http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/19/ live-from-googles-chrome-os-project-announcement/
http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/19/ googles-chrome-os-revealed/
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So, details on Google's approaching OS are out. It's basically going to be an almost entirely web-based, browser-based OS (almost seemingly Google Chrome itself expanded into an OS) that's designed for internet use only, and only on notebooks, with specific, certified hardware, at that (they are considering making it for PCs as well in the future, though).
Somehow, Google "took" the silly assumption that nowadays, all everyone does on their computer is surf the internet, and decided not to compete with Windows or any other OS at all. Even though I wasn't extremely interested in their coming OS, this is a big disappointment from it, to say the least.
Discuss.
ID:181694
 Nov 19 2009, 2:47 pm
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I think it was pretty much a given that their 'os' would just be a browser. Google have had 'the web is everything' nutcases around for a very long time.
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Moonlight Memento wrote:
I'm rather disappointed, I was hoping for something similar to Linux, but with Chrome's awesome interface. (unrelated, but what OSes does Chrome run on?) Chromium runs on Mac, Linux, and Windows. Chrome (Google's official "blessed" build of Chromium) definitely runs on Windows, but I'm not sure of its status on Mac and Linux. You definitely missed something here, though. Chrome OS *IS* Linux, with Chrome's interface on top. That's exactly what it is. You got exactly what you hoped for. Celebrate. :-) Maybe Google is using this as a test-of-sorts, and in the future a real OS will be made? Chrome OS is a real, full computer operating system. | |
Jp wrote:
I think it was pretty much a given that their 'os' would just be a browser. Google have had 'the web is everything' nutcases around for a very long time. Yeah, but keep in mind that if Google makes a specialized browser on their OS which accepts a whole new DOCTYPE of HTML, a much more complex CSS scheme etc. and runs quite fast they may be able to make it. If anybody, even those with little programming experience but who can make excellent websites can start working with it, there may really be a market for it. Google Chrome can already do one thing the other browsers couldn't (Firefox can now, not sure about other browsers): dragging and dropping files from other windows and handling them in the browser with Javascript. What if they adjust their OS and Chrome to do more than the defacto web browser? What if they make it so that they can run web applications with amazing speeds, perhaps even making a better language than JavaScript? Not only would they have their own OS which would rely on these applications, but in the event that someone isn't running their OS they'll always have 100% cross-compatibility between other platforms thanks to the Chrome browser. I think they may be on to something here. They've already got Microsoft Office turned web-based with Google Docs. The only reason it isn't as fast or as efficient as it should be is because it needs to work in all browsers. But if they made a new form of JavaScript that could do so much more, combined with their Chrome web browser... they could replicate MS Office entirely. Think of games running in this web-based environment. Think of the benefits this kind of approach might have to system administrators: you can remotely deploy web applications instead of having to deal with group policies and whatnot. | |
Details were released months ago- the big news today is that the code and beta are actually out now. I just finished downloading the iso and am about to test.
[edit] Just tried it out- it's obviously very simple right now, but I like it. The OS login screen is actually your Google credentials, which is pretty cool. Boot time from power-on is about 9 seconds in a VM, not sure if it'd be longer or shorter on a real install (on the one hand, BIOS is gonna slow you down, but the actual OS boot should run faster on a real install than in a VM). | |
I think it's genius! Sure I won't touch it with a barge pole until/unless I buy the little notebook I've been goggling (not googling!) at the last few months, but I know people that will.
The 'average' (or sub-average, depending on your view) computer user pretty much will only use a computer for two thing; the web, and word/spreadsheet documents. My girlfriend only ever uses her £500 laptop to type up recent papers (rarely) or surf the web/check facebook (a lot!). Her Dad only uses his £400 laptop to check emails. For computer users that aren't gamers, and/or have little interest/knowledge into the workings of a computer, I think a web-based OS is genius. So long as they keep it really simple, and preferably 'shiny' (as a pretty box will move an OS off a shelf into a 'sub-average's basket more quickly than decent features) I think they could really win over the masses. That said, the BYOND-breed and Gamers are still more than likely to stick with what they've got. ~Ease~ | |
Think of games running in this web-based environment. That's exactly the sort of thing I'm thinking of. And media applications, like transcoders or players or the like. Compilers. There's a wealth of applications that just aren't suitable to be run in a web browser, and that's why I think Google OS isn't going to be terribly useful to the computer-savvy end of the market. I'm sure people who just want to read email, browse the web, and play little Flash games will like it well enough, but I'm more worried about it running Dwarf Fortress. | |
Jp wrote:
Think of games running in this web-based environment. What, like it'd be a big pain to make a web based IDE? Hardly. In fact, I know several BYONDers who once set up their own web based DM IDE to write and compile code without BYOND installed. Don't write off AJAX or Flex! There's a wealth of applications that just aren't suitable to be run in a web browser, You mean that just aren't suitable to be run in a web browser right now... the web is ever changing- with a browser as an OS, all sorts of new technologies can emerge. and that's why I think Google OS isn't going to be terribly useful to the computer-savvy end of the market. Good thing that's not where they're marketing it then? I'm sure people who just want to read email, browse the web, and play little Flash games will like it well enough, but I'm more worried about it running Dwarf Fortress. See everything above. Chrome OS is a step in a really cool direction, we'll have to see where it goes. While I (and Google, and everyone else!) don't expect the computer elite to adopt it, it's *perfect* for most computer users. | |
What, like it'd be a big pain to make a web based IDE? Hardly. In fact, I know several BYONDers who once set up their own web based DM IDE to write and compile code without BYOND installed. Don't write off AJAX or Flex! The problem isn't the IDE, the problem is compilation. It's a hard problem, computationally. It's not the sort of thing you do in Javascript, or any sort of scripting language. What are they going to do - invoke GCC from the browser? That's not only a security flaw, it also requires not-web programs. Compile it in 'the cloud' and let you download the products? Whee for downloading MB of executable every time I compile the project! Anything compute-intensive with largish results will forever be out of the web's reach. Obviously 'compute-intensive' and 'largish' are moving targets, but in ten years time there will still be compute-intensive problems with largish results, they'll just be more intensive and larger than they are today. Quite frankly, I wish more applications would get the hell out of the web and back onto my computer. It's much faster that way, especially when you're on 256 kbps ADSL. | |
Jp wrote:
And media applications, like transcoders or players or the like. Compilers. The basic concept here is that these things will be done server side. "the large filesize!" you say. Well, when you aren't running applications locally, you can just compile them on the server that is running them. As for players, Chrome already has HTML5 media capabilities, so as long as the embedded media player continues to get better, it will work great for small use(netbooks, which generally have limited storage anyways). There's a wealth of applications that just aren't suitable to be run in a web browser, and that's why I think Google OS isn't going to be terribly useful to the computer-savvy end of the market. It depends on what you are planning on doing with it. The point isn't to be a desktop OS replacement. It is strongly targeted to netbooks. Devices that are impractical for most software anyways because the very small screen. On my 9" netbook I run Ubuntu 9.10 and rarely do I use anything other than Chrome on it. I haven't used more than Chrome and Pidgin in at least two weeks. I'm sure people who just want to read email, browse the web, and play little Flash games will like it well enough, but I'm more worried about it running Dwarf Fortress. Look up WebGL. Although in its early stages, it looks to allow rather powerful 3D capabilities(OpenGL accelerated) to browsers. Google is one of the powerplayers in WebGL. As computer technology continues to advance, I see it completely possible to have entire $60 quality games in a browser window. As a side note, somebody has wrote a NES emulator running pure JavaScript that can run at 60FPS. Now, you may say "Oh, that's just an old NES, my windows 95 computer could emulate it!". But my point is, you can create a virtual machine in JavaScript that runs at a fast speed. 3 years ago that would have sounded like fantasy. These things move fast, and it already has the power to do almost anything you want with a good server side/client side mix. | |
I can see this as a good thing. Lets face it, a lot of these new "netbooks" coming out don't really have a lot of hardware behind them. Most people use them for exactly what they were intended, surfing the internet. The biggest issue with these machines is they are often loaded down with a Windows OS, and most of them simply are not tailored to run on these laptops. I still don't know why Acer didn't go with like a embedded Windows CE or something!
Anyways, if "Google Chrome OS" can fit on to a laptop and have very, very minimal system requirements, and make even the worst netBook speedy online, then I am all for it, esepcally if it brings down the cost of the netbooks (since Windows wouldn't be included). Of course Google has a hard road ahead of them, as a computer user I would expect fast response times, compatibility with almost every aspect of the internet, cheap costs and the ability to "save" music and pictures somewhere for later access. | |
Jp wrote:
The problem isn't the IDE, the problem is compilation. It's a hard problem, computationally. It's not the sort of thing you do in Javascript, or any sort of scripting language. Just found this on reddit: http://www.coderun.com/ide/ Looks pretty freaking cool to me. Downloads shouldn't be a big deal, either (well, maybe in your country, but the rest of us have it okay). Quite frankly, I wish more applications would get the hell out of the web and back onto my computer. It's much faster that way, especially when you're on 256 kbps ADSL. I think you're complaining to the wrong person. It's not the cloud at fault here, it's your ISP. | |
Much as my ISP is crap (Although I imagine most Aussie ISPs look like crap to Americans. We've got a lovely combination of a monopoly (Caused mostly by the previous governments poor handling of the privatisation of the government-owned telco), high costs to ISPs for overseas bandwidth (Because it's all going through underseas cable) and most websites we visit being located on the other side of the world (Because 70% of the world is hosted in America). And we're a big country with too small a population to really support the construction of proper infrastructure. It'd be nice if I could convince my parents to move to one of the better Australian ISPs, though. I'm not sure what part of "$10 a month cheaper for better internet" isn't convincing.), I'm not the only person that doesn't have super-duper unlimited internets - indeed, I think you'll find that the situation in the US is rather a lot better than the rest of the world (Excepting South Korea, maybe) by happenstance of most of the internet being located in the same country as you.
And I think you're underestimating how large a reasonable program will get when compiled. The rinky little GUI app I developed for my software engineering project this year is ~4 MB last time I checked, and it really doesn't do all that much. What if I want to compile Qt from source? What if I want to compile a Linux kernel from source? What if I'm doing development on the Linux kernel or Qt? Do I download the whole kaboodle every time I compile it to run tests? Sure, you could run unit tests in the cloud, but some testing has to be done by hand. That little web-IDE thing is a little neat, but I can't see it being used for any serious development task. More to the point, it's explicitly designed for web app development - you're pushing the created product to the web, not having to execute it yourself. There are just too many things wrong with the cloud computing model. What if I want to run a previous version of the program? Better hope it's mirrored somewhere. What if I want to run the program while downloading something in the background? Fun! What if I can't access the internet for some reason - router's died, network drivers fell over and I haven't reinstalled them yet, whatever - suddenly, my computer is a brick. What if I don't want my data floating around in Google's system? Tough luck. I've got a fast computer right next to me. It's got a crapton of hard drive space, a fair bit of RAM, a fast, dedicated graphics processor. I can run things on it and they'll be more reliable than a web app, faster than a web app, pose less security and privacy problems than a web app, and less frustrating than a web app. I can work out what went wrong if they fall over, I can script them from a command line, I can look at the source if they're open-source, or the binary if they're not. I honestly see no advantages to the cloud model - not even on netbooks, which are likely running off noisy wireless, anyway. Cloud compilation will sure help there! I understand that I'm probably not the target market - it's for people who read email, visit news websites, and post Facebook status updates about their newest cute cat picture. I'm just puzzled that any serious computer user would actually be interested in a computing environment that's so limited. (Another application that won't work in a web environment - media transcoding.) | |
Maybe Google is using this as a test-of-sorts, and in the future a real OS will be made?