Tricking out my Chromebook

If you remember, a few months ago, I posted about my Acer C7 Chromebook.   I am still in love with it.  Although, I have modified it a bit to meet my desktop software needs.  Now this may seem a little geeky to many of you, but bear with me.  None of what I have done was at all difficult and there are YouTube videos to walk you through the process.

One of the things that I like about this particular Chromebook is that it has a 330 GB hard drive.  The Samsung version has a 16 GB solid state drive, which would be fine for a pure Chromebook usage, but I wanted to be able to do a little more.

Like I mentioned before, the Chrome OS is nice for web related activities and the Google Drive does give you plenty of storage and allows you to read/edit and even create Microsoft documents.  But the one limitation that I found, at is was big to me, you can only create/edit the spreadsheet application when connected to the internet.  I use spreadsheets all of the time, so it was a bit frustrating when I ride the bus to work and want to work on my budget or organize my ideas.

So, if I wanted to run full versions of a spreadsheet when offline or some other nice-to-have applications, I would need some sort of operating system that could handle that.  But remember, this was all about SAVING MONEY.  I was not about to pay money for Windows or any operating system.

I did find an answer.  I had, on the sidelines, considered Linux and particularly the Ubuntu distribution as it was most like the desktop operating systems that I and most people are used to.

 Now, I know what you are thinking.  "There is NO WAY am I about to take on installing an operating system on my laptop.  I mean, what if SOMETHING GOES WRONG?"  I don't blame you a bit.  But remember, this whole laptop is less than $200 and with a couple of clicks, you can restore your Chrome OS and since you are linked to the cloud with Google Drive, all of your data is backed up and the risk is nearly inconsequential.

My recommendation would be to watch some You Tube videos of what Ubuntu 12.04 or 12.10 can do.  It is pretty awesome.  Then go to this video to watch the installation instructions.  A big shout out to "Johnny the Geek" for this.  Now, there are a couple of commands that you have to type, but not much and you are guided keystroke by keystroke as you go along.  After you are done, you have a machine that boots up as a Ubuntu (actually Crubuntu as it is especially designed for the Chrome book).

So what do you get with Ubuntu?  For one, you get a very simple interface (kind of a blend between Windows and Apple)  But it unique.  In fact The Apple OS is just another type of Linux itself.  Ubuntu comes pre-loaded with Libre Office which is very compatible with  MS Office.  So, you have Word Processing, Spreadsheet, Presentation and Database software (did I mention that it is all FREE?)

Another incredible feature of the Chromebook Ubuntu combination, it is true 64 bit, with means that it can handle up to 16 GB of ram.  (Just a note, the Windows 8 home edition will only work with 4 GB of ram).  So, I ordered 8 GB of ram on line (about $60) and installed it in about 2 seconds.  This (along with the original 2 GB installed pushed my Chromebook up to 10 GB of ram making it a screaming machine that is WAY faster and more powerful than any Windows 8 laptop.

One important thing that Ubuntu comes with is a free cloud service called Ubuntu One for backing up your files.  I highly recommend doing this.  I was tinkering with setups on my operating system and did lose it.  But since I had everything backed up, I had the OS and all of the data restored within one hour.

So, if you are looking for an awesome free alternative operating system, I highly recommend this.  I am hoping that more people will try this and put pressure on the big guys (Microsoft and Apple) to stop charging for operating systems.

One last thing, because of the tight and secure structure of Linux, you DO NOT need anti-virus software.  That saves about $50/year per PC (for Norton)

I have not tried the other flavors Linux (such as Mint, Red Hat or Debian).  Mint is much like Ubuntu and has a very simple interface.  There are too many to really go into here, but they all have their own raving fans.  I just picked the one that was easiest for me to access, install and use.

Enough of the geekdom.  I promise to talk more about traveling next time, because we have reached another milestone in our journey and am excited to talk about it.

Happy Trails,

Kit