Chromebooks to run almost every Android app?

Oh let it be true... please let this be true: Chromebooks may soon be able to run almost every Android app.

From the article, "Chromebook users will soon get access to the 'more than a million' games and apps on the Google Play Store."

This would be huge. I've already written about how much I enjoy my Chromebook, but having full access to the massive Google Play store would be unbelievable. As more and more software is written in app form, 'old school' operating systems are becoming less and less relevant. ChromeOS is a fantastic bridge between having to do everything on a tiny screen and running a heavy O/S on a larger machine.

Error Starting Ubuntu Desktop on Chromebook After Upgrade

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm very pleased with the Toshiba Chromebook I picked up last year. Like many Chromebook users, I decided to install Crouton and have access to a full install of Ubuntu Linux. I followed the instructions in the article How to Easily Install Ubuntu on Chromebook with Crouton and all went smoothly. Switching between Chrome O/S and Ubuntu is as easy as a key combination--you just have to remember those keys: ctrl+shift+alt+forward (or backward).

Unfortunately, the version of Ubuntu installed was 12. As fun and nostalgic as that was, I immediately set about upgrading to the latest stable build. Running the upgrade was simple enough.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get install update-manager-core
sudo do-release-upgrade

Everything worked at first, I even went through the process of installing some applications such as Gnome Terminal, Gimp and Git (Crouton installs the minimal release--so barely any applications). However, I ran into a snag when I rebooted. The sudo startunity command would fail with a nasty message.

...
[   727.514] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi" does not exist.
[   727.514] Entry deleted from font path.
[   727.514] (==) FontPath set to:
/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc,
/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1,
built-ins
...
727.526] (EE) Segmentation fault at address 0x0
[   727.526] (EE) 
Fatal server error:
[   727.526] (EE) Caught signal 11 (Segmentation fault). Server aborting
...
[   727.526] (EE) Please also check the log file at "/tmp/Xorg.crouton.1.log" for additional information.
[   727.527] (EE) 

I prefer the Unity desktop, so that's the one I had originally installed. To work around the error, I reinstalled Unity using the same command in the original setup article:

sudo sh ~/Downloads/crouton -t unity.

To be clear, this simply reinstalls the desktop. I still had the latest version of Ubuntu and the applications I had installed after running the Crouton install. 

Chromebook 2 Feedback and Review

Now that I've had my Chromebook 2 for a reasonable amount of time, I thought I'd post some more details about my experience.



In general, I'm still thrilled with the machine. It's an inexpensive computer with a full laptop typing experience. The audio and video are good, the battery life and charge times are fantastic, and so much is available via web apps these days that I can almost use it for everything. I also like that the operating system is simpler than a traditional desktop O/S. For all the reasons I mentioned in my previous post (Why I Just Bought a Chromebook), I think it's a fantastic device and I'm recommending it to people.

My issues pretty much stem from the fact that Chrome OS has a tiny web app store at this point. There are two ways to fix these issues, either more web apps in the Chrome Web Store or enabling Android (Google Play) apps on Chromebooks. There are rumours of Google Play capability coming to Chromebooks, but I'm not optimistic that will happen on my Chromebook 2. However, I sincerely hope my pessimism is poorly placed.

Here are the main issues I've encountered:

1. GoToMeeting doesn't work (even the web version only allows you to listen--you can't share your video or talk). This is a deal breaker for using my Chromebook as my only computer. Whether it's GoToMeeting or WebEx, I have to be able to participate in meeting using the technology that my employer and customers are using. Yes, Google Hangouts and Sqwiggle work--that's great--but it doesn't solve the problem. (As I pointed out in my last post, I'm not trying to replace my phone with my laptop and I can actually use WebEx or GoToMeeting on my phone, so that mitigates this problem.)

2. Skype doesn't work. This isn't a work problem for me, so I'm putting it in a different point. I use Skype with family, so I want it on my laptop. (Again, I can use this on my phone.)

3. Torrent files. I'm working on this one, but I have yet to find a good solution for downloading files via torrents. There are apps in the Chrome Web Store, but I tried one and it just didn't work. I'll have to try another. There's one that costs a few dollars--I might have to resort to actually paying for an app.

4. Heat. I'm not actually using a thermometer, but the Chromebook feels hot to me when I'm using it on my lap. By comparison, my wife's MacBook Air doesn't seem to get as warm, but my old Acer laptop is actually hotter than the Chromebook.

5. Google Cloud Print. I was pleased to learn about the Google Cloud Print option. It allows me to print to a printer connected to another machine (because you can't install print drivers on Chrome OS). However, it simply doesn't work very well. My printer isn't that old (it's wireless), but printing with Google Cloud Print results in such bad results that it's almost useless. For example, it's common for my documents to print with the last few characters of every line cut off.

6. SD Card. This is a minor annoyance, but every time I open my Chromebook, I'm told to safely remove my SD card--not on reboot mind you, but literally every time I login. I don't want to remove the card and I shouldn't get that error all the time. I just ignore it, but I'm not the only one seeing this issue and I hope it gets resolved in an update.

Why I Just Bought a Chromebook

I’m sure some people would see the title of this post and say, “Why wouldn't you buy a Chromebook? They’re a steal!” Ultimately, I agreed with this view and bought one. However, I went through a period of uncertainty when I looked to replace my current laptop. Here are the main factors that swayed me in favour of the Chromebook 2.



But before I get to that, I think it’s important to mention that I took my time with this decision. What else did I consider? I weighed the pros and cons of many different options: MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Windows laptop, Ubuntu laptop, Microsoft Surface, Windows tablet, Android tablet, and iPad. We already have a MacBook Air, Windows desktop and iPad in the house, so that also played into my decision.

1. Affordability -- Chromebooks are remarkably affordable. Unlike a MacBook Air, or a Surface 3, they're cheap. I bought my new Toshiba CB35-B3340 Chromebook 2 for $329.99. That's about a third of what I would have paid for the others. Even if it turns out that I don't like the Chromebook, I've made a small investment to find that out.

2. Getting my work done -- I don't care about brands very much and I'm not a zealot when it comes to technology. I just want to get my work done and spend more time with my wife and daughter. If I can do everything I need to do on the Chromebook, I'm happy. These days, I spend most of my time either in email and Word documents. I can use web versions of Outlook, Gmail and Word to do all that. If I need something else, I can remote into my Windows Server at home or my Windows desktop at work, or just use my Wife's MacBook Air. An obvious example is Visual Studio for coding. However, these is a web version that I can try even for that. I'm very curious what the dev experience will be like on a Chromebook.

3. I’m not replacing my phone -- While it's true the Chrome App Store doesn't offer the millions of apps in the iOS Store, or the Google Play store, or even the Windows App Store, that's not what I need in a laptop. I have my phone with me at all times and I don't need to send text messages or play Flappy Bird on my laptop. (BTW -- Angry birds is in the Chrome App Store)

4. ‘Traditional’ operating systems are too much work -- I was already thinking this way, but a few weeks ago, I picked up a Windows 8 tablet I use at work and found that it was running Windows Update. I just wanted to write a note in OneNote, and I couldn't because the operating system is huge and powerful and therefore takes time to update. This is just one example of the ways that large traditional operating systems (Windows, MacOS, Linux) are just too much work for my use case (see "Getting my work done" above). Chrome O/S is simple and I like the sound of that.

Update: Now that I have my Chromebook (I'm writing this update on it), I can say that I'm impressed. I ran into a minor issue during set up (Chromebook setup freezes at Determining Device Configuarion) but restarting was enough to quickly resolve the issue. Since then I haven't hit any hurdles and I'm really enjoying the experience.

Chromebook setup freezes at "Determining Device Configuration"

Just a quick note about this setup problem that a few new Chromebook users have encountered. During the initial setup phase, the message "Determining Device Configuration" appears and the setup process stalls.

Apparently, one person waited four hours in this state. I guess I don't have that kind of patience. I simply shut down the computer (after about 15 mins), restarted it a few seconds later and the setup process completely immediately. If this doesn't work for you, you can search for info about hard reseting your Chromebook.