I have just bought my first Arduino Uno, which is a cheap clone rather than a Genuino.
I want to use my Chromebook to programme it. I know this is possible using Chrome extensions (e.g. Chromeduino) or a web IDE (e.g. Codebender).
My Chromebook does not detect the Arduino when I connect it. I have tried four different apps to test this. Two of them are simple serial terminals so should work with just about anything with a serial connection. None of the apps detected a port.
However, the same Arduino works fine on Windows 10 (I'm able to compile, upload and run sketches) and also my Chromebook works fine with my Particle Photon with the Photon appearing on port /dev/ttyACM0. With the Photon I didn't have to do anything special to get it to work. I just plugged it in and the port appeared in Beagle Term. It also worked with Serial Monitor. Neither of these two apps detected a port with the Arduino.
I have also tried this on a third laptop running Ubuntu and again, it works as expected so the problem seems to be confined to the Chromebook.
I don't know whether it's relevant but I have tried powering the Arduino from a 9V power supply as well as just from the USB cable.
So I have a working Arduino and a working Chromebook, just not together.
Does anyone have any ideas what's going on or suggestions as to anything else I might try?
I'm replying to my own post here but I think I've found the answer to my question so I thought I would reply to let anyone else with the same problem know.
My Uno clone uses a CH340G chip rather than FTDI for USB communication. The ChromeOS drivers for the CH340G are now in the beta channel (since February 2016) and this apparently fixes the issue. I haven't tried this yet because I don't think I want to move to beta but I've seen reports in respect of Codebender and Chromeduino that support this.
Once the CH340G drivers move into the stable channel all will be well.
I think if I had a Chromebook I would dual boot it so I could run Linux. The program Crouton looks interesting because supposedly you can switch back and forth between Chrome OS and Linux with a keyboard shortcut.
Normally I tinker with everything I own but my Chromebook has been an exception. When I got it I really wanted to try out the proper Chrome experience and not just to use my Chromebook as another Linux laptop and I already have one of those anyway.
I can see the appeal of dual booting but I want to test the limits of Chrome OS and benefit from its strong security model. I also don't like the look of the scary boot screen that you have to put up with if you switch into developer mode.