A few hours ago, I made a blog post on how to get Firefox running on ChromeOS via a Project Crostini Container. I started getting questions asking if Android Studio works. Today I will be taking this one step further by providing instructions to get Android Studio Running on the Google Pixelbook via a ChromeOS container.
ChromeOS has been criticized as a limited operating system in the past by many tech reviewers however things are about to change with the introduction of ChromeOS Containers. This is due to something known as “Project Crostini”. If you are a Pixelbook owner who does not mind getting their hands a bit dirty in the command line, you can try this now and unlock the full potential of your Pixelbook.
Some people say that ChromeOS is a limited Operating System but as someone who has been using ChromeOS for a few years now, I have to respectfully disagree. I purchased my Pixelbook to upgrade my previous Chromebook back in February and I have not regretted it yet – the Pixelbook is by far the best laptop I own. It is so good that it has become my primary machine. With that said, I do like to use a multiple display setup when I am at my desk – complete with a full keyboard, mouse, speaker, and 2 additional 23 inch displays. Also, this setup will work with Windows, MacOS, Linux, ChromeOS and even Android! Here is how I did it.
I am a person who normally relies on several computers at a time on a daily basis to get stuff done. I recently decided to try an experiment to see if I can use a Chromebook as my daily driver and I am actually not regretting it. I have been critical of ChromeOS in the past, even to the point that I wrote a scathing blog post a few months ago pointing out that major parts of ChromeOS are simply half-baked and had several short-comings. I still stand by that post however in the months since posting it, ChromeOS has evolved a bit, allow me to explain.
If you are a Chromebook owner who uses a VPN, you probably noticed that:
There are of course countless VPN Solutions on the Google Play Store however if you ever tried to use one of these, you will notice that the VPN appears to be functioning correctly however only traffic from other play store applications will flow through the VPN while the main ChromeOS traffic bypasses it – Potentially exposing sensitive data. I even wrote a long rant about this a few months ago. Fortunately there is a simple fix.
It has been some time since I have taken a serious look at ChromeOS but this changed earlier this month when I purchased the newly released Samsung Chromebook Plus (2017) to allow me to do some research for a future work related project. The Samsung Chromebook Pro is currently one of the highest end Chromebooks – only succeeded by the Samsung Chromebook Pro and Google’s Chromebook Pixel. I spent a few weeks using ChromeOS for as much as I could and can say that it has come a long way since the last time I played with ChromeOS however there are still a fair amount of shortcomings and several features that are best described as “half baked”. Here are my thoughts: