Samsung's A15 Chromebook Loaded With Ubuntu Is Crazy Fast

[JS987]

Chromebook needs following to be usable:
CPU ARM A57 quad core
RAM 4 GB
SSD 60 GB or more
open source 2D/3D graphics drivers with support for HW video decoding like VDPAU

[Pallidus]

that's the thing

like JS said in that thread where I asked people if they were buying it


as good as the arm cpu perfomance is


doing anything... ANYTHING like watching a html5 video with the chromebook


will bring your system to it's knees


DECENT GPU DRIVERS OR GTFO


and this is what I don't understand about linux, if chrome OS is linux

and chrome OS has the driver

why can't anyone "steal" the driver from chrome os to linux??

[squirrl]

fbdev

Using FBDev for it's graphics driver means you'll have a better Linux experience on a Matrox G200 equiped Xenon server from Dell.

[curaga]

That apache result is a bit interesting. Anyone know why it does badly on A15?

[bug77]

I think the first thing after the Ubuntu install will be removing Unity and put on XFCE or Mate.

Unity would be way to slow for this hw.

If you wanted Xfce, I think you'd go for Xubuntu instead.

[asoltesz]

the interesting thing here is that given the previous lukewarm reception to chromebooks

both samsung and google had no idea this arm model would prove so popular

so they sold out and now have supply difficulties



also benchmarks don't show you the real picture of how it ACTUALLY runs ubuntu just how well the cpu performs...

unity without a decent gpu driver most be painful

I think the first thing after the Ubuntu install will be removing Unity and put on XFCE or Mate.

Unity would be way to slow for this hw.

[jabbas]

Somebody wanted to compare this with E-450, so here it is: http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1...SU-1211219SU40

[mendieta]

Are you kidding? It's completely open.

Someone even documented on Google+ right around the time that systems were introduced how to get a regular distro onto a Chromebook by booting from SD cards:

https://plus.google.com/109993695638...ts/b2fazijJppZ

I quoted those instructions earlier, and they are insanely complicated. There are two issues here: 1st. It is hard to dual boot on any chromebook device, and in part it has to do with the BIOS and ChromeOS security model. The second one is Samsung's fault: some of the kernel bits are binary blobs, so you'll see in these instructions that you need to manually copy a lot of binaries and hope for the best.

This is _not_ an open laptop on my book. I should be able to pop any OS on a USB drive and tell the BIOS to load it, and that does not work. Sure, it can be hacked, anything can be hacked/rooted/cracked. It doesn't mean it's "open".

In fairness to Google, ChromeOS is open source, but the model they follow is not open.

[Pallidus]

the interesting thing here is that given the previous lukewarm reception to chromebooks

both samsung and google had no idea this arm model would prove so popular

so they sold out and now have supply difficulties



also benchmarks don't show you the real picture of how it ACTUALLY runs ubuntu just how well the cpu performs...

unity without a decent gpu driver most be painful

[jabbas]

I've made some benchmarks with HP Pavillion tx2550ev: http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1...SU-1211119SU75 it looks quite interesting... But I agree, graphics, webbrowsing benchmarks will tell more!

And merged results with Acer Aspire One and above HP: http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1...SU-MERGE400962