Among other things. My first question was, is the hardware open? Couldn't find an answer to that.
Edit: Apparently revision 2 of Purism will possibly have Coreboot.
The figures were about 1500 CPU-seconds for the desktop and 3000 CPU-seconds for the Chromebook. Of course, wall-clock time was significantly less for the desktop due to having many more cores, but that's showing that per-core, the high-end Intel was only about twice as fast as the ARM.
I do development work on the Chromebook, via a Debian chroot inside Crouton. And you know what? It's fine. It's probably the fastest laptop I've ever owned. The filesystem's a little slow, but compilation speeds are perfectly adequate.
Try a native install on the Flip, it is nice: http://kmkeen.com/c100p-tweaks/
> The C100P Flip is the best netbook I have seen in eight years.
That's quite the praise! This thing must be really good.
> The default ALSA config was completely silent. Enabling Right Speaker Mixer Right/Left DAC fixed that. Supposedly there is a risk of burning out the amp if you thoughtlessly enable every option.
Uhh... wow. Well, OK.
> After suspend/resume, wifi will not work if the btsdio module was automatically loaded.
The best netbook in eight years, yet it can't even suspend/resume properly? What?
> The best video output mode is X11 video output. Despite what everyone says about being slow, this is the only driver that doesn't have major desync problems.
> Stellarium would run at a buttery smooth 60 FPS for a few minutes and then everything would die.
> Chromium will not run on this hardware.
> Screen rotation through xrandr doesn't work at all...
Then under "Things to Fix":
> - HMDI output. Very wonky, usually crashes X11 after a few minutes.
> - USB ethernet. The cdc_ether module will load but nothing happens.
> - Webcam. Crazy bucket of fail here. Maybe 25% of the time fswebcam can grab a single frame. Good luck with video.
> - Multitouch on the panel. No idea how to get that working.
To me, —even with the fixes and workarounds you describe— that device sounds like a nightmare to use.
Everything else comes down to software. Some of the difficulties were because I prefer to do things a difficult way. Eg, Arch is going to require more configuration and sound Just Works if you use Pulse. Having ALSA correctly autoconfigure everything except a single boolean flag is pretty good in my book. The warning about burning out hardware is just me passing on the advice from an engineer who actually works on these boards.
Suspend/resume is in fact flawless. It has never failed to come out of suspend, unlike quite a few thinkpads I've used. However linux does the wrong thing here with the bluetooth module. Trivial to fix, and it happens on other hardware too. Not the fault of the Flip.
Chromium doesn't run on Arch Linux ARM at all. Any hardware, regardless. So you can't hold that against the Flip. And I don't use Chromium, so this is a non-factor.
Almost everything else is the usual crap you have to put up with using garbage closed source video drivers and a kernel hacked out of ChromeOS. But I spend the majority of my time in the terminal, so the graphics are nothing I am concerned about. Similarly, I don't care about the webcam or multitouch, or HDMI because I don't own an HDMI monitor. I feel they are irrelevant details hardly worth mention, but they sound like dealbreakers to you.
Literally all I do is typing, reading, listening to music. I wanted fanless, all-day battery life, that weighs under a kilogram and is under $300. The Flip delivers and overall it has been a better experience than running Linux on a thinkpad. There are very few netbooks that could meet those requirements, and none that do it as elegantly as the Flip does. Therefor it is the best in my regard. If you disagree, it is up to you to name something superior according to the given criteria.
I spend about 10 hours a day on my main computer. If I upgrade every 18 months, even a $1500 machine only costs 28 cents per hour. Set aside frustration with drivers or software bugs; expensive laptops win for purely economic reasons. If a $1500 laptop makes me even 10% more productive, it's worth buying. This is the case for practically anyone who works in tech.
My current laptop is a base model 12" MacBook. It is, without a doubt, my favorite computer ever. It's small. It's light. The screen is gorgeous. It resumes before I'm done opening the lid. It has an amazing trackpad, excellent battery life, and a wonderful keyboard. With current technology, it could scarcely be improved upon. I wish there was a combination of hardware and software that could compete with it, but so far, nothing I've seen has come close.
With regards to being able to buy more equipment: I do have a powerful rack-mount server in addition to my MacBook. But being able to buy five ordinary laptops for the price of an amazing one? That's not very relevant. I can only type on one keyboard at a time. If anything, more laptops would slow me down. I'd have to keep all of their software up-to-date, sync data between them, ensure their batteries were charged, etc.
Imagine making the same argument in other domains. For the price of one plane ticket, I could buy five Greyhound bus tickets to the same destination. For the price of one quality memory-foam mattress, I could buy five innerspring mattresses. For the price of one Aeron chair, I could buy five AmazonBasics office chairs. So what? I don't want more. I want better.
It is irresponsible to always buy the "best" when you should be looking for the best value per dollar. Your own bank account is zero-sum, be more effective with it.