On a metal web - chromebook tips - GNU/Linux

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Houseoftea
Long time nixers
Continued!

(11-08-2015, 02:10 AM)venam Wrote: that is important when using a Chromebook

The answer to that question has a couple layers. You need to keep in mind hardware level and the software level also.

Hardware things to keep in mind:
I was reading the forums and someone had just made a post about alternative keyboard layouts. This got me thinking about keyboards and just how important they are. Chromebooks are unique in the fact that they do not have the mod4 key. A lot of window managers will use this key by default. The night I got it I was up at around 4 in the morning trying to get everything set up and I was wondering why my old config wasn't working for frankenwm. Fixing it required cracking open the config and changing all of the MOD4's to MOD1's.
On the upside it did force me to use vim and learn a little bit more about the deeper features besides opening, switching modes and saving.
On the downside though my muscle memory for using the wm has been messed up a little and since I had to change some controls around sometimes there are pauses in my workflow.
Other minor annoyances about the keyboard are the following:

-Powerbutton is right about backspace and if you miss backspace you're pretty much powered off already
-No del key
-only some of the function keys (f1-f12) and they have different symbols making them annoying to press


On a software level you need to keep this in mind: Yes it is technically linux, being made from gentoo and all.
but no it is not the linux that you are used to. on a linux system you are a free bird in the sky, and on chromeos you are a bird in a cage, being shown pictures of the sky.
for sake of usability and design they have taken away almost everything that linux is known for.
originally I had planned on using chromeos for school things and basic web browsing and then jumping into linux with something called crouton. Crouton is a neat little program that allows you to chroot into another linux setup.
well I ended up not doing that because I cannot stand chromeos. As many of you pointed out to me in my initially thread on the subject.
Switching to linux is not as easy as you might think as well.
No cd drive is usually no problem, just use a usb. But on a chromebook you need to wrestle with things like developer mode and GBB flags and flashing the bios or if you dont do that then be prepared to press control+l every time you want to boot into legacy bios.

More to come!
I am typing this from a livecd right now and once I get settled Ill get some more written


Messages In This Thread
On a metal web - chromebook tips - by Houseoftea - 10-08-2015, 09:27 AM
RE: On a metal web - chromebook tips - by jobss - 10-08-2015, 11:02 AM
RE: On a metal web - chromebook tips - by venam - 11-08-2015, 02:10 AM
RE: On a metal web - chromebook tips - by Houseoftea - 11-08-2015, 10:34 AM
RE: On a metal web - chromebook tips - by swathe - 11-08-2015, 05:35 PM