mintCast 191 – A Look at Chromebooks
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News:
- Research Shows Chromebooks Doing Very Well in the Education Market– As we’ve noted multiple times, though, Chromebooks are finding a home in the education market, thanks to their low prices and their reliance on free applications and resources that reside in the cloud. Now, fresh data is out showing that Chromebooks represent nearly a fifth of all portable computer sales to schools. That’s nothing to shake a stick at. (ostatic.com)
- Elementary OS takes over development of Shotwell – The team behind the elementary OS Linux distribution has taken over development responsibilities for the photo management software Shotwell. And that is awesome. (networkworld.com)
- Post Subject: The end of Linux Basix – After many discussions over the past year I have decided to archive the linuxbasix.com site. Some of you may not know but I am to owner of the site. It was started by Steve (Door), Russ, John and myself. We have all decided that it is time to retire Linux Basix as a podcast. (linuxbasix.com)
- Voting Proposed For Debian Jessie’s Init System – Debian technical committee member Bdale Garbee has called for a vote on what should be the init system used by Debian Jessie, the next release. The proposed voting is a first-step to a longer-term solution: it isn’t voting about what Debian should switch to for the foreseeable future but what will they commit to for the next release. (phoronix.com)
- “Password” unseated by “123456” on SplashData’s annual “Worst Passwords” list – The 2013 list of worst passwords, influenced by postings from the Adobe breach, demonstrates the importance of not basing passwords on the application or website being accessed. (splashdata.com)
Main Topic: A look at Chromebooks
- Goodies for your Chromebook (google.com)
- Upgrade the SSD in your C720 (androidcentral.com)
- Put Bodhi Linux on your ARM based Chromebook (blogspot.com)
- Use crouton to run Linux on your Chromebook (itworld.com)
Websites:
Tips:
Pre-show music this week was:
- I Love Leonard Cohen by Robin Grey (Jamendo.com)
- Yesterday’s Conversation by Angus Wallace (Jamendo.com)
- The Red Stone by Ground & Leaves (Jamendo.com)
Podcast Announcements:
- Linux in the Ham Shack at Hamvention 2014 Indiegogo campaign. (indiegogo.com)
More Information:
Hosts: Rob, Scott, Joe
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Credits:
Podcast Entry and exit music provided by Mark Blasco (podcastthemes.com). The podcast bumpers were provided by Oscar.
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Pantheon is elementary’s desktop.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pantheon
I listened with a lot of interest to the Chromebook coverage in this Mintcast. I’ve yet to commit any cash to a Chromebook, my main reason being the need to do more than just cloud-based stuff. All the same it’s something I return to now and then, checking prices and user reviews.
In the past, I’ve been happy to entrust my docs to the Google cloud, but my views on this have changed with the NSA and GCHQ privacy issues.
I have Android devices and there’s no getting away from Google for a lot of what they do, but I’m no longer content to put my docs in Drive. I’ve deleted a lot of stuff from Drive and now keep it locally encrypted and backed up in Dropbox. BitTorrent Sync may also figure in this move away from cloud storage, and I’ve set up syncing some stuff between Android and PC.
Similarly with the Chrome browser which I’ve used with great enthusiasm since it was in beta. I now ask myself, “Why give Google a running history of my online activity?”. Although I think it’s possible to make Chrome’s sync’ing secure, I decided to return to Firefox and it’s secure sync (on PC and Android). I like the fact that, unlike Chrome, Firefox sync does not implicitly link to a Google account. I figure I’ll do what I can to reduce my exposure to Google’s influence and, at the same time, support Mozilla. Who knows, I may even switch to Firefox OS on my mobile devices when it’s available.
All this makes me wonder whether a Chromebook bought today will be viable a year or two from now, other than as a good low-end platform for a good Linux distro.
–Thomas C.