Setting up a bottom-end Chromebook for development
a day ago
- The author bought a cheap Asus Chromebook C201 (4GB RAM, 16GB SSD, under 1 kg) for portable coding.
- ChromeOS lacked Android App Store Beta on that model, so they used Chromebrew to install Vim, Python, and Git.
- Setting up developer mode was easy but causes beeping warnings at boot; took a couple of hours to get a working environment.
- After a year, the lightweight machine is taken everywhere, improving productivity by using spare half-hours for coding.
- Annoyances include missing basic command-line tools (less, man) and inability to update ChromeOS without wiping developer mode.
- Overall, the cheap, portable Chromebook has positively changed the author's workflow.