Chrome OS

[Lenny]

There are topics here for W7 and Leopard, so I thought I'd start one about this too.

I was talking to AE and 'Stro on the IRC, and we got into quite an interesting discussion.
I think that this OS would be good as long as it had some offline compatibility, but otherwise it's well-targeted at a majority of computer users. The others think that there are already decent OSs for that kind of stuff.

So, what are your general thoughts on this?

If you don't know a whole lot about it, I put up a blog post with info and screenshots. Check it out here.

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[SlappyMcGee]

The OS is kind of stupid, imo. First of all, it's only for netbooks, so that explains partways the creative decisions here.

1) We have OS's that are light enough for netbooks. This one is even lighter, but, like, why?
2) Google has made it abundantly clear that it will only be available with Google-approved products, even for SSD's. I hate that kind of Apple-esque 'monopoly'.
3) It's basically a web browser. :/ I don't understand why it's an Operating System.

[otters]

Haha, yeah. If you've seen any of the videos of the thing in action, it's further proof that Google's trying to take over the world. Everywhere you look, you see it--Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Code, Google Pie Recipes, etc. etc. etc. It's just a browser with a file manager stuck on it, and it really is like the Apple monopoly. I would've thought Google would let anyone use the OS. Ridiculous shit.

[scythe]

I would use an Opera OS. Unlike Chrome OS, it would at least actually have IRC, e-mail, and bittorrent.

[Tunco]

They are trying to make an OS which is going to connect internet, check your mails, visit facebook and irc, update your twitter account after a few seconds you press that power button.

It will be netbook version of Leopard. Instead, I think this OS is useless.
*blink*

[smartalco]

The point is to be ridiculously fast. Somewhere inbetween 'boot your laptop' and 'immediately do stuff on your iTouch', except more featured than a touch

[T3chno]

It's a web browser aimed at netbooks right? And netbooks are designed to be really portable, and I don't think internet is available everywhere you go, unless you have one of those data plans from wireless companies. But still.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

I think it's very important to keep the perspective that it's not designed to be your primary OS, but a network-enabled, portable tool.
While I'm not liking Google OS so far because of the lack of some features one might expect on a netbook (chat, for example), and the Apple attitude toward hardware, I think too many of the complaints are from people who expect their Swiss army knife to do everything their tool shed can. Google OS is not intended to be a primary OS.

[Donfuy]

I am of the opinion that it is a rather dumb idea. Sure, I'll buy a Chrome OS netbook for the same price as a regular one and instead of being able to do whatever I want on it, I get limited to a damn browser! Great! Even worse than Windows 7 Starter edition!

I do realize it's not meant to be a primary PC, but why does your secondary PC have to be so limited? My netbook takes less than a minute to boot up XP, and after that little tiny minute, you can do whatever you want on it.


I much prefer the idea of having a Chrome OS-like pre-installed on netbooks, and at the beginning if you clicked a button it'd load up the fast fast fast OS for some basic stuff. And yeah, this already exists.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

For the most part, I'm just hoping that they offset the lack of features by making their netbooks cheap as shit.

[Vyacheslav]

For the most part, I'm just hoping that they offset the lack of features by making their netbooks cheap as shit.

Aren't many netbooks already cheap as shit? I saw one for $150 the other day.

[Lenny]

For the most part, I'm just hoping that they offset the lack of features by making their netbooks cheap as shit.

Fairly sure that's the idea. With no hard drive or RAM (or at least a very small amount) they'll be able to easily cut $100 or so.

After thinking a bit more on this, I actually think there's not a whole lot of difference between this and other Linux distros. Except for two things. One: Everyone knows Google, and not everyone knows Linux, so they'll be more likely to take the Google option over a Linux option. And two: Google actually has the money and status to deal with large companies and get these specially produced, whereas Linux generally doesn't (especially tiny, unknown versions). So it should be really interesting to see what happens.

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[Tunco]

For the most part, I'm just hoping that they offset the lack of features by making their netbooks cheap as shit.

Fairly sure that's the idea. With no hard drive or RAM (or at least a very small amount) they'll be able to easily cut $100 or so.

After thinking a bit more on this, I actually think there's not a whole lot of difference between this and other Linux distros. Except for two things. One: Everyone knows Google, and not everyone knows Linux, so they'll be more likely to take the Google option over a Linux option. And two: Google actually has the money and status to deal with large companies and get these specially produced, whereas Linux generally doesn't (especially tiny, unknown versions). So it should be really interesting to see what happens.

Instead, if Google wants to have their super-fast-and-light OS to sell more than Linux (which will, see above) they could just make their own netbooks. But because Google don't produce hardware products, they just expect people to buy their own netbooks with Google Chrome OS already implemented to it -or not- and they expect it to sell much -and more- as other netbook OS', but what they can't understand is that if they are going to do a netbook and a secondary OS, it just can't sell much as other netbook and normal OS'. Because, why make a secondary OS when you already have the resources and equipment to make a primary OS just with these features? What Google don't know is while they had the chance to make a good OS, and a unneeded one, they made an unneeded, secondary, and a bad OS which only works when you only have internet connection.

Btw, world average of internet usage (by population) is 25,6%. Goddammit Google.

[Donfuy]

For the most part, I'm just hoping that they offset the lack of features by making their netbooks cheap as shit.

Fairly sure that's the idea. With no hard drive or RAM (or at least a very small amount) they'll be able to easily cut $100 or so.

Uh, 50$ netbooks? Really? Suuuuuuure.

Anyway, I'd just spend 100$ in a usable machine that doesn't need internet to work.

[scythe]

For the most part, I'm just hoping that they offset the lack of features by making their netbooks cheap as shit.

Fairly sure that's the idea. With no hard drive or RAM (or at least a very small amount) they'll be able to easily cut $100 or so.

'specially if they don't need to run on x86. I'm sure an ARM port is in the works. ARM + SSD + OLED = netbook with 30 hour battery life.

[jean-luc]

We're getting very fast boot speeds from much more fully-featured systems right now, EasyPeasy is what we load on to netbooks at Free Geek, and it's fast like mad. And, guess what, it has a full set of common Linux software.

[Donfuy]

Oh, just used a USB Disk-prepared ChromeOS... and it's quite bad. Not that blindingly fast and I can't really do much with it :(

[Tunco]

Oh, just used a USB Disk-prepared ChromeOS... and it's quite bad. Not that blindingly fast and I can't really do much with it :(

If they made the OS as a primary one, then it wouln't turn out like this. Screw it, Google shouldn't make OS'. It's a fact. First, we learned about it, then we saw it, all I can say that it was quite bad. Overall.

. . .

Though, Android is out, why not make a connection between Android and Chrome OS as Nokia did on their laptops? Come on.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

Though, Android is out, why not make a connection between Android and Chrome OS as Nokia did on their laptops? Come on.

You can already run Android concurrently with Ubuntu. I'm not even talking about dual-booting -- I mean you can run both at the same time.

[Donfuy]

Though, Android is out, why not make a connection between Android and Chrome OS as Nokia did on their laptops? Come on.

You can already run Android concurrently with Ubuntu. I'm not even talking about dual-booting -- I mean you can run both at the same time.

Yea, Acer made a netbook with Android and XP. You could switch OSs in a snap.

[Tunco]

Though, Android is out, why not make a connection between Android and Chrome OS as Nokia did on their laptops? Come on.

You can already run Android concurrently with Ubuntu. I'm not even talking about dual-booting -- I mean you can run both at the same time.

Yea, Acer made a netbook with Android and XP. You could switch OSs in a snap.

This and what Tsukatu said is a good reason to explain why Google is so fucked-up about this.

[SlappyMcGee]

Chrome Browser has extensions. I post this here for lack of a good space.