Not sure if you can do this on a Chromebook, but I set up samba shares on my Pi and connect to it using my desktop PC. This way I can use all my beloved programs and tools on my PC and then run it through my Pi.
I know he's talking about the cost and not necessarily being able to afford a full fledged PC, but this could work for some.
It's not a bad idea, but if you use Vagrant for virtual machines then you can always use the hosts updater plugin. It would be cool if Docker had this as well.
Come to think of it, maybe someone needs to make a program which you can just type an ip and hostname in to and it will add it in for you...
I know he's talking about the cost and not necessarily being able to afford a full fledged PC, but this could work for some.