Linux Distros vs Chromebook/box

These two guys get combined in a lot of numbers issued by various sources (mainly because they respond as "linux boot sector" to the defining tests), so no real split out numbers exist about what is actually going on number-wise between them.

Chromeboxes have become a real niche product, aimed at people who go on line a lot and do relatively small amount of real work on their laptop/pc.   At $250 as the common price point, ChromeOS is noted as maintenance free, trouble free, and just plain "you never have to think about it".    

Much of what is on the Chrome Store is free, so you might expect about that level of software excellence and occasionally get pleasantly surprised at some of the on-line stuff (which gets paid hit count by Google so they do get paid $$$ for their higher level efforts).

I went and browsed the Chrome Store, it is chock full of on and off line games and applications, generally on the lite end of things in the "serious" rating, but comprehensive.   Google minds the store so it is all fresh and it all works.

Linux is more serious, it has a knowledgeable following that are the same sorts that built it in the first place.   Linux isn't necessarily for the beginner, with Linux Mint and Ubuntu being the main exceptions to this generalization.   In Linux, everything is free and there is at least 4-5 of everything out there.   Quality ranges from very good to "didn't this die 15 years ago?" so when hunting for Linux software be aware it is a mixed bag out there.

Linux Distros are famous for resurrecting your old hardware (all the way down to the single core processor level of stuff, but that vintage of hardware is getting pretty moldy now days).

ChromeOS only comes on specifically constructed registered hardware, which means it can "just work" painlessly for the end user.   ChromeOS requires very little in processor or local memory as it is bolstered performance-wise by Google's server farms and this way you get a lot more "umph" for you device dollars than you are paying for in the actual device itself.

Both of these items are noted as being FAST, light, quick, etc. -- much more so than any MS system out there (yes, even the most expensive ones).

They both are practically maintenance free compared to a MS system, with Linux requiring a monthly look at the update listing to see if it is worth bothering with and ChromeOS not even requiring that.    Nether require you to do anti-virus weekly updates, weekly scans, hard drive defrags, etc. as do MS products.



============================



I went to the newest, most modern computer lab on campus and logged into a this year's Dell unit running Win 7 as the OS and Bing as the search engine.   I was shocked at the amount of ads cluttering everything and the number of times I literally got hijacked to a different site by accidentally running the cursor over a highlighted word while doing some research type searches.

The brand new 4 core processor and gigs of system memory were slower than my old unit at home AND WHAT I GOT WAS AN IMPRESSION THAT THE NEW WINTEL UNIT, MS OS & BING WAS SO CRAPPED UP WITH TRASH THAT IT WAS DIFFICULT TO GET WHERE I WAS GOING.

I also formed this opinion.

People who have lived on MS machines all along have no idea what else is out there, and as such put up with levels of trash and levels of maintenance and levels of "getting ripped off" monetarily that cannot be easily explained to them.

They literally cannot understand it because they are so used to it.   They are fish who were born and are currently still living in the bay of Bombay, so all the turds and dead babies floating by as they swim along are all perfectly natural to them.

They cannot imagine clean sweet fresh mountain stream water .....   so yeah, I'd rather be a wee little minnow swimming here than a big fish dodging the turds in the bay of Bombay.