WorldCAD Access

What it's like to use a $200 Chromebook

$150 cheaper than 11 years ago

 

For the most part, the tech media ignores Chromebooks, given their obsession primarily for products whose names start with i or Mac. In contrast, I've been continually amazed by the high-end Chromebook I've been using for three years now, the Acer Spin 13 with its metal body and fast CPU.

The icing on the cake for ChromeOS is its ability to run Android apps, which is a significant advantage Microsoft is trying to copy but makes less sense in the Windows environment.

(I had bought the very first Chromebook by Samsung a decade ago, and found it super lame, so much so that the only thing I found myself doing with it was updating ChromeOS every so often -- lame because it worked only when connected to the Internet and it was badly made. Since then, the off-line capability, touch screens, Android app support, and overall maturity have made the difference.)

I saw that Acer was selling last year's low-end $430 Chromebook Spin 11 for $209 -- about $150 less than my original Chromebook from 11 years ago -- and so I wondered what a lesser machine might be like.

So I bought it and here's what I found:

Unexpected Pleasures

Features that I did not expect it to have:

• It runs fast enough given its low-end CPU, such as conducting a Zoom session smoothly; the Celeron CPU runs as fast as 2.6GHz
• Two USB-C ports, either of which can be used with the power supply. (Also, two USB-A ports and a mic/headphone jack.)
• 360-degree hinge, so the unit can sit at any angle
• Backlit touch screen (even $4,000-MacBooks don't got touchscreens)
• Bluetooth and modern highest-speed WiFi 
• Lightweight (2 pounds) and compact (11.5" wide), so I am thinking whether I could use this as a primary travel companion
• Low power CPU and small amount of RAM assist the battery in lasting longer. As I write this, it's saying 12 hours left, after unplugging the power supply two hours ago
• Good typing on its keyboard (except for the problem noted below)
  
  

What I Would Have Expected

Here's what I figured it would do, and it does:

• Plastic body
• Wide bezels on the screen
• Low-end CPU (Celeron N4020) and small amount of memory -- 4GB RAM and 64GB disk space

 

Disappointments

I shouldn't have been disappointed but I was surprised at how much these drawbacks irritated me:

• Low 1366 x 768  resolution, so I can't see as much on the screen at a time
• No HDMI and SD card ports, although these can be added with a external dongle connected to a USB-C port. In particular, the SD card slot would be useful for expanding internal disk space.
• No backlit keyboard; I have become spoiled by backlit ones
• A full-size keyboard that manages to be full-size at the cost of scrunching important keys like Enter and Shift. Also disappointing that it came with the bilingual Canadian keyboard, which means I keep hitting \ when I reach for Shift.

 

So,  I will keep examining how to use this compact device and how well it can replace larger, more capable laptops, whether Chromebook or Windows. In fact, I could say that this is the modern netbook, a form factor I greatly liked.

 

 

CAD for ChromeOS is Possible in 2021

More popular than MacOS

 

There are no native CAD applications for ChromeOS. 

This need not be the case, as proven by Krita, a native Android program meant for tablets that runs as well as a native program on Chromebooks. Here's the point I want to make: Krita for Android is not a reduced-function version of the one that runs on Windows and MacOS. It is full-function.

CAD software written for Android, iOS, and Web browsers are all reduced-function versions, even from leaders in this field like Graebert and Autodesk. 

ChromeOS was originally envisioned as a browser-based operating system, and I found the original Chromebook (from Samsung) pretty lame. I gave up on it, and so did major software vendors.

More recently, Google make the big breakthrough by allowing non-browser-based and Android apps to run like native programs on Chromebooks. it has become a viable operating system for professionals.

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Android tablets have suffered in the market, as manufacturers churn out lame, under-powered models. The high-end models are over-priced for what you get. This problem does not exist among Chromebooks and Chromeboxes.

Here, you get hardware with strong CPUs (think Intel i5 and i7) and large amounts of RAM (think 8GB) all for under $1,000 -- complete with 14" high-resolution touch screen (think 2256x1504); full-size, backlit keyboard; and interactive stylus. I paid $700 last year for such a model. This kind of high-end device is not available from Apple, at any price.

The best part is that these Chromebooks/boxes run Android flawlessly, despite the naysaying from the Applephilia tech media.

- - -

So my suggestion is that we could run full versions of ARES Commander or BricsCAD Pro on Chromebooks by porting the Linux version to Android. This works, because Android is based on Linux. Autodesk, on the other hand, lacks a Linux version of AutoCAD, and so cannot be part of the party. But it has the resources to make one, should it so be inclined. 

In theory, the Linux versions of BricsCAD and ARES can run on recent Chromebook models, but in practice I have found that it is a dog to get Linux running (hello command-line!) and then programs run too slowly to be useful.

The primary problem, it turns out, is 3D, which tends to be supported weakly by the hardware and software in portable devices. Tasks like rendering and ACIS solids modeling are usually farmed out to the cloud.

On the other hand, Google has committed to upgrading ChromeOS monthly, and new CPUs from new foundries are arriving on the market to dramatically strengthen the software. Perhaps 3D graphics in portable CAD will follow the transition cameras made on smartphones, where the processing of images has moved from hardware to software. 

The year 2020 was the year ChomeOS outsold MacOS. But Chromebooks suffer from the Android-customer problem: the laptops tend to be cheap and, as a result, so are the customers. Apple sells less product but charges more, resulting in a customer base that spends even more to accessorize their iBling.

CAD vendors are keen to make customers-for-life out of school children. With classrooms and school-from-homes filling with Chromebooks, 2021 is the year for CAD software vendors to review their product lineup and see how ChromeCAD fits in.

Now take a look at Krita.

VM on Linux in ChomeOS -- too slow for me

It's not Elementary

 

Linux running in ChromeOS gets a bit more functional with each release of the browser-based operating system. It still starts, however, in terminal mode, although Web sites will tell you how to install a GUI (graphical user interface) so that you don't need to type endlessly-long command-option strings at the prompt, such as this one:

sudo apt install qemu-kvm libvirt-clients libvirt-daemon-system bridge-utils virtinst libvirt-daemon virt-manager -y

Now in 2020 it is possible to install VM (virtual machine) software on ChromeOS's Linux subsystem, and then run multiple Linux GUIs. ChromeUnboxed, for instance, shows how to do this with one Linux package at chromeunboxed.com/forget-windows-i-just-installed-elementary-os-on-my-chromebook-and-its-awesome/. I recommend you read the comments to the article to learn about steps the author forgets to detail.

You do need a Chromebook with a powerful CPU, significant RAM, and more than the usual storage space, as a VM typically wants 20-40GB for itself. My Acer runs an i7 CPU with 8GM RAM and 128GB of storage -- about as powerful as it gets these days.

The writer says, "I want to point out that the Linux operating system runs like a champ inside the virtual machine." I found it didn't. Any click I made took Elementary a minimum of three seconds to respond; sometimes the wait for me was ten seconds. After playing with it for a half-hour, I stopped the virtual machine, and then uninstalled it entirely.

I suspect running Windows on Parallels on ChromeOS will be just as painful. There's just too many layers of code at work.