Google offers low-budget ARM-based Chromebook

However I really do not want my OS to be just a browser. If folks get Debian booting on these things with full hardware support I will be getting one for sure.

~Jeff

I wish that computer vendors would get their act together around the Key Pitch specification.

For me, an important part of the "buy decision" is the spacing between the keys. With the size of the hands that my DNA has determined for me, a 17mm key pitch works out fine, but a 16mm or 15mm pitch is unusable for me. So when I'm looking at a small system, this is the first question I ask. It's a go-nogo decision point for me.

This google/samsung product lists:

"Keyboard: Full-size Chrome keyboard"

Ok, what does that mean specifically? A "full size" desktop keyboard normally has a 19mm key pitch. Is that what they are saying? I doubt it. Come on computer vendors, if you want to sell products then let's get specific.

I'm impressed as well. On the tiny social network I use I just wrote days before this announcement:

"Won't be long before regular #GNU #Linux end-user's start adopting the platform, give it a year or two before #ARM makes a big dent in the #Wintel #Monopoly consumer base."

In reference to Monday's Distrowatch article 'ODROID-X - a call to ARMs' http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20121008#feature but perhaps my timing was off and we can see that reduced to just a year for broader adoption.

I'm mostly impressed by the samsung chromebook specs, and I have tried chrome os on my netbook before. Once the machine hits the masses and the tutorials hit the web I'm certain a dual boot enviroment will make this an attractive buy. But.. the whole 249$ pricing tells me that they don't expect much of this product and probably around christmas we can see 199$ sales. At which point I'll purchase and countless others as well.

1 amd bobcat C60 processor netbook no wintel.. 1 future ARM processor w/ no wintel

The future looks great especially with all of the negativity surrounding the metro interface. Hope intel catches on and strikes deals with Redhat to ship Fedora & Canonical to ship Ubuntu. Otherwise sales slump cometh wintel.