Last night I went into the ChromeOS settings and enabled the experimental Linux subsystem. I guess it's been in beta for 3 years, and Google finally says it's official. After three years, it better be. Haven’t done anything with it yet but it’s there if I want to install something not available in the Google Play store. I figured if a Chromebook now supports Linux, I can always install Crossover if I need a Windows app. Well, turns out that the CM3 uses a Helio processor which is based on ARM64. You can’t run Wine or Crossover unless your Chromebook uses an Intel chip. Oh well. I can still install Debian Linux stuff. So far I haven’t found anything that wasn’t available as a Chrome app though, and installing Wine would be cheating.
But for today, first thing’s first - get Spotify installed. I need my tunes! Naturally, Google wants me to upload all my music to their cloud, which I am not going to do. I just paid Apple $25 for their Match service for easier sharing across devices, I don’t need yet another cloud service. Plus, I mostly listen to Spotify when I am home or at work. When I am in the car or Slingshot I play iTunes off my phone so I am not paying data rates for streaming, but that’s about all I use iTunes for anymore.
This is where I am reminded that every user is completely isolated from other users, and by that I mean even the apps are not shared. On a Mac or an iPad applications are available to everyone who logs in, they just have their own preferences, but on a Chromebook you have to install the application for every user. I have an account on the CM3 already for my personal home stuff, but logging into it using my work account meant I had to reinstall any applications. That's actually not that big a deal, since the stuff I use for work is different from the stuff I would use at home. Spotify does have a Chromebook app, and it does work, however the speakers on the CM3 aren’t as good as the ones on my iPad Pro. There are two small speakers on the top of the tablet part of it, but they are not very loud. They would probably be fine if I was in a quiet area, but my office is anything but quiet. It does have an audio jack and Bluetooth if I wanted to connect speakers to it. For now I am using my iPad Pro - it has four really LOUD speakers on it. (Plus I need it to enter stuff into Ulysses anyway. I have not yet looked for a text editor that can post to a blog.)
The only other port on the CM3 (I guess I will need to give it a real name at some point) is a USB-C port for charging and connectivity. I connected a USB-C hub to it and was able to connect the charging cable and an HDMI display. Monitor was detected correctly and the display was automatically set as a second desktop (mirroring is also an option.) Picture was OK considering it’s a cheap HP monitor that I only use for programming Apple TV’s. I did get a warning that the USB port was powering the hub until I connected the charging cable since it would impact battery life. I was able to connect an external keyboard and mouse, but I didn't really need to.