Chromebook questions

[zed]

Also, last I checked, most serious (IE, non-facebook-type) games except Doom and Unreal Tournament don't run in a browser

well thats OK since the VAST majority of PCs don't play those

also to rub even more salt in the wounds, Im 99% sure the top 10 played games of all time, all can run in a browser.
In fact I wouldnt be surprised if 7or8 of them started life that way

 

[Grall]

well thats OK since the VAST majority of PCs don't play those

Games is actually the only activity that that VAST majority of PCs need the huge performance they're offering for. Office apps and browsers and shit like that don't need a core i5 or better CPU.

 

[AzBat]

Yeah surprised, if all one needs to do for an entire month is simple office-type jobs, text editing, maybe basic photo editing, PDF creation maybe and so on.

You can do a lot more than that in a browser, but I agree there are some tasks that are better suited for local apps. That's one of the reasons I haven't gone completely cloud apps. I still run a few local apps like OpenOffice, Gimp, Skype, Dropbox & X-Chat. Everything else I run in a browser.

Also, last I checked, most serious (IE, non-facebook-type) games except Doom and Unreal Tournament don't run in a browser. Bit of a bummer that, considering the hardware in a chromebook pixel.

The PC as a games machine is dead to me. I use a dedicated console for that. But if I wanted to I could run some PC games using Wine or the new Steam client for Linux.

Has anyone experimented with trying to install another OS on a pixel yet, is it even possible or is the firmware too custom for that to work?

Check my links & video above. There is a developer mode that allows you to install another OS on all Chromebooks. I like the method in video better since it doesn't require powering off the machine or a dual boot.

Tommy McClain

 

[AzBat]

Games is actually the only activity that that VAST majority of PCs need the huge performance they're offering for. Office apps and browsers and shit like that don't need a core i5 or better CPU.

Totally agree. I found that 2GB RAM on a dual core processor is all that's necessary for my personal use in Chrome & Linux. I've used this setup for 2 years. Don't see it changing much in the future. Though I'd like to have a tablet or convertible laptop & even then I don't think I need more power than what I have right now.

Tommy McClain

 

[zed]

Games is actually the only activity that that VAST majority of PCs need the huge performance they're offering for

well not the only one, but i do agree the majority of a pc's power is sitting idle >90% of the time
my point is of the ~1.5 billion PC's in existance atm, only a meagre percent are playing these high powered top games.

 

[Grall]

my point is of the ~1.5 billion PC's in existance atm, only a meagre percent are playing these high powered top games.

Your point is a pretty irrelevant one, as most, or actually close to all of those PCs aren't doing anything when nobody is sitting at them. Your home PC won't be doing anything when you're at work, or school. Your work or school PC won't do anything when you're home.

And of course, all the reams and reams of x86 servers that runs our computing infrastructure these days, web servers, cloud servers, database and file servers, on and on, don't ever run anything but their dedicated software.

So it's a fairly biased example you give. It's more accurate to look at how many PEOPLE play games rather than how many PCs play games. After all, it's the people who play games anyway, not the PC. The PC just runs the game.

 

[zed]

Im not talking about when the persons elsewhere in that case theyre most likely idle >99.9% of the time. Im talking about the %CPU that has in been in use since startup time.
eg for me its typically
hours since boot 6:00
hours of cpu utilisation 2minutes14seconds
i.e. the cpu's mainly doing nothing

sure piracy is bigger on the PC than consoles
but if 100s of millions of ppl were playing these top of the line 3d games then EA/activisions etc accounts would be a lot healthier (in the PC area's instead of only being a fraction compared to consoles, and consoles arent exactly huge compared to mobilephones)
the fact of the matter is the most popular PC games (as in number of users) are facebook things like farmville

 

[KimB]

Just got a Chromebook Pixel for my work PC lately, and I really love it. It does everything I need my work laptop to do (primarily browse the web, check e-mail, and use a remote desktop). The screen is absolutely gorgeous, and the touch capabilities are quite nice (they aren't integrated terribly well into the software, but the ability to just touch the screen removes the annoyance of using a touchpad instead of a mouse). The palm detection on the touchpad is absolutely fantastic (I have yet to have an accidental click). The speakers are absolutely amazing for a laptop.

I'm not yet sure if I would want it as a personal laptop rather than a work laptop, because I might rather miss the ability to play many of my PC games. But the hardware is just so amazing.

The only minor annoyance I have with it is the lack of F and pgup/pgdown/home/end keys (which means many common shortcuts, such as ctrl+F4, are different and require some getting used to....and unfortunately the new shortcuts collide with some shortcut keys I like to use on my remote desktop).

 

[rpg.314]

If it's a work PC, I am assuming you didn't pay for it out of pocket.

I am curious as to what kind of work could one get done on Pixel, or would require Pixel.

 

[KimB]

If it's a work PC, I am assuming you didn't pay for it out of pocket.

I am curious as to what kind of work could one get done on Pixel, or would require Pixel.

Well, I use the remote desktop or the web browser to do all of my work. The pixel itself is just nice for that because it has an amazing screen. That and the palm rejection on the touchpad is (so far) perfect.

 

[tuna]

If it's a work PC, I am assuming you didn't pay for it out of pocket.

I am curious as to what kind of work could one get done on Pixel, or would require Pixel.

The first part of your question was answered in Chalnoth's original post.