General > General Technical Chat
Chromebook as a development platform?
e100:
Does anyone have any practical experience of using a modern (< 2 years old) Chromebook for firmware and hardware development?
Modern Chromebooks can run most Android apps and some native Linux apps, so things are very different from what they were 10 years ago.
ebastler:
--- Quote from: e100 on April 24, 2023, 09:28:46 am ---Modern Chromebooks can run most Android apps and some native Linux apps [...]
--- End quote ---
But how many Android apps are there for hardware and firmware development?
Windows and Linux rule -- for commercial packages, free toolchains provided by component manufacturers, and open source software. There are some browser-based tools which should work, e.g. EsayEDA for PCB design, but I think your choice will be very limited compared to the established operating systems.
If you can be much more specific and name what you want to do (which microcontrollers or FPGAs? is PCB layout part of your game?), maybe someone could offer specific advice.
Someone:
Linux support is limited but usable for some chromebooks:
https://github.com/Maccraft123/Cadmium
not convinced they are $$ value for the specs/performance.
AndyBeez:
Think of Chromebooks as being an Android tablet attached to a full sized keyboard. Great for daily computer user tasks, but ChromeOS was built to run apps from the (google play) cloud, not run compilers. Yes you can develop on a chromebook using developer mode, but that's as deep as that rabbit hole goes.
https://www.androidauthority.com/how-to-enable-developer-mode-on-a-chromebook-906688/
ejeffrey:
I know a number of people who use chromebooks for software development. The various compiler toolchains and so forth work fine in the linux environment. If you want a linux laptop for software development with a no-fuss but limited desktop environment, and good power management I think chromebooks are a pretty good option.
For hardware and even embedded software it might be a bit less clear. If you are using vendor provided toolchains (even vendor version of open source tools) they may be more annoying to set up on a chromebook. You also have to jump through additional hoops to get USB devices like programmers/debuggers accessible from linux.
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