I have just bought a new samsung chromebook....

Anthorn

bod1467 wrote: »

And as I mentioned previously, someone I know has one of these, has wiped off ChromeOS and installed Linux Mint = Windows-esque functionality for no additional cost.

ChomeOS can't be wiped off Chromebook but a different OS and even the missing Java can be temporarily installed. But anything x86 based won't run on the ARM based Chromebook: It's done by enabling developer mode.

Being in developer mode disables verified boot where the hardware checks that the device is running the official OS but does not stop the checking for updates. So approximately every 6 weeks when an update to ChromeOS is released, ChromeOS will be back on the Chromebook and everything installed gone to the wide, blue yonder.

The workaround Linux distro is Chrubuntu but it's not without faults.

almillar

This can still do plenty without any data connection - anyone saying otherwise is either out of date or misinformed.

zzzLazyDaisy

Hi, as you may remember I have one of the new chromebooks that came out in October. Well here we are in February, so I thought I would come back and update you on my experience.

The short story is that I am LOVING this little chromebook. I am typing this post on the CB. It is small, light and fast, and the more I use it, the more I discover about it...

But it has taken me a while - I used it for a few days, then it sat on the coffee table as a paperweight over christmas, then I had some lengthy documents to type so used my normal laptop for that... and didn't go back to the chromebook. No reason really, just because I thought it would be time consuming to get everything put on the cloud, and irritating because I don't know how to do certain tasks on the CB which are second nature on my windows laptop. Anyway I picked it up again on Monday and promised myself that I would use it for everything except work this week...

And three days in, I can't believe I was so resistant!

Here is what I have done to set it up so it works for me (in case it helps anyone)

1 Set up Google Drive (this is the storage that would normally be on the hard-drive). Go to the apps folder at bottom left of the screen (looks like a rubik cube) click on files, this opens in downloads, click on 'google drive' on left, then click 'get started' at top of page to get the extra storage that comes with the chromebook

2 Set up Skydrive - a free microsoft drive which includes free web program for creating and editing Word docs (Important for me as my documents must be Word compatible)

3 Set up my bookmark toolbar with my most used applications, which for me include gmail, outlook (the new version of hotmail which I recommend) chrome 'apps' webstore (I'll come back to this), chromebook forum and separately the comprehensive list of keyboard shortcuts from the forum (this is really great and has enabled me to familiarise myself with the chromebook's capabilities much more quickly that I would have done if left to my own devices!)

4 Chrome webstore - this is the 'apps' site for the chromebook (like the google play app for android phones, and from what I can see has similar apps, though I haven't had a good look round yet).

5 Portable hard-drive: One of the things that put me off the CB when I first got it was that I read that it cannot run an external hard-drive, although you can use memory sticks. Everything on my main laptop is regularly backed up to a Samsung portable hard-drive, and to be honest I would not have bought it had I known this. But on Monday I plugged my portable HD in and it worked! I don't know if this is because it is also made by Samsung or if the information I read was just incorrect. But that has made a huge difference to me (though it might not matter to someone who doesn't already use a portable hard-drive).

6 Moving files between devices and different cloud storage: This is easy. Much of it is just drag and drop. EG the portable hard-drive shows up as a drive, along with the google drive (cloud storage) and you just check the folders to be moved and drop them into the google drive. The process is pretty quick - a folder containing 150 files took just a few minutes (I didn't time it as I was on facebook, and it just did the transfer happily in the background. Moving files from skydrive to Google drive is also easy - when you have finished working on a file, you click 'save as' just as you would normally do, this downloads it to your 'downloads folder' and from there you just move it across to where you want it to go (memory stick, portable hard-drive, or Google Docs). I have found though that I am using google docs exclusively, and will probably only go back to hardware storage when I start reaching my limit on google drive (200gb when you buy a chromebook).

I think that is everything for now. This version of the CB is also designed to be used offline. I haven't tried this yet, but it is on my list of things to do.

Also, although I have not used chrome browser on my main laptop much, I now intend to switch to it, as all the bookmarks etc that I have set up on the CB will then also synch to the laptop browser and vice versa.

I will come back with another update when I have something useful to add.

Dx

geordie_ben

We bought one and it's a great little machine

I've got a WD hard drive and that works too, so not just a samsung thing

Right clicking is the bayne of my life on the CB - sometimes works, and sometimes doesnt, and then does it on it's own at random times

We've not set up the drives yet, just using the built in storage

Seems to play movies pretty well

Can you post a link to the useful shortcuts page?

sabretoothtigger

cannot run an external hard-drive

If its got USB then I would presume it can. I guess phones cant do this but which ones have usb, none?

zzzLazyDaisy

geordie_ben wrote: »

Right clicking is the bayne of my life on the CB - sometimes works, and sometimes doesnt, and then does it on it's own at random times

Can you post a link to the useful shortcuts page?

Here is the link for the shortcuts

http://www.chromebookforum.com/forum/17-chrome-os-software-forum/227-chrome-os-keyboard-shortcuts.html

I haven't had any problem with the right click. I can't get on with the two finger touchpad 'shortcut' so I just use the hardware switch on the lower right of the touchpad. (But just wondering, you say it does it on its own at random times - is there a possibility that you are accidentally activating it by using two fingers on the touchpad?)

zzzLazyDaisy

sabretoothtigger wrote: »

If its got USB then I would presume it can. I guess phones cant do this but which ones have usb, none?

I have a generic touch screen tablet which has a USB port, and can use a memory stick but not an external hard-drive (something to do with the processor in the hard-drive I think but that might be rubbish as I am not a techie!)

EDIT - I have just found out that the problem USED to be that chromebook did not support NTFS so ext HD's that were formatted for use with windows would not run on chromebook, but they have now fixed this. So the 'idiot's guide' to chromebook that I was reading was presumably out of date :-)

geordie_ben

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

Here is the link for the shortcuts

http://www.chromebookforum.com/forum/17-chrome-os-software-forum/227-chrome-os-keyboard-shortcuts.html

I haven't had any problem with the right click. I can't get on with the two finger touchpad 'shortcut' so I just use the hardware switch on the lower right of the touchpad. (But just wondering, you say it does it on its own at random times - is there a possibility that you are accidentally activating it by using two fingers on the touchpad?)

Thanks for the link

yeah double clicking when it shouldnt, like when trying to grab a scroll bar down the side and dragging down at the same time - very annoying!

almillar

Thanks for the informative review Daisy. I was going to say that the USB hard drive thing could be to do with power requirements, but we seem to have worked out it was a file system thing.
Just to say I don't think you need step 2 about Skydrive for Office (Word, Excel) compatibility. I believe Google Docs is compatible, so if you want to look at a doc in word, do the 'Save As' thing, and you should be able to save it as a .doc locally. This would free you up from using '2 clouds' if it's a hassle.

zzzLazyDaisy

almillar wrote: »

Thanks for the informative review Daisy. I was going to say that the USB hard drive thing could be to do with power requirements, but we seem to have worked out it was a file system thing.
Just to say I don't think you need step 2 about Skydrive for Office (Word, Excel) compatibility. I believe Google Docs is compatible, so if you want to look at a doc in word, do the 'Save As' thing, and you should be able to save it as a .doc locally. This would free you up from using '2 clouds' if it's a hassle.

Hi thanks for this. Yes I can receive and view word docs in google no problem. Unfortunately google docs has annoying formatting issues when working with word documents which other people have sent me, which make it unsuitable for forwarding those amended documents back to them.

TBH, moving documents between google drive and skydrive is a breeze - no more difficult that moving a file from C drive to D drive on a windows machine.

It just happens that file sharing by e-mail with people who use Word (and don't want to do it any other way) is something I need to do regularly, so this is my work-around.... but I agree, probably for the majority of CB users, this won't be a problem.

Now I just need to work out how to print to my wireless printer without first having to e-mail the document to my main laptop