Should there be a $99 Chromebook?

Should there be a $99 Chromebook?

Chromebooks have been big sellers on Amazon for a long time now, with prices running from $150 on up. But one Chrome OS redditor recently wondered if it was time for there to be a $99 Chromebook. He got some interesting answers from his fellow redditors.

VictoryGoth asked his question about a $99 Chromebook:

Do you think a $99 Chromebook would (or even should) someday be possible?

I would be really curious to see how that would work, although I wouldn’t buy one.

Probably 1GB RAM and only 8GB storage. I wonder how Chrome OS would run on only 1GB RAM.

More at Reddit

His fellow Chrome OS redditors responded with their thoughts about a $99 Chromebook:

Gargenville: “They’re already building (horrible) Android laptops to that price point so it’s just a matter of time until someone loads one with ChromeOS.”

VictoryGoth: “Well, regardless, Chrome OS is so much better suited for a laptop form factor than Android is. Android laptops have always been horrible, no matter how good the specs, because Android is not a desktop OS, it’s best in smartphones and tablets. This is probably why Google invented Chrome OS in the first place. I think even a super cheap $99 Chromebook would be better than any Android laptop. It wouldn’t be the best Chrome OS experience or anything, but I don’t think it would be horrible.”

Zak: “Google won’t approve a ChromeOS device with such terrible performance.”

Voltron: “A $99 Chromebox would likely already be possible using the Rockchip 3288 SoC and 2 GB of RAM with 16 GB eMMC flash storage. I can’t imagine pulling the guts out of the Hisense/Haier Chromebook and selling that without a screen or keyboard would retail for more than $99 MSRP.

That said, I shudder to think what a $99 Chromebook would be like right now. Maybe in a few years we’ll have stair-stepped down to it.”

ShutupJosh: “I just bought a 2GB RAM and 16 GB Acer Chromebook for $109,I’m happy with it.”

DrEmilio: “I have the same one and it’s pretty sweet. Best value of anything I’ve bought in a long time.”

Mcnc: “I suppose in the future if ram prices and storage got cheap enough, we could get $99 chrome books with 4GB ram and 16GB storage but they would probably still be gimped in some way. They would probably still be stuck with 1366×768 screens in 2029. 1GB of ram for chrome os currently might be doable now for like 2 or 3 tabs max.”

GiraffeTaxi: “New? Sure I think it’s possible, probably pretty soon through sales or rebates.

A few weeks ago I caught a sale on NewEgg and picked up a new Chromebook for $155, including taxes and shipping. It was an ASUS EeeBook C201PA-DS02 Chromebook Rockchip RK3288 (1.80GHz) 4GB Memory 16GB SSD.

I wouldn’t be surprised if 1+ year old models that of leftover retail stock have already broken the $100 barrier.”

Jotebe: “I don’t think 1GB of Ram would be good for a Chromebook and I hope they never make one.

I think, just like the “199” and the later “99” for a “good tablet” price points, lowered cost of materials will get us there eventually. Probably a rockchip Chromebook with 2 gigs of Ram, 16 gb storage, very basic stuff.”

Gonexploring: “The other day at Walmart I saw one from some unknown brand for only $150, so I suppose it’s possible.”

More at Reddit

DistroWatch reviews SolydXK 201506

SolydXK 201506 is a Debian-based desktop distribution that was originally created as an unofficial Linux Mint spin. Jesse Smith at DistroWatch did a full review of SolydXK 201506 and enjoyed his experience with it.

Jesse Smith reports for DistroWatch:

I enjoyed my time with SolydX. Though I haven’t used Xfce much in recent months, I found the transition to the Xfce desktop environment went smoothly. SolydX ships with a lot of useful software and makes it easy to access Debian’s massive repositories of software packages. All of my hardware was properly detected, the distribution integrates with VirtualBox and applications tended to work without surprises or mishaps.

One thing I appreciate about SolydXK is the distribution fills a niche that I feel needed to be explored. I have been using Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) quite a bit recently and I like it a lot. However, the Mint project offers just MATE and Cinnamon editions of LMDE. The Mint developers have decided not to ship KDE and Xfce editions, at least up to this point. SolydXK is quite similar to Mint in the technology and packages shipped and offers users these missing editions. As someone who likes to explore different desktop environments, I feel SolydXK picks up where LMDE left off.

I found SolydX to be very easy to install, the distribution offers good performance, I encountered very few problems and I generally found SolydX provided everything I wanted. People who would like to have modern conveniences, a powerful desktop environment and access to a lot of applications will appreciate what SolydX has to offer.

More at DistroWatch

North Korea Linux content tracker

North Korea has had its own version of Linux for a while now, and it should come as no surprise to anyone that the North Korea government has added a serial content tracker to it. While the tracker might not mean much for those outside of North Korea, it could be very dangerous to North Koreans who create content via North Korea Linux.

Darren Pauli reports for The Register:

ERNW security analyst Florian Grunow says North Korea’s Red Star Linux operating system is tracking users by tagging content with unique hidden tags.

Grunow says files including Microsoft Word documents and JPEG images connected to but not necessarily executed in Red Star will have a tag introduced into its code that includes a number based on hardware serial numbers.

“When analysing the OS the first thing that came to our attention is that they have built an own kernel module named rtscan. There is a binary running that is named opprc and a few more binaries, one that seems to simulate/pretend to be some kind of ‘virus scanner’ and seems to share some code base with opprc,” Grunow says.

“Creating and using media files and documents on RedStar OS can get you into trouble if you are living in North Korea; do not assume that the files can be kept private and cannot be traced back to the creator.”

More at The Register

Readers of The Register had their own thoughts to share about North Korea Linux and its content tracker:

Anonymous Coward: “Looks like the Norks are creating their own little MSFT.”

Dan1980: “Phew. Glad I don’t live in a country that thinks that spying on its own people is okay.”

6×7: “Does this surprise anyone in the least?”

Mark85: “So are they worse than or less than us? I’m thinking Google, FB, MS, et al who know what we’ve done and where and when we did it.”

LDS: “I’m not sure GPL can be easily enforced in North Korea, although sending them Stallman for a while could be interesting, or he becomes the chief ruler, and open sources the whole country, or he gets executed…”

Sceptic Tank“This is the downside of open source: involuntarily supporting some dictatorship that fires generals with anti-aircraft guns. Let’s nuke them before they nuke us.”

Frankly: “I assume they read the source code which was freely provided by the distributor?”

Destroy: “More likely the kernel is considered as tainted by the closed source module.”

Len: “Unexpected? And this is a surprise?”

More at The Register

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