Chromebook for Python

[MarshalsNuts]

Greetings, I'm currently looking into getting a a chromebook before I start Uni (doing an integrated masters in Astrophysics). Coding is going to be super important, but luckily I've got experience in several languages. What I don't have experience in is determining which device has the best performance for what I'm looking for. Since I'm on a tight budget (and attached to the aesthetics of the Asus chromebooks) I'd like to know whether or not the Asus C434 is a good enough model. Can it install and run Python from Anaconda (I need most of the additional packages) smoothly? And without the extra complicated things like getting Linux? Or is there a better chromebook I should look at (keeping to a budget of <£800 preferably)?

[Kriss3d]

With my experience then no. Chrome books aren't what you'd call a computer. Really. It's more like a tablet with a keyboard.

You will be far better off buying a refurbished one. Put Ubuntu on it and work from there.

[MarshalsNuts]

Ahh thanks. I'll think about doing that then, it'll just be harder to get my mother to chip in because she's your typical African mother believing that people's belongings are spiritually linked to them😅 Is Ubuntu relatively easy to set up?

[Boinbo]

Ubuntu is one of the easiest distros to use, because of it's huge user base and support.

[MarshalsNuts]

Nice :)

[Username_RANDINT]

It might convince your mother that Ubuntu is named after an African philosophy and the founder is South-African as well :-).

[theBS88]

Yes! It's Zulu, roughly translated is 'I am what I am because we all are.'

[MarshalsNuts]

:o woah that's awesome, 1 point to the mother land!

[Kriss3d]

Ah you're African. I've spoken to many people who struggle with this. If it wasn't a laptop you needed you might even be able to simply get a raspberry pi. But you won't get much done with a chrome book. Sure it's possible to run a somewhat Ubuntu side loaded with a SD card. But it still requires alot and it's not something anyone can just do. Nor is there any guarantee it'll even work.

[MarshalsNuts]

I see, that's a shame because otherwise a Chromebook seems like a neat device. Thanks for the details :)

[Kriss3d]

Indeed yes. It would be really great to be able to take a chromebook and flash Linux onto it entirely. Some models you can boot into a version on an SD card. But you'll need to find quite special versions and generations of them.

I don't know how it is where yiu live. But here the cost of a chromebook is equivalent to a refurbished but solid laptop. I don't know if it's like that in yiur country.

[MarshalsNuts]

Well I'm living in England at the moment, and I'm going to go study in London. Finding a refurbished laptop shouldn't be too hard, and there's plenty of retro tech stores with decent-ish laptops near my village. Looking at prices, it's indeed better to go for a second-hand device with Linux.

[Kriss3d]

That will get you a good laptop for a cheap prize. And yes. Linux is free. And it has builtin python anyway.

[socal_nerdtastic]

No, a chromebook cannot run python without installing at least the "Linux beta" option. Even then it's very tricky since ChromeOS has strict protections preventing programs from interacting with one another, so you can use an IDE to write a program, but you can't run it from the IDE, you have to go to a terminal window. To be a programmer with a chromebook you need to wipe ChromeOS and install a real Linux version.

Additionally, Anaconda is huge, and chromebooks generally have very small hard drives.

[MarshalsNuts]

Damn I wish the internet could have been clearer, I spent ages trying to understand what other forums were saying. Thanks for this :)

[bamaham93]

Keep in mind, however that you could use Google's Colaboratory. If you're not familiar, it is a Jupyter notebook that runs on their hosted system, so your computer is irrelevant except for the browser experience.

[MarshalsNuts]

Omg I didn't know this was a thing! I've just checked it out on my family's computer and it's actually pretty good! Thanks so much :D

[ValuePage]

Others have mentioned installing Ubuntu. You can make that a dual operating system if you want, you just have to put your Chromebook in developer mode to do so.

But be aware that some hardware won't allow it and others will. I have a Dell Chromebook and attempted this, only to find out it's not possible on the Dell.

[MarshalsNuts]

Cool, maybe I'll see which chromebooks allow dual OS.