I have an Acer C720 Chromebook. I love it, but the Chrome OS is very limiting. So, I installed Ubuntu and wine, to run Windows programs. These tricks are very useful and easy to do, so I don't regret installing them. Has anyone done this before, too? How was the experience?
It's a very simple and straightforward installation. I'm assuming you installed from an SD card. You'll probably want to upgrade the SSD in the C720 in order to get some more storage space. Luckily, the C720 has a more powerful processor than most Chromebooks, so it can better handle running Linux or Ubuntu and Wine. The Chromebooks running the Samsung processor can't even run Wine because it's not compatible with ARM.
I have used Ubuntu a couple of years ago. It was a nice OS, but I keep reverting to Windows. I have also tried LinuxMint and I liked it better than Ubuntu. My experience with Linux is very minimal though. I have also heard about PuppyLinux. I think it works really well in systems with low specs.
Yes, I used Ubuntu on my laptop as my main OS for about 8 months. It was pretty good, but eventually I did go back to Windows. It's a good go-to OS if you get a laptop secondhand or just want to dual boot, because it's free and gets simpler and more intuitive to use all the time. Honestly there are even a few features that I prefer to Windows. I never bothered with Wine, because either the Linux alternative software did the same thing well enough, or I just couldn't get it to work. Back then (and possibly still is) trying to use iTunes through it was literally impossible. All I wanted to do was put some songs on my darn iPod, but instead I had to do a very complicated workaround that took hours. Little things like that can be a downside to Linux OSes if you aren't a "power user".
Ubuntu has a very steep learning curve for me. I liked Mint much better. Also, although Ubuntu ran faster than Windows on my old crummy netbook, Mint still won when it came to performance. I would recommend that you look around for other distros as well. Linux is a deep, deep hole and it would be a shame to just stay on the surface.