[GTALUG] Chromebooks Chromebits

[Christopher Browne]

On 31 March 2015 at 17:18, Evan Leibovitch <evan at telly.org> wrote:
> What makes the current Intel ones less suitable? Most of the current crop
> are not that expensive themselves and look to be decent performers.

The merit I'd see to ARM-based ones over Intel ones are in the area of
battery consumption.  Wee ARM CPUs often drink less power.  (Of
course, if you drop battery consumption of the CPU, you're still left
with whatever the screen eats as a strict minimum...)

The merit to Intel-based ones are that some software (particularly
video-related stuff) cares about architecture, and mayn't have been
compiled for ARM.

It is of value to have something $100 cheaper, and the new ARM-based
ones seem to be that.  (Of course, it might turn out that the screen
isn't as good, and that this is a disqualifying factor.)

I'm liking my Samsung ARM-based Chromebook well enough; I'm running
Debian "in behind" via the Crouton layer, which has been working fine.
I'll bet that by the time I care for something more, there will be a
newer model with more storage, memory, and CPU than I presently have.