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Google Announces PC Operating System
If by "OS" you mean a Google app layered over Linux...

Google this morning fired a chrome cannon at Microsoft by officially announcing that they're developing a Chrome operating system for PCs. Sort of; so far it looks like just an application running over Linux, but substantive details seem scarce. "Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010," says the company. Tying an "OS" to their online applications will certainly get the attention of regulators and privacy advocates, and the new OS (combined with their push to be a centralized voice hub) is certainly making the company new corporate enemies in the telecom, voice and software sectors. "We have a lot of work to do, and we're definitely going to need a lot of help from the open source community to accomplish this vision," the company says in a blog post.

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milnoc
join:2001-03-05
Ottawa

milnoc

Member

Interesting.

Who's the equivalent of Bill Gates at Google?

r81984
Fair and Balanced
Premium Member
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

4 recommendations

r81984

Premium Member

Re: Interesting.

"However, the operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web"
What a very stupid statement from Google.

All they are doing is making a linux distro that that will sync up with the rest of Google (skynet).
The day google becomes self-aware we are all screwed.

S_engineer
Premium Member
join:2007-05-16
Chicago, IL

S_engineer

Premium Member

Re: Interesting.

You took that in the wrong context, they were talking about the bloated OS's that are out today. Google clearly want to get into the Netbook market, which seems to be taking off and is now being subsidized by some carriers like Sprint. Netbooks feature less than adequate hardware to run Vista, 7, or some Linux distros. So its Googles intention to build a barebone OS
that will run on minimal hardware, which alot of the netbooks have.
With that said, I don't know why anyone would fall for the subsidized netbook scam, or why Google thinks this is the route to take on MS. IMO, netbooks are just the next wave of mobile garbage to get consumers locked into 2 year contracts.

en102
Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA

en102

Member

Re: Interesting.

I agree on the bloat - Windows is a very bloated OS - even on XP.
I have a work laptop (Dell) with XP and 1GB. With IE and Office open, I end up swapping cache quite often.
Linux bare bone isn't bad, however X11 is a resource pig in its own rights.
Netbooks are entry level replacements for mobile phones - and they're less expensive with or without contract... and guess what - you don't need to 'unlock' them

Eg. I phone 3Gs $299 (subsidized) - $699 retail, carrier locked (i.e. unusable w/o data plan)
Netbook - $1-$99 (subsidized) - $199-#350 retail, carrier locked 'data', however, these 'should' also be functional with WiFi or ethernet (or USB-Ethernet). Downside - 5GB data cap, no voice plan.

S_engineer
Premium Member
join:2007-05-16
Chicago, IL

1 recommendation

S_engineer

Premium Member

Re: Interesting.

Thats part of my point. Why would the masses buy a netbook for say $350, when they could get a laptop for $450 with good enough hardware to run any app. (except the high end games).

Whats next...the I-netbook from Mac with touchscreen on AT&Ts 3G network....oh oh...I better go patent that idea.

en102
Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA

1 edit

en102

Member

Re: Interesting.

I was lucky enough recently to purchase a Toshiba (2.16GHz Celeron ) with 17" screen, 3GB RAM / Vista Home and DVD RW for $399 from Wal-Mart. Haven't seen it again.
HP already has a touch screen PC/Laptop.
yeahian
join:2004-12-03
Venice, CA

yeahian

Member

Re: Interesting.

said by en102:

I was lucky enough recently to purchase a Toshiba (2.16GHz Celeron ) with 17" screen, 3GB RAM / Vista Home and DVD RW for $399 from Wal-Mart. Haven't seen it again.
HP already has a touch screen PC/Laptop.
Those have been around for a long time over a yr for certain. I saw one in Costco about a yr ago.
zipjay
join:2003-03-11
South Williamson, KY

zipjay to S_engineer

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to S_engineer
you never had a netbook huh? they have solid state harddrives, weigh hardly nothing and are small enough to fit anywhere.. noone wants to carry around a bulky and heavy full scale laptop if their just gonna be browsing the web and watching a few movies. Netbooks do run just about any app except for high end games anyway
Walter Dnes
join:2008-01-27
Thornhill, ON

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to en102
said by en102:

Linux bare bone isn't bad, however X11 is a resource pig in its own rights.
I disagree with you there. GNOME and KDE are fat bloated pointy-clicky-touchie-feelie-oowie-GUI "desktop environments". Try running Blackbox or Fluxbox instead... look ma... no bloat. I don't run desktops, I run apps.

djrobx
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join:2000-05-31
Reno, NV

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I don't know why anyone would fall for the subsidized netbook scam
That's easy. If you're going to be stuck paying $60 per month for mobile internet service (and all of the major carriers charge about that much), you might as well get something back out of it. I've never found "being stuck in a contract" to be that big a deal. It just limits me to considering my competitive options every couple years, which is not so bad. I usually end up sticking with what I had anyway.

Opticwonders
Premium Member
join:2009-03-31
united state

1 edit

Opticwonders

Premium Member

Re: Interesting.

Exactly. I would view the subsidized netbook as a 'bonus' when signing up for service. I don't think anyone should signup for service just because of a netbook though.

Too bad they didn't have this deal a few months ago when I signed a 2-year contract with Verizon for mobile internet. Oh well...

More on topic, I think an OS from Google could turn out to be great, or just another thing that no one really knows/cares about. Although it seems like theres a lot of news coverage regarding it.

Make this worth it Google :P

PGHammer
join:2003-06-09
Accokeek, MD

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Less than adequate hardware?

Look at some of the current generation of netbooks again (or even the upcoming respins, such as the Acer Timeline 1810, which will replace the Aspire One).

Also, Windows 7 is quite capable of running on netbooks (in fact, I ran Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit on all of a single gigabyte of RAM).

Don't think that Windows (7 or even Vista) is only sold in the "big pig" SKU known as Ultimate.

Linux distributions generally demand 256 MB of RAM for a minimum install, while UNIX (specifically OpenSolaris) ups the ante to 512 MB (incidentally, the same amount demanded by Windows XP/Vista/7).
stevephl
join:2000-11-27
Colorado Springs, CO

1 recommendation

stevephl

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Open Source Chrome OS

There is already a mature stable open-source operating system available for free for PC's, called Linux.
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

2 recommendations

openbox9

Premium Member

Re: Open Source Chrome OS

And *BSD, and OpenSoloris, and Darwin, and etc.

BTW, the Google OS appears to be based on Linux.
mlundin
join:2001-03-27
Lawrence, KS

mlundin

Member

Re: Open Source Chrome OS

AND, if someone other than Apple can design even a half-friendly user interface for it, it'll spread like wildfire. That's the problem with Linux: most people are not computer savvy or patient enough to jump through all the hoops required to make linux dance like Windows or OS X does.

Can Linux do everything that Windows does? Yes.
Is it a royal pain in the ass to do so? Almost certainly.
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

openbox9

Premium Member

Re: Open Source Chrome OS

said by mlundin:

AND, if someone other than Apple can design even a half-friendly user interface for it, it'll spread like wildfire.
There are a few "decent" UIs, the problem is OS compatibility with a lot of mainstream apps that "normal" people want/need to use.
said by mlundin:

Is it a royal pain in the ass to do so? Almost certainly.
Have you used one of the modern Linux distros lately? It's most definitely not difficult to install or use. The various X Window desktop developers have done a relatively decent job of mimicing a lot of Windows features.
mlundin
join:2001-03-27
Lawrence, KS

mlundin

Member

Re: Open Source Chrome OS

I haven't tried one in a couple of years now. I remember having particular difficulty getting dual monitors to act as a single environment with an nVidia card... just about pulled my hair out. Red Hat, SuSe... didn't matter. General setup was cake, but certain things were just a real pain in the ass... I've got patience, but not enough to write my own drivers when I have an unsupported device. In the end, I always went back to my heavily pirated copy of XP. Every time I installed linux, it just seemed like open source was a small step behind the MS and Macs of the world as far as things just working. I honestly feel like I gave linux an honest shot (more than once)... it just ended up not being worth the trouble to get things to work the way I wanted them to.
cornelius785
join:2006-10-26
Worcester, MA

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I'm far from impressed when it comes to linux attempting to mimic features of more polished desktop (not server, as that is a different story) OS like Windows (and probably Mac OS, which I haven't used, but those that use it seem to like it). I find the gnome and kde a bit confusing and slow to navigate through, thus back to the much over used commandline to do anything at all. I'm looking for something that is as simple to setup that is just as fast as Windows RDP.

Guess I'm expecting too much (based on all this hype on linux vs Windows) from a bunch of unpaid programmers with questionable background and abilities to create something that rivals Windows.
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

openbox9

Premium Member

Re: Open Source Chrome OS

I'm not defending Linux distros by any stretch, but there are other simpler and faster Window managers besides Gnome and KDE. I understand developers' tendencies to attempt to mimic MS Windows, but it would've been nice if they had thought out of the box and made something unique, better organized, and more efficient than mimicking MS Windows' UI.

El Quintron
Cancel Culture Ambassador
Premium Member
join:2008-04-28
Tronna

El Quintron

Premium Member

Re: Open Source Chrome OS

To be completely honest with everyone I don't see what's so complicated about linux, I learned most of it on Ubuntu, and then went to dabbling with YDL for PS3 and a bit of Slackware...

I think what most people don't get about Linux is that like all new things there's a learning curve, and the only reason its not as polished as Win/OSX is that at first you don't know how to use it.

If you've been at it as your only OS for anywhere from six months to a year, you're golden.

How long did it take you guys to learn windows flawlessly?

Probably as much time as it would take you to run a modern linux flawlessly if you put the elbow grease in it.

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

FFH5

Premium Member

Re: Open Source Chrome OS

said by El Quintron:

To be completely honest with everyone I don't see what's so complicated about linux, I learned most of it on Ubuntu, and then went to dabbling with YDL for PS3 and a bit of Slackware...

I think what most people don't get about Linux is that like all new things there's a learning curve, and the only reason its not as polished as Win/OSX is that at first you don't know how to use it.

If you've been at it as your only OS for anywhere from six months to a year, you're golden.

How long did it take you guys to learn windows flawlessly?

Probably as much time as it would take you to run a modern linux flawlessly if you put the elbow grease in it.
All true. But most people who already know Windows don't want to take the time for a new learning curve.

AnonDOG
@rogers.com

AnonDOG

Anon

Re: Open Source Chrome OS

said by FFH5:

said by El Quintron:

To be completely honest with everyone I don't see what's so complicated about linux, I learned most of it on Ubuntu, and then went to dabbling with YDL for PS3 and a bit of Slackware...

I think what most people don't get about Linux is that like all new things there's a learning curve, and the only reason its not as polished as Win/OSX is that at first you don't know how to use it.

If you've been at it as your only OS for anywhere from six months to a year, you're golden.

How long did it take you guys to learn windows flawlessly?

Probably as much time as it would take you to run a modern linux flawlessly if you put the elbow grease in it.
All true. But most people who already know Windows don't want to take the time for a new learning curve.
That is the one thing that Microsoft is counting upon more than any other.
openbox9
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Agreed. An additional factor besides the learning curve is that a lot of people use MS Windows at work which make them all that much more resistant to change their OS at home. My wife is like that. I've attempted to ween her off of MS Windows a couple of times with Linux and OS X and the recurring comment is "but it doesn't look like my computer at work". That and a couple of application incompatibilities that can be solved with Wine, but that's kind of kludgey solution which doesn't help my credibility in the transition attempt.

en102
Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA

en102

Member

Re: Open Source Chrome OS

I'll agree with that.

I suspect that I could have a computer 'newbie' (i.e. someone that never used a computer in their life) use a PC, Mac or Linux with a decent Window manager with ease.

I was brought up on Windows OS/2 (gack), and started hacking with Linux distros in College (Slackware 1.0) as they were cheap, fast, reliable and at the time blew Windows 3.x/95 out of the water for cost and performance. I was able to get things on Linux that were never available (or cost a lot) on Windows at the time (ftp/email/web/proxies/irc/printer/file servers).
At one time - in a lab I ran circles around NT for performance (both used same hardware).

Getting back on topic - Linux is good for specific things - VMWare, Servers (cheap Solaris replacement) and light weight OS. Windows OS has already become 'the Borg', assimilating all OS functions and application functions into its core, becoming VERY bloated, and memory dependent (i.e. don't get Vista with less than 3GB of RAM)

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

FFH5

Premium Member

Re: Open Source Chrome OS

said by en102:

(i.e. don't get Vista with less than 3GB of RAM)
My 2 Vista systems runs very well on 2 GB of ram with no problems whatever. And I run a test Windows 7 bootable region on 2 GB of memory and it is even faster than Vista.

Overtkill
Premium Member
join:2005-09-21
Tooele, UT

1 recommendation

Overtkill

Premium Member

Re: Open Source Chrome OS

Diggity! Aint it! Vista is totally tamable. I have no problems making SP1 livable, and even better with SP2.

Windows 7 is definitely coming along nicely. I think most people don't appreciate what an undertaking it is to create an OS of this magnitude!

-Akbar humor aside.... If there was a concentrated effort in the Open Source (Linux) community, I believe they could compete well. The obvious difference is all the paid developers Micro$oft has with mega overtime. I for one am interested in seeing what Google (Skynet Indeed!) produces over Linux. Perhaps a good starting (or jumping off) point for the community!

en102
Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA

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I since I only have 1 Vista Home Premium and it originally came with 1 GB (horrific) on a Compaq AMD 64 3800+ and was horrific. I was able to get a deal on memory and upped it to 3GB.
On Fedora core, 1GB was more than enough.

The laptop came with 3GB

The main differences that I've noticed:
Linux by default = Kernel + a few daemons (sshd, syslogd, etc.) most are 'sleeping' and consuming very little RAM / cpu.

Windows by default has a significant amount of services running, and most 'builds' toss in a whole ton of junk, many consuming a lot of RAM while sleeping. I typically see many svchost.exe processes totalling up to ~200MB, IE consuming over 100MB, and cpu ~8-10%

On a server level, there's no comparison - I've had people wondering if monitoring was broken, as ntload would be all over the map (caching files, AV sweeps, reindexing, etc). The linux box sitting between 99% and 100% idle - of course an ftp server running on a quad Xeon 3.40GHz AS 3 box is WAY overkill
63 processes: 62 sleeping, 1 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states:  cpu    user    nice  system    irq  softirq  iowait    idle
           total    0.0%    0.0%    0.1%   0.0%     0.0%    0.0%   99.9%
           cpu00    0.0%    0.0%    0.2%   0.0%     0.0%    0.0%   99.8%
           cpu01    0.0%    0.0%    0.0%   0.0%     0.0%    0.0%  100.0%
           cpu02    0.0%    0.0%    0.2%   0.0%     0.0%    0.0%   99.8%
           cpu03    0.0%    0.0%    0.0%   0.0%     0.0%    0.0%  100.0%
Mem:  4087688k av, 4066944k used,   20744k free,       0k shrd,  156344k buff
                   3082648k actv,  591032k in_d,   89060k in_c
Swap: 2048276k av,       0k used, 2048276k free                 3639320k cached
 

Of course, for DB, I prefer a real box
 prtdiag
System Configuration:  Sun Microsystems  sun4u Sun SPARC Enterprise M5000 Server
System clock frequency: 1012 MHz
Memory size: 32768 Megabytes
 
==================================== CPUs ====================================
 
      CPU                 CPU                         Run    L2$    CPU   CPU
LSB   Chip                 ID                         MHz     MB    Impl. Mask
---   ----  ----------------------------------------  ----   ---    ----- ----
 00     0      0,   1,   2,   3                       2150   5.0        6  147
 00     1      8,   9,  10,  11                       2150   5.0        6  147
 00     2     16,  17,  18,  19                       2150   5.0        6  147
 00     3     24,  25,  26,  27                       2150   5.0        6  147
 
============================ Memory Configuration ============================
 
       Memory  Available           Memory     DIMM    # of  Mirror  Interleave
LSB    Group   Size                Status     Size    DIMMs Mode    Factor
---    ------  ------------------  -------    ------  ----- ------- ----------
 00    A        16384MB            okay       2048MB      8 no       4-way
 00    B        16384MB            okay       2048MB      8 no       4-way
 
 

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

1 edit

FFH5

Premium Member

Re: Open Source Chrome OS

said by en102:

Windows by default has a significant amount of services running, and most 'builds' toss in a whole ton of junk, many consuming a lot of RAM while sleeping.
I agree that that is a problem. Especially all the extra junk put on a new computer by retail outfits.

And the 1st thing I do with a new system is uninstall all the junk; stop services that are not needed; and modify many default settings for performance reasons. Mostly I blame the retailer for this problem more than I do Microsoft. It is they who could deliver a system built & tuned for performance instead of trying to impress users with all the useless freebies they add on to the system. It is a shame really, because the average user could be sold a Windows system that can fly, instead of one clogged with junk.

Some tuning guides:
»www.microsoft.com/Downlo ··· ylang=en

»www.pctipsbox.com/speed- ··· -tuning/

and there are lots of others.

S_engineer
Premium Member
join:2007-05-16
Chicago, IL

S_engineer

Premium Member

Re: Open Source Chrome OS

Most people I know uninstall the preloaded crap that comes on laptops...or desktops for that matter. But Vista still had too many processes running for my comfort. Even after I butchered vista, it was still running 60 some processes. Then the switch came real easy for me....I installed a windows update and it put my 4 week old Vista laptop into a shutdown/start up cycle that made it unrecoverable. I switched to 7 and have been running 7 on that laptop ever since. Fully loded with the apps I use, 7 is running with 28-30 processes. Getting rid of Vista was a blessing.

en102
Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA

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A lot of the 'junk' that the retailers add/bundle in are 'paid' installs that 3rd party companies want your business and throw in a whole bunch of trial ware / Toolbars (plague of the modern PC), and tons of apps that want to 'dial home' for updates frequently.
Many peripherals have become that way, IMO.

AnonDOG
@rogers.com

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Anon

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Basically you fix the broken system that you bought, instead of just using a system that is not broken in the first place?

PGHammer
join:2003-06-09
Accokeek, MD

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Vista can run decently with less than 3 GB of RAM; it depends on what you do with it. The biggest problem with Windows has not been core-bloat (or even code-bloat), but an insistence by users on underpowering their systems for what they do, because they are thinking back two OS generations or more. For the past several iterations of Windows, system memory has been at historic lows (in fact, each current generation of RAM has seen it's price fall below the lowest price of the generation before it!). Generic DDR2-800 is now under $20/GB, and every operating system has grown to use more of that now-cheap system memory (I run a triple-boot system (all 64-bit) of Windows 7, Kubuntu, and OpenSolaris with a Celeron Dual Core and 3 GB of RAM; 3 GB is more RAM than I have ever had in a personal system, yet all three operating systems are quite willing to use every bit of that 3 GB, and I don't do system development).

•••

cdigioia
Premium Member
join:2005-06-08
korea, repub

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said by en102:

(i.e. don't get Vista with less than 3GB of RAM)
I don't particularly like Vista, but that is complete bunk. I had a 2GB Vista machine and it ran well (memory-wise, Vista still being a bit prone to large problems otherwise). Recent one of the RAM chips went out and I'm down to 1GB - no difference in day to day tasks. Slightly slower transitioning out of Age of Empires 3 is the only time the lack of that extra GB seems to show, and even that's very minor.

SLD
Premium Member
join:2002-04-17
San Francisco, CA

SLD to El Quintron

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Say command prompt / terminal. Scares most people, even though it can be much easier to use. Take creating LVM for example. The command line is much easier and faster than the GUI.

KodiacZiller
Premium Member
join:2008-09-04
73368

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said by cornelius785:

I'm far from impressed when it comes to linux attempting to mimic features of more polished desktop (not server, as that is a different story) OS like Windows (and probably Mac OS, which I haven't used, but those that use it seem to like it). I find the gnome and kde a bit confusing and slow to navigate through, thus back to the much over used commandline to do anything at all. I'm looking for something that is as simple to setup that is just as fast as Windows RDP.

Guess I'm expecting too much (based on all this hype on linux vs Windows) from a bunch of unpaid programmers with questionable background and abilities to create something that rivals Windows.
What a bunch of crud. The truth is most of the core developers of Linux are in fact full time paid professionals. They work for companies like Red Hat, IBM, Intel, Oracle, etc. Very little of the core OS is developed by amateurs.

Corehhi
join:2002-01-28
Bluffton, SC

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to mlundin
said by mlundin:

AND, if someone other than Apple can design even a half-friendly user interface for it, it'll spread like wildfire. That's the problem with Linux: most people are not computer savvy or patient enough to jump through all the hoops required to make linux dance like Windows or OS X does.

Can Linux do everything that Windows does? Yes.
Is it a royal pain in the ass to do so? Almost certainly.
Dead on it's about the GUI
MyDogHsFleas
Premium Member
join:2007-08-15
Austin, TX

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End of an Era?

said by stevephl:

There is already a mature stable open-source operating system available for free for PC's, called Linux.
If you read the article, you'll see it uses the Linux kernel and adds a new windowing system to run the Chrome browser.

I would guess that it's not designed to run arbitrary local applications, like a "normal" OS. Rather it's a purpose-built platform to run the Chrome browser. The browser and the Web is the app platform. Offline/local use is managed by Google Gears.

This is much more like a consumer electronic device than a PC. It puts the PC at the high end of the smartphone food chain.

We may have just seen, on July 8, 2009, the announcement that marks the end of the PC era -- started by IBM with their original IBM PC announcement on August 8, 1981.

By the way this is open source but I would not call it "open". It's not designed to be flexible and changeable by the consumer. This is a feature -- no malware, no crapware. RMS is going to hate it, I guarantee.

•••

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

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MS to make big announcement on Monday

MS is going to make announcement on Monday to steal the press back from Google:
»www.neowin.net/news/main ··· t-monday
Microsoft will announce that Windows 7 has hit RTM on Monday at the Worldwide Partner Conference that is taking place in New Orleans. Could Scoble be confirming this too or hinting at Microsoft's forthcoming Gazelle browser? Blogger Imran Hussain thinks it could be Gazelle too. Long Zheng thinks it could be Office Web.

Microsoft has been developing "Gazelle" as an alternative to Internet Explorer. The browser acts like a self-contained operating system and is designed to address the fact that browsers like IE and Chrome have not been built by design to handle multiple processes and web applications in a secure manner. The implications from this is that older browsers have suffered performance and security issues.

If it's the grand Office Web Apps unveiling this makes sense at a Partner Conference. Microsoft hinted at its Office Web Applications back at it's professional developers conference last year. The company plans to offer Office in a way that is similar to Google Apps. This is the more likely option out of the two.
So:
Maybe a MS Browser OS
OR
a Google Apps competitor
on Monday
FFH5

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to stevephl

Companies that will work with Google OS

»news.cnet.com/8301-17938 ··· 1_3-0-20
Sundar Pichai said the company is working with a variety of PC and chipmakers, and another software company. Those include Acer, Adobe, Asus, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments.

The one that is notably missing is Dell. Dell is the second-largest PC maker in the world (though Acer is close at its heels), but didn't indicate it was actively working with Google on this when contacted earlier today.
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

openbox9

Premium Member

Regulatory and Privacy Concerns?

said by Karl Bode:

Tying an OS to their online applications will certainly get the attention of regulators and privacy advocates
If it's open source, the regulatory and privacy concerns should be minimal....at least no worse than the attention that Google already already receives on those fronts

nightdesigns
Gone missing, back soon
Premium Member
join:2002-05-31
AZ

nightdesigns

Premium Member

About time

Since Google would have their name attached to it, I think they could get it mainstream. Maybe we'll finally have an alternative to MSFT in the corporate world!

••••

dcurrey
Premium Member
join:2004-06-29
Mason, OH

dcurrey

Premium Member

Ok

Ok they have a complete OS about ready but still no completed chrome web browser for linux.

TSI Gabe
Router of Packets
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join:2007-01-03
Gatineau, QC

TSI Gabe

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Re: Ok

said by dcurrey:

Ok they have a complete OS about ready but still no completed chrome web browser for linux.
I'm assuming that chrome for linux will be done by the time the os is out.

Don't forget that chrome basically uses webkit. So it's essentially like running Safari but with different bells and whistles.

I think it's a really great idea, they could literally replace the rendering engine of X in linux and replace it with web rendering and at this point the technology is mature enough to support it.

v35_pilot
Whoops, there goes another AMU
Premium Member
join:2005-12-12
Fayetteville, NY

v35_pilot

Premium Member

Why?

I wonder why besides ego would a company enter this market? With Linux already established as the de facto open source OS, is there really room and, more importantly, opportunity for Google's entry?

Seems a waste of talented resources' time to me. But, I will accept that I am clearly missing something.

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dadkins
Can you do Blu?
MVM
join:2003-09-26
Hercules, CA

dadkins

MVM

Google OS?

Will it be in perpetual Beta?

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etaadmin
join:2002-01-17
united state

etaadmin

Member

Windows is a set of poorly debugged device drivers

This reminds me of Mark Andreessen's remarks that Netscape was going to reduce Windows to a set of poorly debugged device drivers. Ahh! those were the days...

Back to the future here I am with windows vista uninstalling SP2 because SP2 broke my PC sound. I hope Google succeeds where Netscape failed.

Sundar Srini
@10/24.bsnl.in

1 edit

Sundar Srini

Anon

Good but why?

Good and we would welcome another open source OS. But why don't they take up GNU\Linux and release a Google-version of it?

maartena
Elmo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA

maartena

Premium Member

It's just another Linux distro....

....with Googles name slapped on it. I doubt it's going to be all that exiting. Might as well stick with your current Linux distro if you are already running it. And if you run Windows, you didn't want Linux in the first place, so you won't want Chrome OS.

jazzlady
join:2005-08-04
Tannersville, PA

jazzlady

Member

Re: It's just another Linux distro....

said by maartena:

....with Googles name slapped on it. I doubt it's going to be all that exiting. Might as well stick with your current Linux distro if you are already running it. And if you run Windows, you didn't want Linux in the first place, so you won't want Chrome OS.
I run XP on my 2 desktop machines, and Ubuntu 9.04 on my 2 laptops.

The only reason I haven't switched completely is because my husband refuses to give up Windows and MS Office.

Google is out to make a buck, and like any other gazillion dollar corporation- they have no scruples.

I don't want their toolbar, I don't want their browser, and I surely don't want their OS to be poking around in my business and phoning home constantly.

No thanks. I'll stick with Ubuntu.
ISurfTooMuch
join:2007-04-23
Tuscaloosa, AL

ISurfTooMuch

Member

Will it be accepted?

For those who wonder if it will be widely accepted, if it can be easily managed from a central admin station, you damn well better believe it'll be accepted, and I'll be watching it like a hawk. Give me an OS where I can easily manage all the desktops in my organization, and I'm sold. Right now, I'm stuck with a bunch of computers running Vista Home Basic because that's all we could afford. I've created standard accounts for the users and an admin account for me to do maintenance. That's fine, except that all programs don't get updates when admin isn't logged in, but I don't have time to run around all day making sure everyone has their updates. Yes, I know that some of the versions of Vista for businesses handle central management much better, but I simply don't have the budget to upgrade all those machines. As for switching to Linux...I have enough trouble showing users how to do things in Windows. Many are in a bit of shock moving from XP to Vista.

Just give me something that I can manage centrally without breaking the bank, give me something that's not intimidating to the users, and I'm sold.

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raye
Premium Member
join:2000-08-14
Orange, CA

raye

Premium Member

Supportabilty

Is where others have failed and (hopefully) Google will succeed. Many corporations would like to move away from Microsoft but cannot because of support contracts. Microsoft supports its software, albeit with a very heavy price tag. Businesses both large and small like the security of being able to call up for software support. User Groups are great (IMO sometimes better) than the paid support, but when something goes wrong (ie financial or IP loss) I would not want to be the CEO on the witness stand.

Windows may be everyone's favorite whipping boy, but it is the one you know. I personally find Linux/BSD distos more secure and realatively easy to use as servers. I still stick with Mac/Windows/Office for client because of need to communicate with others on same platform

The PC was first adopted by the single user, then spread to corporations. In the netbook and smartphone arena, Google OS has potential to be the dominant platform, if it ever gets out of beta. If they can find a way to centrally manage thousands of them (like Active Directory does) Microsoft will have some serious competition on the desktop as well.

maartena
Elmo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA

maartena

Premium Member

Re: Supportabilty

said by raye:

Is where others have failed and (hopefully) Google will succeed. Many corporations would like to move away from Microsoft but cannot because of support contracts. Microsoft supports its software, albeit with a very heavy price tag.
This is true.

The military is replacing most of their Unix and Linux based systems with Windows based ones, albeit a very specially developed version of Windows XP that is supposed to be super-secure.

One of the main reason of doing this: Microsoft is the ONLY company that has the resources to have support engineers (albeit indeed for a big pricetag) on the ground in Iraq, Afhganistan or in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on an aircraft carrier within 24 hours of the call.

Of course the military would have provided the transport anyways, but even the biggest commercial Linux distro that HAS support contracts - Red Hat - does not have highly qualified engineers that can be on-site, GUARANTEED, even if half the world is going to shizzle because of a huge war. Microsoft has, and can pull qualified engineers from virtually any country.

AnonDOG
@rogers.com

AnonDOG

Anon

Re: Supportabilty

Well, you gotta respect those assets.

manfmmd
Premium Member
join:2003-01-14
Earth, TX

manfmmd

Premium Member

..

Google Announces PC Operating System
If by "OS" you mean a Google app layered over Linux...

-----

Apple Announces Mac Operating System
If by "OS" you mean an Apple app layered over Unix...

============

Fixed it for you..
impala
join:2008-03-08
Clemson, SC

impala

Member

Re: ..

yeah, apple did that 10 years ago
sbcretired
join:2006-01-07
Scottville, MI

sbcretired to manfmmd

Member

to manfmmd
If Linix Distros had better support, and could run many of the "programs" of Windows Uncle Bill Gates would have retired much less wealthy.
Ive tried wine and got a couple things to work, but the Linux stuff is a whole nuther deal to convert to. Fun to play with, but not very user friendly.

mod_wastrel
anonome
join:2008-03-28

mod_wastrel

Member

2014

Everyone has a netbook that runs the Google Chrome OS which connects to the Google Cloud over free, ad-supported white-spaces broadband and does little more than run the Google Chrome browser to enable all of the Google apps, which is all that anyone needs 99% of the time.

Meh.

Ioweyou
@comcast.net

Ioweyou

Anon

Google Shmoogle.... So what!

There have been numerous release of Linux for PC'a and they have all failed. Why? No Support! If Google wants to take over the universe they need to do what Microsoft did. Call EVERY device manufacturer on the planet and hev then develope a driver so when the operating system is loaded onto a PC it will pick up the USB ports, the video card, the parallel port, the serial port, a firewire card, your printer, your mouse and keyboard, etc, etc, etc.... Then software companies will have to get on board and make a program like Photoshop work on it and video capture software will need to be developed. How about .DOC and .XLS software for Microsoft Office compatibility.

You can already see this will take Google years, and Microsoft already has the inside track.

This new operating system is going nowhere!
chimera4
join:2009-06-09
Washington, DC

chimera4

Member

Re: Google Shmoogle.... So what!

...and it should be noted that doing this leads to just the kind of bloat that these vendors want to avoid. Now it is possible to save space if you push most of your drivers to the cloud so they can be downloaded real time and only keep your generic ones stored locally, but you need to make damned sure that these generic drivers work 110% of the time otherwise you will hear about it nonstop.