It’s been two years since Google started bringing support for Linux apps to Chromebooks, and these days dozens of Chrome OS laptops support support the feature (although it’s still a beta feature that you have to enable manually). One of the first Chromebooks to support Linux apps was the Samsung Chromebook Plus. But up until […]
crostini
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Chrome OS 82 will bring major Linux terminal improvements
Google has been allowing Chrome OS users to run Linux apps for a few years. But the optional “Crostini” feature which makes this possible sort of feels tacked onto Chrome OS as an afterthought (which… to be fair, it was). That could change when Chrome OS 82 is released on May 5th. It’s expected to […]
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1 Comment on Google brings Linux app support to some older Chromebooks (including Chromebook Pixel 2015)
Google brings Linux app support to some older Chromebooks (including Chromebook Pixel 2015)
1 Comment on Google brings Linux app support to some older Chromebooks (including Chromebook Pixel 2015)Chrome OS started out as a browser-based operating system that could run web apps only. Eventually Google added support for Android apps, and then for Linux apps, making Chromebooks more useful as general-purpose laptops. But while most new Chromebooks feature out-of-the-box support for Android and Linux apps, many older models do not… and it looked […]
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Lilbits 363: Tired of Pixel 3a leaks yet?
Rumor has it that Google will officially launch the Google Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL on May 7th, the first day of this year’s Google I/O developer conference. They’re expected to be cheaper than the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3XL, while offering the same stellar cameras as their higher-priced counterparts. And honestly, there’s not […]
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Chrome OS 74 dev channel brings Linux app improvements (Crostini)
When Google first launched Chrome OS, it was only able to run web apps. A few years ago the company added support for Android apps. And last year Google introduced Crostini, a tool that allows you to install and run Linux applications on a Chromebook. For the most part, it works as promised — allowing […]
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Lilbits 351: More multi-camera phones
Phones with three rear cameras are becoming common. Even that weird Energy Power Max 18K that was unveiled today has three rear cameras. But right now there’s only one smartphone with five rear cameras: The Nokia 9 PureView. It probably won’t be the last though. Nokia developed the phone using multi-camera technology from Light, and […]
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Chrome OS 74 will enable audio for Linux apps
You can install and run Linux apps on most recent Chromebooks thanks to Google’s Crostini software. That makes Chromebooks feel a lot more like “real” laptops, since you can now run desktop software like GIMP or LibreOffice. But there are a few things Linux apps still can’t do. They don’t support hardware-accelerated graphics. And they […]
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Lilbits 345: Hanging up on Google Hangouts (eventually)
A few months ago we learned that Google was planning to retire the communication service known as Google Hangouts… while transitioning some of the key features to its Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet services. It’s still not entirely clear what this will mean or when it will happen for personal users. But Google has announced […]
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Chrome OS 72 Dev Channel brings Android 9 to Chromebooks (plus USB support for Linux apps)
2 Comments on Chrome OS 72 Dev Channel brings Android 9 to Chromebooks (plus USB support for Linux apps)Three months after Google released Android 9 Pie, so few smartphones are running the operating system that Google still hasn’t bothered adding Pie to its Android platform distribution page (about 22 percent of phones are running Android 8.x Oreo, while the rest are running Android 7.x Nougat or earlier — even Android 2.3 Gingerbread has […]
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Chrome OS updates to bring Linux apps to MediaTek Chromebooks, Android 9 to most Chromebooks
4 Comments on Chrome OS updates to bring Linux apps to MediaTek Chromebooks, Android 9 to most ChromebooksI’m in the camp that believes Google’s browser-based Chrome OS was always a “real” operating system and not just a glorified web browser. But the addition of support for Android apps and Linux apps in recent years has certainly gone a long way toward making the operating system more versatile. Now it looks like there […]