-dev-mode-video.html
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How to Install Ubuntu Linux on Your Chromebook with Crouton
Chromebooks aren’t “just a browser” — they’re Linux laptops. You can easily install a full Linux desktop alongside Chrome OS and instantly switch between the two with a hotkey — no rebooting necessary.
We performed this process with the $249 Samsung Chromebook, also known as the Samsung Series 3 Chromebook. If you have another Chromebook, read on anyway — it’s the same process.
Crouton vs. ChrUbuntu
Installing Ubuntu Linux on your Chromebook isn’t as simple as installing the standard Ubuntu system — at least not at the moment. You’ll need to choose a project developed specially for your Chromebook. There are two popular options:
ChrUbuntu: ChrUbuntu is a Ubuntu system built for Chromebooks. It works like a traditional dual-boot system. You can restart your Chromebook and choose between Chrome OS and Ubuntu at boot time. ChrUbuntu can be installed on your Chromebook’s internal storage or on a USB device or SD card.
Crouton: Crouton actually uses a “chroot” environment to run both Chrome OS and Ubuntu at the same time. Ubuntu runs alongside Chrome OS, so you can switch between Chrome OS and your standard Linux desktop environment with a keyboard shortcut. This gives you the ability to take advantage of both environments without any rebooting needed. Crouton allows you to use Chrome OS while having a standard Linux environment with all its command-line tools and desktop applications a few keystrokes away.
We’ll be using Crouton for this. It takes advantage the Linux system underlying Chrome OS to run both environments at once and is a much slicker experience than traditional dual-booting. Crouton uses Chrome OS’s standard drivers for your Chromebook’s hardware, so you shouldn’t run into issues with your touchpad or other hardware. Crouton was actually created by Google employee Dave Schneider.
When you use Crouton, you’re actually just running one operating system — Linux. However, you’re running two environments on top of the OS — Chrome OS and a traditional Linux desktop.
Enabling Developer Mode
Before you do any sort of hacking, you’ll need to enable “Developer Mode” on your Chromebook. Chromebooks are normally locked down for security, only booting properly signed operating systems, checking them for tampering, and preventing users and applications from modifying the underlying OS. Developer Mode allows you to disable all these security features, giving you a laptop you can tweak and play with to your heart’s content.
After enabling Developer Mode, you’ll be able to access a Linux terminal from within Chrome OS and do whatever you like.
To enable developer mode on the Samsung Chromebook or Chromebook Pixel, hold down the ESC and Refresh keys and tap the Power button. You’ll enter recovery mode. Older Chromebooks have physical developer switches that you’ll need to toggle instead.
At the recovery screen, press Ctrl+D, agree to the prompt, and you’ll boot into developer mode.
When you transition to developer mode, your Chromebook’s local data will be erased (just like when you unlock a Nexus Android device). This process took about 15 minutes on our system.
Whenever you boot your Chromebook, you’ll see a warning screen. You’ll need to press Ctrl+D or wait 30 seconds to continue booting.
This warning screen exists to alert you that a Chromebook is in developer mode and the normal security precautions don’t apply. For example, if you were using someone else’s Chromebook, you could normally log in with your Google account without fear. If it was in developer mode, it’s possible that software running in the background could be recording your keystrokes and monitoring your usage. That’s why Google makes it easy to tell if a Chromebook is in Developer Mode and doesn’t allow you to permanently disable this warning screen.
Installing Crouton
First, you’ll need to download Crouton. Click the following link to download the latest release of Crouton to your Chromebook: http://goo.gl/fd3zc
Once you have Crouton downloaded, press Ctrl+Alt+T in Chrome OS to open the crosh terminal.
Type shell into the terminal and press Enter to enter Linux shell mode. This command only works if Developer Mode is enabled.
To install Crouton the easy way, all you need to do is run the command below. This installs Crouton with the Xfce desktop and an encrypted chroot for security.
sudo sh ~/Downloads/crouton -e -t xfce
The actual installation process will take some time as the appropriate software is downloaded and installed — it took about half an hour on our system — but the process is largely automatic.
If you’d rather install Ubuntu’s Unity desktop instead, use -t unity instead of -t xfce in the command above. You can run the following command to see a list of installation types, including installations without a graphical desktop:
sh -e ~/Downloads/crouton
After going through the installation process, you can run either of the following commands to enter your Crouton session (assuming you installed Crouton with Xfce):
sudo enter-chroot startxfce4
sudo startxfce4
Switching Between Environments
To go switch back and forth between Chrome OS and your Linux desktop environment, use the following keyboard shortcuts:
ARM (like the Samsung Series 3 Chromebook): Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Back and Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Forward
Intel x86/AMD64 (like the Chromebook Pixel and $200 Acer Chromebook): Ctrl+Alt+Back and Ctrl+Alt+Forward plus Ctrl+Alt+Refresh
If you want to exit the chroot, just log out of the Xfce desktop (or the Unity desktop, if you’re using that). You’ll then need to run the startxfce4 command above to enter the chroot again.
What You Can Do With Linux
You now have a traditional Linux desktop running alongside Chrome OS. All that traditional Linux software is just an apt-get away in Ubuntu’s software repositories. Graphical utilities like local image editors, text editors, office suites, development tools, all the Linux terminal utilities you would want — they’re all easy to isntall.
You can even easily share files between Chrome OS and your Linux system. Just use the Downloads directory in your home folder. All files in the Downloads directory appear in the Files app on Chrome OS.
On an ARM Chromebook like the Samsung Chromebook, you’re a bit limited in what you can do. Some programs don’t run on ARM, so you can’t run Minecraft and other closed-source applications that haven’t been compiled for ARM Linux. You have access to a variety of open source tools and desktop applications that can be recompiled for ARM, but most closed-source applications won’t work on ARM.
On an Intel Chromebook, you have much more freedom. You could install Steam for Linux, Minecraft, Dropbox, and all the typical applications that work on the Linux desktop, using them alongside Chrome OS. This means that you could install Steam for Linux on a Chromebook Pixel and gain access to a whole other ecosystem of games — if you were crazy enough to buy a Chromebook Pixel, of course.
One last tip if you’re using Xfce — you’ll probably want to disable the screensaver from the Screensaver tool in Xfce’s settings menu. It appears to cause graphical glitches in Chrome OS while running in the background.
Removing Crouton and Restoring Your Chromebook
If you decide you’re done with Linux, you can easily get rid of the scary boot screen and get your internal storage space back.
Just reboot your Chromebook normally to get back to the scary warning screen at boot-up. Follow the prompts on your screen (tap the Space bar and then press Enter) to disable Developer Mode. When you disable Developer Mode, your Chromebook will clean everything up, restoring you to a clean, safe locked-down Chrome OS system and overwriting all the changes you’ve made to your Chromebook’s software.
If you’re looking for more in-depth information on installing and setting up Crouton, be sure to check out Crouton’s readme.
from http://www.howtogeek.com/162120/how-to-install-ubuntu-linux-on-your-chromebook-with-crouton/
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How to run both Chrome OS and Ubuntu on a Chromebook
Google's low-cost computers are capable of doing more than you think. Here's how you can transform a Chromebook into a full-blown Linux laptop.
You've probably heard a lot about Chromebooks. These affordable computers are manufactured by companies like HP, Acer, Toshiba, and Samsung, among others, and run Google's cloud-based operating system known as Chrome OS, which relies on an Internet connection to run most apps.
The big appeal for these computers are their price tags, with most models retailing for under $400 and some even dipping as low as $179. Many people aren't aware, however, that Chromebooks are capable of doing more than just running Web apps. In fact, you can run both Chrome OS and Ubuntu, a popular Linux operating system, on a Chromebook. Here's what you need to know.
Choosing the right model
Any Chromebook is capable of installing Ubuntu, however I recommend using a model that is equipped with an Intel processor. Chromebooks that include an ARM processor will not be compatible with a majority of Linux programs. You will have a more enjoyable experience if you use a newer model with better internal hardware.
It will also help to use some sort of external storage such as a flash drive or an SD card for more space to install any additional programs.
The process
The first thing you must do is enable the Chromebook's Developer Mode, but be aware that this will erase anything you may have saved to the device's internal storage. Press and hold the Esc and Refresh keys, and then press the power button. The Chromebook will reboot into Recovery Mode.
Dan Graziano/CNET
A yellow exclamation point will appear on the screen with a warning message, press the Ctrl and D keys simultaneously to continue to the next screen. Press the keyboard's Enter key to turn OS verification off and confirm the decision to turn on the Chromebook's Developer Mode. A red exclamation point and a warning that OS verification has been turned off will be displayed on the screen, followed by two loud beeps, this is normal.
Sit back and wait as this process could take up to 10 minutes to complete. Don't panic if you see a red exclamation point after Developer Mode has been enabled, the system will reboot back into Chrome OS shortly.
Dan Graziano/CNET
You will be required to input your network credentials and login information after the Chromebooks reboots. After doing so, you must download a tool known as Crouton, which will allow Ubuntu to run on top of Chrome OS. Save the file to your download folder and then open the Chromebook's terminal by pressing the Ctrl, ALT, and T keys together.
Type "shell" in the command line and hit the Enter key. Next, type "sudo sh -e ~/Downloads/crouton -t unity" and wait for Crouton to install. If your Chromebook has a touch screen use the command "sudo sh -e ~/Downloads/crouton -t touch,unity" instead.
Screenshot by Dan Graziano/CNET
You will be asked to enter a username and password once the installation process is complete. This is separate from your Chrome OS login and will be used inside of the Ubuntu operating system. To enter Ubuntu type the command "sudo startunity" into the terminal.
Click on the first icon on the left-hand side of the screen and search for the terminal. Once inside of it, type "sudo apt-get update" in the command line to update the operating system. When that's complete, type "sudo apt-get install software-center," this will allow you to easily install a wide variety of Linux programs. You can open the software center and search for the specific program you want, or you can download programs from the Web and install them through the software center.
Tips
To get back to Chrome OS from Ubuntu, press the Ctrl, Alt, and Back keys together. Moving from Chrome OS to Ubuntu can be done by pressing Ctrl, Alt, Forward, followed by Ctrl, Alt, and Refresh. On a model with an ARM processor, use Ctrl, Alt, Shift, Back, and Ctrl, Alt, Shift, Forward to move back and forth between both operating systems.
You can also open the Chrome OS terminal and type "shell" in the command line, followed by "sudo startunity," either method works. One thing you will notice is that it now takes longer for the Chromebook to power on. When you see the yellow exclamation point, simply press the Ctrl and D keys to speed up this process.
Uninstalling Ubuntu
The best part about this how-to is that it's completely worry-free. Whether you are unhappy with Ubuntu, running out of space, or want to return your Chromebook back to its original factory state, it takes only a couple of seconds to undo the entire process.
Dan Graziano/CNET
Restart the computer and press the spacebar when you see the red exclamation point. Press the Enter key to turn OS verification back on; this will once again erase anything stored on the device's internal storage. The system will reboot back into Chrome OS; enter your network credentials and log in to your Google account to begin using your Chromebook again.
from http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-run-both-chrome-os-and-ubuntu-on-a-chromebook/#!
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I recently got a Chromebook and decided to install Ubuntu on it. There are two ways (that I know of) of doing this: using Crouton, which uses a chroot environment and lets you run both Chrome OS and Ubuntu in the same time and you can switch between the two using a keyboard shortcut, and ChrUbuntu, which works you can dual boot with Chrome OS but it only supports x86-based Chromebooks.
Since I have an ARM-based Chromebook (HP Chromebook 11 - it's not on sale currently due to some issues with the charger), I've used Crouton. I actually prefer Crouton for the way it allows switching between Chrome OS and Ubuntu without having to restart.
If you own a Chromebook and want to install Ubuntu using Crouton, here's how to do it. I've tested this on HP Chromebook 11, but it should work on any Chromebook.
Demo video
Below you can watch a quick demo of Ubuntu (Xfce) running on my ARM Chromebook in chroot using Crouton:
Note: The video is laggy because my ARM Chromebook can't do a proper screencast using ffmpeg do the the CPU. Chrome OS / Ubuntu don't lag when using the Chromebook.
How to install Ubuntu on your Chromebook using Crouton
Warning: following the instructions below may void warranty!
1. The first thing you need to do is enable Developer Mode on your Chromebook:
a) Firstly, you need to reboot the Chromebook in Recovery Mode. To do this, press and hold the Esc and Refresh keys and then press the Power button while holding the other two keys (on older Chromebooks there's a physical switch for this).
After it reboots, you should see a yellow exclamation point on the screen - press Ctrl + D (there's no prompt - you have to know to do it).
b) You'll be asked if you want to enable Developer Mode - confirm and after doing so, wait. It will take a while and a new screen will pop up and then the Chromebook will reboot, starting the process that enables the Developer Mode. This should take about 15 minutes.
c) After it's done, you'll see a screen with a red exclamation point. You don't need to do anything, just wait until your Chromebook reboots into Chrome OS.
Now each time your Chromebook starts, you'll see a warning screen telling you that OS verification is OFF. This adds extra time to the boot process but you can skip it by pressing Ctrl + D.
You can also find instructions on enabling Developer Mode for each Chromebook model, HERE.
2. Install Ubuntu with Crouton
a) Download Crouton
You can download Crouton from HERE. Make sure the downloaded file is saved in the Downloads folder.
b) Install Ubuntu
Start the terminal on your Chromebook by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T. Then type "shell" in the terminal.
You can now begin installing Ubuntu. Before proceeding, I'll briefly explain the commands below:
by default, Crouton will install Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise) but I added "precise" to the first command below so you can see how you can change the Ubuntu version. You can see a list of supported Ubuntu versions by running "sh -e ~/Downloads/crouton -r list"
in Developer Mode, the default configuration is completely insecure and you won't be prompted for a password when using "sudo" in the Chrome OS terminal. For this reason, I recommend encrypting the chroot by using "-e"
"-t" means "targets" which is what Crouton uses to decide what to install. The target can be the desktop environment (in the two commands below) such as "unity", "xfce" and so on or other "packs" like "touch" for instance. Use "sh -e ~/Downloads/crouton -t help" to see all the available targets and find out more about this.
If you're using a Chromebook with a touch screen, also add the "touch" target, like this (example for Xfce): "-t xfce,touch". More tips for Chromebook Pixel HERE.
For ARM Chromebooks: it's important to note that Unity only works in Ubuntu 12.04 (because only Unity 2D works due Xephyr lacking EGL support).
Ubuntu 12.04 with Unity running on HP Chromebook 11
To install Ubuntu 12.04 with Unity (2D) and enable encryption, use the following command:
sudo sh -e ~/Downloads/crouton -r precise -t unity -e
Ubuntu 13.10 with Xfce running on HP Chromebook 11
To install Ubuntu 14.04 with Xfce and enable encryption, use the command below:
sudo sh -e ~/Downloads/crouton -r trusty -t xfce -e
In the same way, you can also install gnome (GNOME Shell), cinnamon, kde or lxde.
The installation should now start and it will take a while. When it finishes, you'll be prompted to enter an username and password for your new Ubuntu installation.
c) Start Ubuntu
To start Unity, in the Chrome OS terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T), type "shell" and then:
sudo startunity
Or, to start Xfce, open the Chrome OS terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T), type "shell" (if you didn't already) and then:
sudo startxfce4
You can switch between Chrome OS and Ubuntu on ARM by using: Ctrl + Alt + Shift + Backand Ctrl + Alt + Shift + Forward (on x86-based Chromebooks, the keyboard shortcuts are: Ctrl + Alt + Back or Ctrl + Alt + Forward and then also press Ctrl + Alt + Refresh).
To exit the Ubuntu desktop, simply select "Logout".
There are two ways of removing Ubuntu / Crouton. You can either reboot your Chromebook, press SPACE when the boot screen prompts you to disable the Developer Mode and follow the instructions - this will clean up everything, including any changes you've made to your Chrome OS.
Or you can remove all the chroots - to do this, exit Ubuntu (exit Unity/Xfce or whatever you're using) and use the following command in the Chrome OS terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T, then type "shell"):
cd /usr/local/chroots
sudo delete-chroot *
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/bin
Tomorrow I'll publish a new article with some things to do after installing Ubuntu on your Chromebook, like installing some "base" applications, getting Ubuntu Software Center to work and some other fixes. Stay tuned!
