Yes, but...
...will it run Linux?
Or what's the i7 price like for a dual boot .net/LAMP dev box?
(if, of course, you could get a later version of Windows onto a 16gb ssd with any space to spare...)
Plenty of vendors offer Chromebooks, but if mobility isn't your bag, Asus has announced a compact Chrome OS desktop at a price that's hard to beat. Asus isn't the first company to offer Chrome OS in a desktop form factor. That would be Samsung, which launched the original Chromebox in 2012. But vendors have shied away from the …
Who cares if it runs Linux ?
Thats not what 99.99999% of those who would buy it care about, if you want Linux on something buy a desktop or laptop on stick your niche product on there.
This is what people like me want to see, stick these in instead of a windows job and most of my family tech support is gone. So much better for use than a windows box for the majority of the population as well....
>Implying these things can not be a Headache, or any less of a security threat either. Besides isn't this thing already running some *nix already, just like with Android? If your "Tech Support" is such a PITA, then make sure you have Auto Updates turned on before you leave. Most likely they'd wouldn't know the difference anyway....
ChromeOS is a version of Linux, so the answer is yes it will be running Linux. So long as the thing isn't shipped totally locked down at the UEFI level (i.e. using secure boot incapable of being switched off by the user) it should also be easy to install other versions, as the hardware will all be optimised to have good Linux driver support.
For several years now I've had HTPCs of various ilks hooked up to my TV. A shuttle box for a long time and currently an ageing mini-ITX Atom (Zotac nVidia ION) which has done a sterling job. These were usually on 24-7 as an all round home server web browsing kiosk Skype music YouTube etc. Early last year I bought a RaspberryPi and stuck OpenELEC on there and that's sorted all of the media playback stuff. The problem is I still end up with the HTPC on probably most days because of two annoying proprietary MS technologies, Silverlight and Skype. I would have switched it over to Linux years ago had it not been for Eurosport Player being Silverlight only.
A cheap, small, fanless x86 box would make an ideal replacement for the old HTPC and this looks pretty good. That's if I can kill the ChromeOS.
(Waits in amusement for the screams of terror to die down.)
Given their sizes, imagine a ChromeBox, an Intel NUC, and a Raspberry Pi in a side-by-side-by-side configuration, VESA mounted to the back of a monitor.
A KVM switcher box, all the other periph's on a USB hub, and you could have some serious fun.
It would be like running a triple-boot box, triple VM server, all from the same space as your monitor!
*Happy geek drooling*
Damn it, now I crave Pi.
But what would you call such a rig?
ChromeNucPi? PiNucChrome? PiNuChrome? ChromePi? ChromeNuc? NucPi?
Frankenstein? Cerberus? Bob?
Nice idea. I already have an almost completely neglected Pi, yet still find myself lusting after this little beastie.
> "But what would you call such a rig?"
> "ChromeNucPi? PiNucChrome? PiNuChrome? ChromePi? ChromeNuc? NucPi?"
Perhaps "PiChNUC" (pronounced "picnic") ?
For several years now I've had HTPCs of various ilks hooked up to my TV. A shuttle box for a long time and currently an ageing mini-ITX Atom (Zotac nVidia ION) which has done a sterling job. These were usually on 24-7 as an all round home server web browsing kiosk Skype music YouTube etc. Early last year I bought a RaspberryPi and stuck OpenELEC on there and that's sorted all of the media playback stuff. The problem is I still end up with the HTPC on probably most days because of two annoying proprietary MS technologies, Silverlight and Skype. I would have switched it over to Linux years ago had it not been for Eurosport Player being Silverlight only.
A cheap, small, fanless x86 box would make an ideal replacement for the old HTPC and this looks pretty good. That's if I can kill the ChromeOS.
Wait... You just "discovered" OpenELEC, and yet you never used either MythTV, or VDR?! WHATS WRONG WITH YOU?! I mean really I tried Windows Media Center Once.... It was terrible. For starters, it never had support for DVB-C (Cable), or DVB-S2 (Satellite). Ok the later was eventually addressed back in Vista with a Hack-Pack Update, that was only officially released to just a few OEMs. AFAIK Windows 7 was the first "Official" WMC to have DVB-S2 as standard.
To put a line on this I got into the whole HTPC, back in 2005, and I wasn't prepared to either pay for a buggy copy of DVBViewer, or take a Chill Pill, and wait for Ballmer to discover DVB-C either... MythTV was interesting, but broken. At the time VDR, needed a Hardware MPEG2 Decoder. Thankfully now, thanks to VDPAU, pretty much any decent nVidia Card can take care of all that now.
I would not touch WMC at this point now!
It would be nice to know what kind of flash too, with that piddling size I would hope for SLC to cope with the ever changing web cache contents.
Still, with the SD card option and USB 3 ports that you could put a reasonably cheap 64GB stick into you could probably get by for backing storage if you have a use for it.
Graphics performance will be the weak spot for anything serious.
Another tight-arse, performance-sapping unified memory mess.
Show me one solution that has ever come close to the performance of a reasonably current system with separate memories, the current consoles underwhelm compared to a decent PC.
A pity, otherwise it would be a nice SteamBox contender.
Somehow I don't think computational fluid dynamics is the intended market.
Still it's tricky to see what the market is. For Google-Docs and Web browsing the Chromebooks are better. The only use for this is for content consumption - but it doesn't work with Netflix/Hulu etc - so unless Google are going to offer pay-per-view on You Tube (and fix the HTML5 viewer) - this is a bit pointless
>No Netflix? How come - ChromeCast supports NetFlix after all.
But chromecast requires you to have another computer sending the data. I can't see people buying this box as a replacement for the $25 chromestick thingy if they still need a windows PC to send the video,
Netflix does work (sort of) on the Samsung Arm Chromebook so perhaps they are working on a port for this.
Somehow I don't think computational fluid dynamics is the intended market.
Still it's tricky to see what the market is. For Google-Docs and Web browsing the Chromebooks are better. The only use for this is for content consumption - but it doesn't work with Netflix/Hulu etc - so unless Google are going to offer pay-per-view on You Tube (and fix the HTML5 viewer) - this is a bit pointless
>Implying that Google don't want to start a Pay-per-View, or subscription Service on YouTube.
http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/09/youtube-launches-paid-subscription-channels/
...but it depends on the max RAM I could install & if it accepts a user-replaceable HDD/SSD.
Sure it may be less expensive than the NUC, but if the user can't upgrade their own RAM nor the HDD/SSD, then it's not really comparing apples to apples.
I can stuff 16Gb of RAM in the NUC, and either the largest M-SATA (for one of the original variants) or a full sized 2.5" SATA (for the newest variant).
Either way, it's a simple matter to open the NUC & fiddle with it's guts, thus making it infinitely more valuable than the ChromeBox.
But if I can get my hands on the I7 model (not bloody likely in North America), then I'd be willing to buy one just for the sake of giving one a spin.
I'd have to figure out some way of installing a Screen Reader Environment on it so I could use it, but otherwise I can envision having a lot of fun with one.
VESA mount a NUC and a CB to the back of a monitor, use a KVM switch to swap back & forth between them, and plug everything else into a USB hub for ease of access.
Need Windows for something? *Click* Ok.
Want Chrome for something? *Click* Done.
All from a combined box footprint that fits side-by-side on the back of the monitor?
Of course, as a Blind guy, I wouldn't need to spend the money on a monitor, so Neener Neener.
=-)p
Hasn't anybody learnt? Linux. That's all. Nothing else. Thank you. Actually, forget that. Just let me install what I want. Because whatever you think I need is wrong.
That said, it's a pretty decent little box. Just please tell me the Linux drivers support the HD graphics. Effing AMD. Effing Fedora. Effing Catalyst.
The Chromebooks I've used made it extremely difficult to run anything but ChromeOS. For example, you have to boot to developer mode and stay in developer mode. If you ever go back (e.g., during login), the machine resets itself to factor settings. Or something like that, it was last year. Apparently some folks don't mind, but I found it waaay too precarious.
If someone knows how to avoid this (without resorting to a soldering iron) I'd love to hear about it because the device itself was nice. But back to this ASUS device -- if this device is the same, if you cannot strip off and completely remove ChromeOS, then I'd say the NUC has a huge advantage.
BTW, I didn't mind ChromeOS but there were so many things that I wanted to do that I found either I couldn't do or I had to do it Google's way. For example, all my files are available by SSH from my home server. ChromeOS has an OK ssh client but there was, at the time, nothing like sshfs and no prospects for anything like that anytime soon (if ever) because you were encouraged to use Google cloud storage. I can't/shouldn't be asked to/won't move all my crap to the cloud, just so I can use ChromeOS. So, I gave the device to my son who really only needs a portable web browser and is being indoctrinated by his school into reflexively using Google services.
Some good points especially about the NUC. The NUC has one great disadvantage, and that is its price.
Intel seem to want to charge 'Apple' prices for it.
I priced one up to use as a silent web server to replace an aging EEEBox. It was just getting silly when compared to even a basic laptop.
Back to this device. The amount of onboard storage with a decent speed is frankly pathetic. Sure you can connect USB3 devices externally but surely that defeats the object of a device like this in that everything should be contained within the packaging. Even the latest 160Mb/sec SD cards are still too slow for a lot of purposes. They are also a lot more expensive than SATA or MSATA SSD's (per Gb)
IMHO, neither this device nor the NUC are hitting the sweet spot. For that they get a fail, could to better.
I really like my C720 Chromebook but (and call me old fashioned if you like, but I'm one amongst millions) despite using it heavily for Netflix I still have a DVD collection I'd like to watch. Unfortunately, thanks to Google's desires for all-streaming playback, they haven't paid the (relative to the hardware cost) pittance to include the DVD codecs in Chrome OS.
I understand the public distribution is a no-go for cost/accountability reasons, but surely Google/Acer/Samsung/HP/whoever could afford it.
I've got everything (even Python and Node web development) working without the need of anything other than the Chromebook (not ideal, but still practical), and this one thing makes me keep my laptop.
Well you dont think all those people with the Lovefilm 'all the DVDs you can rent' subs are actually watching all those DVDs before they are sent back?
No most rip them the minute they arrive in the post and slip them in the postbox 30 minutes later once ripped. 48 hours later another two arrive...
Or nip to your local lending library rent all the current releases for £2 each and rip them...
You're a bit behind the curve. Great if you have the time, I just prefer to stream from Netflix. Fed up having loads of physical media and data laying around.