Thanks, Brian. That was a huge help. There is a lot I don't understand about their system. For SSH, they have a FAQ here: http://goo.gl/m6Nj8 It says this: 211 > Can I use Secure Shell for port forwarding? 212 213 Yes. Enter your port forwarding options in the "SSH Arguments" field of 214 the connect dialog. The port forward will be active for the duration of 215 the Secure Shell session. So I guess it will do it, now, but this section about the config file threw me off for a minute: 171 See <http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=ssh_config> for more 172 information about the ssh configuration syntax. Keep in mind that any 173 directives that would require access outside of the NaCl sandbox will not 174 function properly. This includes (but is not limited to) X11 forwarding, 175 syslog functionality, and anything that requires a domain socket. But that is only about the config file. Next I have to find out about VNC -- there are a few options in the Store. Then I just might give it a try (meaning that I'd actually buy one of the cheapest Chromebooks). I'll let you know. Mike On Sun, 13 Jan 2013, Brian D. Ropers-Huilman wrote: > Mike, > > I haven't seen any other answers to your query come in, so I thought > I'd take a stab. > > Google's Chromebooks are _very_ specialized laptops. While the > underlying OS is Linux and while it may use a Gentoo packaging system, > the user does not have acces to any of it. The machine and the OS are > custom designed to _only_ run the Chrome web browser. > > That's it. > > Nothing else. > > So, the concept of getting a shell and compiling other code is out. > > Having said that, ... there is a built in "terminal" in the browser, > so you can ssh to other machines. Last I checked or used it, it didn't > support SSH tunnels, but they were working on it. There are also apps > that allow VNC connections. So, you might be able to do what you want > anyway. > > The apps I'm talking about, by the way, are Chrome apps. So, a good > test to see if a Chromebook is right for you is to sit down at your > current Linux box, open Chrome OS, and then see if you can get your > work done. You'd need to start by looking at the apps available in the > Chrome Web Store: > > https://chrome.google.com/webstore > > There's a lot there. These apps run in one of two ways: as a > "weblication" that basically takes you to a web site or as an > in-browser app that's likely running via Javascript and other > HTML5/CSS wizardry. > > If you can get through a week's worth of day-to-day work using nothing > but the Chrome browser and the apps you find, then go get a Chromebook > as it will be perfect for you. I'm one such candidate, but I'm a > cheap, frugal sort and just haven't ponied up the money to go get one > yet. I'd love one! > > Hope this helps. > > P.S. Go to a Best Buy and play with one. You should be able to get the > store person to take it out of "demo" mode so you can actually log > into your own Google account. Doing so will auto-magically load all > the "apps" you've installed in your Linux Chrome browser right onto > the machine (it's all synced via the Google cloud), so you'll be able > to test your real situation on a real Chromebook before you make a > purchase decision. > > -- > Brian D. Ropers-Huilman > 612.234.7778 (m) > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >