I have an Acer Chromebook for Work 14 (CP5-471) and although its out of your price range I would say it would be money well spent to get a Chromebook with higher end specs so you can run Linux on it. I routinely run Ubuntu GNOME on mine from the SD card slot since I got it about 2 years ago. Every upgrade has brought a better user experience. I'm currently at 17.10.
The biggest quirk is not having a standard keyboard and remembering what your F keys. Touch clicking doesn't work with the mouse so you have to remember to do the mechanical click and use the lower right for the right-click. Also controlling things like screen brightness or the keyboard backlight will need some sort of software control widget. Those to me are not a big deal to work around for the ability to run Linux on a Chromebook.
The one thing that might be a deal breaker is that the internal speakers still do not work. I rarely use internal speakers there days- USB, HDMI, Bluetooth or casting is what I use and those methods do work. USB I've never done so that one is an unknown but USB audio has been around for a long time so I would be surprised if the hardware bawked on it.
My ASUS ultrabook is way more of a p.i.t.a. to me and at twice the cost of the Acer, the quirks there irk me twice as much. I use the Acer way more than the ASUS so the value proposition is there for me but I certainly can understand wanting this ability for around $200. I just wanted to put out there that spending more is worth it.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Keith C. Perry, MS E.E.
From: "Paul Walker" <starsinmypockets@gmail.com>
To: "Philadelphia Linux User's Group Discussion List" <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2018 12:17:48 PM
Subject: [PLUG] Ubuntu on Chromebook
I want to get a new chromebook and install Ubuntu on it. Is this a terrible idea? Curious if folks have tried this. Also maybe there is a comparable low-cost computer that can run Ubuntu and connect to the internet? I would love it if it was < $200 but maybe this is not realistic.
___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug