How is ChromeOS? Can you get a decent terminal or terminal app? Install and keep up to date the basic terminal utilities (ssh, tmux, vim, rsync, etc)?
What about other software? Is the browser like the regular Chrome? Can you play regular media files (flac, x264 mkv)?
Are there any unpleasant surprises?
It's completely simple to get a real terminal/SSH running with Crouton.[0]
ChromeOS supports every common media format you'll come across.[1]
[0]https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton [1]http://www.chromium.org/audio-video