Anyone build PCs for people, and install the new CloudReady Chromium Linux distro?

[VirtualLarry]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37766305&postcount=38

http://liliputing.com/2015/10/cloudready-uses-chrome-os-to-breaths-live-into-old-computers.html

I (Edit: recently) built some PCs, three so far, but I have parts for five of them. Well, actually, four more, if you count the AM1 builds I've done. So I guess, nine PCs altogether.

Was trying to find both the cheapest, and the easiest, OS to put on there. Windows 7 or 8.1 or 10 costs, at the very least, around $70 for a legit copy. Linux Mint is free.

I've put Mint on a few of them.
Here's the specs of potentially three of them:
A4-6300 3.7/3.9Ghz AMD APU with integrated Radeon HD graphics
8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1600 GSkill RAM
MSI FM2+ A55M micro-ATX mobo
Sandisk SSD PLUS 120GB SSD
SATA DVD-RW
Apex / SuperCase micro-ATX case w/300W PSU (Mostly decent PSU, has safety features and is UL listed. No PCI-E 6-pin cables though, so no GPU support.)

Would run Windows nice and spiffy, probably could even do light gaming, being an APU.

But wondering, if I were to give something like that away, or at cost, would it be better to put that new Chromium distro on there, instead of Linux Mint with Firefox? I personally prefer Firefox, but I know some people prefer Chrome.

What really interests me is the sort of zero-maintenance option of a Chromium OS. (Self auto-updating, etc.)

With Mint, it's easier than Windows, but you still have to click on the little Update shield in the taskbar, and then type in your password.

These PCs would likely be going to older folks, who probably don't know a lot about computers, and especially Windows and Linux maintenance procedures.

 

[Homerboy]

Probably better to post in the OS forum versus General Hardware? I'd think more people there would be familiar with the OS in question.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

In the case of your builds, VL, well... could work.

But no. Because I wouldn't build a PC for somebody who wasn't computer literate enough to need a full desktop OS.

If you don't need the power of a fully armed and operations battlestation, I will be happy to send you to the Apple Store where the polite hipster salesguy will help you pick out an iPad and a keyboard case.

Sticking a Tablet OS on an old, slow, power-inefficient PC like they talk about in the article is... a suboptimal solution. At the very least, you're overdue for hardware failures.

 

[VirtualLarry]

In the case of your builds, VL, well... could work.

I'm a little bit confused about your responses. Can you elaborate a little bit for me?

But no. Because I wouldn't build a PC for somebody who wasn't computer literate enough to need a full desktop OS.

I'm not sure that I understand. I thought that ChromeBooks were popular with "normals", primarily because you don't have to be a "geek" to maintain them.

Wouldn't a ChromeBook-alike distro be ideal for non-fully-computer-savvy people?

If you don't need the power of a fully armed and operations battlestation, I will be happy to send you to the Apple Store where the polite hipster salesguy will help you pick out an iPad and a keyboard case.

This would be a potential charity build, for giveaway at the senior center. Not every older person wants an iPad... or do they?

Sticking a Tablet OS on an old, slow, power-inefficient PC like they talk about in the article is... a suboptimal solution. At the very least, you're overdue for hardware failures.

Uhm, the kit I'm talking about, is all brand-new, power-efficient, modern kit with an SSD.
?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I'm a little bit confused about your responses. Can you elaborate a little bit for me??

What you're talking about doing will probably be fine. Although I might be tempted to give older folks something more like a 15" Chromebook than a desktop PC. Their homes and furniture aren't usually set up for a Computer Shrine... err... Home Office / Desktop PC setup.

Then I went to tangent-ville:

The second link in your OP talks about "breathing life into old computers." That's usually something that looks better on paper than it works in practice, because the computer in question is still... old. No matter what OS you use, there are still certain levels of CPU capability needed to view "rich" web content, movies, etc. Hell, even Facebook. And then they break because, well, they're old and worn out. So whatever you save by not buying new hardware, you end up spending on additional maintenance, repair, etc., and on top of all that aggravation, you still have an inferior user experience even with the lightweight OS.

Most normal folks basically do just want an iPad or Chromebook type device, even if they don't realize it. What I'm saying is that I don't build computers for them, because they can just go buy something off the shelf that works fine, and I don't have to service/maintain it.

I will build PCs for "power user" type non-geeks (Audio editing, Creative Suite, Gamers, etc.) because they usually do most of their own maintenance, are savvy about malware and safe browsing habits, and are generally not well-served by off-the-shelf configurations from OEMs.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Their homes and furniture aren't usually set up for a Computer Shrine... err... Home Office / Desktop PC setup.

Probably true. Probably should consider getting some cheap Bay Trail Brix units on sale for $100, throw in a $30-40 SSD, and a $20 4GB DDR3L-1600 SO-DIMM, if I was planning on installing CloudReady from the get-go. Those would fit on the back of many monitors (VESA mounted), or at least, they wouldn't take up much space on a desk.

Edit: Btw, I've had my apt referred to before as a "Computer Shrine". So I had to chuckle at your description. It's true.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Ok, so I tried downloading it, but then when I went to unzip the .bin.zip file, it tells me that I need something like 734PB (Petabytes!) free space to unzip.

I tried writing the .bin.zip directly to the USB drive using Rufus in "dd" mode, but that didn't show up as a filesystem at all. In fact, in Safe Remove Hardware, the drive doesn't even show up properly anymore.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Sounds like a corrupted zip; just download it again.

You should be able to resurrect the drive using diskpart.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Sounds like a corrupted zip; just download it again.

You should be able to resurrect the drive using diskpart.

I downloaded it three times. The zip file on their server is corrupt.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I downloaded it three times. The zip file on their server is corrupt.

Do they give you an md5 checksum to compare to?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Hmm, success. I finally decided to try downloading and installing WinRAR, and that was able to successfully unzip the file. For whatever reason, whatever ZIP utility they used to create it, is incompatible with Windows 7's built-in ZIP decoding support. They should really look into that, to make it easier for people to use.

I put it on an 8GB USB stick, and it booted fine on my Q9300 rig with a R7 250X 2GB video card, detected the HDMI audio, mobo Realtek ethernet, seemed to work OK in "guest" browsing mode.

 

[ArisVer]

Sometimes I use 7-Zip for stubborn files.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Sometimes I use 7-Zip for stubborn files.

Latest 7zip installer isn't signed. I try to avoid unsigned code, no telling if it were tampered with en-route to you.

 

[cbn]

Sticking a Tablet OS on an old, slow, power-inefficient PC like they talk about in the article is... a suboptimal solution. At the very least, you're overdue for hardware failures.

The second link in your OP talks about "breathing life into old computers." That's usually something that looks better on paper than it works in practice, because the computer in question is still... old. No matter what OS you use, there are still certain levels of CPU capability needed to view "rich" web content, movies, etc. Hell, even Facebook. And then they break because, well, they're old and worn out. So whatever you save by not buying new hardware, you end up spending on additional maintenance, repair, etc., and on top of all that aggravation, you still have an inferior user experience even with the lightweight OS.

My experience (as an example) with the E6550 (which is a mid range chip from the Core 2 era) and GMA 3100 is that it does provide a good browsing experience. Sure the iGPU doesn't support H.264 decode, but the CPU is up to the task of watching 1080p You tube just fine.

Secondly, with a sleep feature built into the OS, the tower will drop to around 2 watts power draw when not is use. So power draw, overall, can be decent enough.

And as far as reliability goes, yes that can be an issue (particularly the hard drive)....but we are discussing a Cloud OS so if it does fail at least there will not an issue with data recovery and migration.

With that mentioned, my biggest concern is privacy, tracking and data mining for those using any Google based OS/browser (including Chromium in Instant WebKiosk).

 

[cbn]

What really interests me is the sort of zero-maintenance option of a Chromium OS. (Self auto-updating, etc.)

With Mint, it's easier than Windows, but you still have to click on the little Update shield in the taskbar, and then type in your password.

For mint, I found there is way to configure for automatic install of updates:

http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/1217

And on ubuntu a person can select a check box to automatically install security updates:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/9/how-do-i-enable-automatic-updates

 

[cbn]

This Kiosk Software uses Firefox (and automatically updates):

https://webconverger.com/

I'm playing with it right now. Unfortunately it seems rather slow with my E6850 and GT 620.

EDIT: Unfortunately I just realized only the unconfigured version is free (although the free version still has the automatic updates according to this, a person will not be able to set a homepage)

 

[cbn]

Linux Live USB creator claims to auto-update:

http://www.linuxliveusb.com/en/features

Auto-update: automatic updates when new Linux distributions are available

EDIT: This appears to be only for how the application handles installs.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Hmm, success. I finally decided to try downloading and installing WinRAR, and that was able to successfully unzip the file. For whatever reason, whatever ZIP utility they used to create it, is incompatible with Windows 7's built-in ZIP decoding support. They should really look into that, to make it easier for people to use.

I put it on an 8GB USB stick, and it booted fine on my Q9300 rig with a R7 250X 2GB video card, detected the HDMI audio, mobo Realtek ethernet, seemed to work OK in "guest" browsing mode.

7Zip x64 is the very first thing I install on a PC. Do yourself a favor and install it and get rid of WinRAR. 7Zip is really fast, no BS, and free.