[Silenus]

Hey everybody!

As some of you know, I like to try new stuff on my laptop. I'm triple booting Windows 7 x64, Mac os X 10.5.8 and Ubuntu 9.10 on the same partition.

Today I'm trying something a little bit different, with a failed and frustrated attempt at running Google Chrome OS on my laptop trough VMware before, I decided to give it another try with a USB image.

Installation is as follows.

How To Run Google Chrome OS From A USB Drive

IF your wireless isn't working like mine did, you can try this.

Wireless on Chrome OS

Basically you can use Ubuntu drivers with it, at least my intel 5100 wireless, haven't tested with other drivers.

Now after the installation, the first thing I noticed is this OS looks and feel like a big browser and it is.

Gone is the desktop and the user folders from which we are so used to, now you get a Google Chrome browser window with a logo on the left acting like a launcher.

If you want to use this OS you have to come with an open mind that you have nothing stored internally, no normal applications where you have to run an installer to use it and with that comes some problems that might take some time to get used to.

One of the issues I have with it is: How the hell can I take screenshots in this? Spent 1 hour looking for solution and desisted. Yeah I pressed Prt SC and F10, F11 and F12 but where do I paste it.

Luckily Google already has their suite of apps which do the most common tasks that an average user might need. Included in the Chrome Launcher are links to popular services like twitter, facebook, Gmail, Hotmail, Google Reader, Picasa and others.

So that made me do some searching for web based apps that were not available in the chrome launcher like an Instant messenger. I found Meebo which gets the job done.


Right now there is not much to talk about this OS, but you can clearly see the direction is cloud based work, so you can access your files from anywhere and they are always synced. I see some market for netbooks.

One of the biggest issues people cite is that they don't trust google with their personal info, I can understand that that is serious, maybe when this is adopted in the mainstream it will be target of cyber attacks or not.

As this OS is in early development you can notice some lagging and it clearly says that the UI is under development.

Well that's it for now, I need to go back to windows 7, feeling sick without my files.

Would like to hear your thoughts about this OS.

 

[Hard core Rikki]

If it cant run emus (and even cant install any apps at all), thats so out of my pipes.

Could be nice for owners of weak netbook or ones reserved for internet use and mobility, though even then it might be too limited for them too. That's a pretty tighter lock-in than microsoft's that we will be seeing with this Google OS.

 

[Proto]

You can always use applet based emus though. It goes well with the whole we app philosophy

In any case this feels like a return to the master-slave terminals era.

 

[Hard core Rikki]

That was more about freedom to use your OS in whatever ways you need and want rather than imposed artificial limits not born from either customer demand or interest.

Ultimately, ASP's like OnLive will also impose themselves on the cloud OS market, but losing control of your data hardly ever seems like a wise idea, specially when you could be locked out of your own data.
Credential caching and offline re-authentication for google acounts could be planned maybe (such as with auth dongles), and that would lift a few accessibility concerns for where internet access is not ubiquitous, but even then.

Volatile locally cached data is not a viable alternative. For all we know Google could end deleting "your" online-stored mp3's for all sorts of reasons, and thats just an easy example of how wrong it can go.

 

[Demigod]

In my opinion the Chrome OS is just Google's way of saying FU to Microsoft, who's aggressively trying to take internet market share away from Google (Microsoft's recent attempt take Newscorp from Google News being the latest example). Ultimately I don't think it'll matter; the market share for such an OS will be tiny.

 

[Mad]

If you cant access your files local, then its not good at all!

 

[fried_egg]

Ok, so they've made the OS, now they just need to make a laptop weak enough and featureless enough to justify running it. (Oh, and cheap enough. Good luck though, because netbooks can already do a lot of stuff and they are plenty cheap.)

 

[rajkamaliya]

If it cant run emus (and even cant install any apps at all), thats so out of my pipes.

Second that. No games, no softwares. No offline work. What's the point of this os ? virus free browser OS ?

 

[Hard core Rikki]

Any Linux distro is far more usable than this. The good part could be that whatever is featured in the Matrix's OS could be reusable elsewhere without requiring Google meddling). Switching to Google's DNS service might bring fast DNS resolving, while lightning-fast home and swapfile encryption could help Linux increase user/server safety without a big hit on performance or resource consumption.

 

[aceloop]

Xubuntu >>> any Linux distro, the ubuntu team have done great work with the ubuntu and the ubuntu family OSes. its no windows or mac but its really improving a lot very quickly.

 

[nanaya]

Hmmm is it possible that they're planning to release a small factor, really low cost netbook/phone/mid hybrid outfitted with this OS? As they're restricting local access (no need a harddrive, just a flash memory to contain the OS) I could only see this is as a reason.
If it's priced right, then it's not so bad...

 

[Kaizen]

would be great for an info slice but not a pc

this is no more a desktop OS than the firmware on an itouch

 

[gamefreak94]

Does this work like Linux i.e. similar terminal commands, executes .deb files etc? I remember reading somewhere it's based on the Linux Kernel.

In my opinion the Chrome OS is just Google's way of saying FU to Microsoft, who's aggressively trying to take internet market share away from Google (Microsoft's recent attempt take Newscorp from Google News being the latest example). Ultimately I don't think it'll matter; the market share for such an OS will be tiny.

Well its not too shabby a start on getting Google's ball rolling in the OS market.

 

[aceloop]

Does this work like Linux i.e. similar terminal commands, executes .deb files etc? I remember reading somewhere it's based on the Linux Kernel.



Well its not too shabby a start on getting Google's ball rolling in the OS market.

no terminal, no old fashion desktop, no local drive.

 

[Silenus]

Well if you hit Ctrl Alt Tab or something like that you can do some terminal.

I think I read this was like a branch of Karmik/Ubuntu, which you can see in terminal.

That is one of the reasons Ubuntu drivers work with it I guess, I confirmed that with my wireless drivers.

 

[runawayprisoner]

I think this is just too ahead of its time. Internet is not that widely adapted yet, so there's barely anything that runs on this.

And technically... it's possible to write in Flash almost anything that you can have on a desktop computer (yes, emulators included), and then you can access all of those applications wherever you go, without having to "install" anything, but the problem is how efficient Flash is. As it is, Flash is about on par with Java, which is to say... anything too advanced (3D modelling? 3D gaming?) and it'll crush this OS like a worm. I can see this happen in the future where we have handheld devices that don't have any internal storage at all, and then we work online... with online applications written either in Java or Flash, but... the world is barely at that stage. Or actually, not even close.

Or is Google trying to "encourage" developers to spend more time developing online applications?

 

[gamefreak94]

Or maybe it's providing a portal for people to use online applications they develop or are going to develop in the near future. Sounds more feasible from a business perspective

 

[Phil]

It's a front. Google clearly has an ulterior motive.

 

[Princess Garnet]

Or is Google trying to "encourage" developers to spend more time developing online applications?

I think this is a big part of it (that was actually the first thought that went through my mind as I first read this thread), and if Microsoft responds/pushes more towards cloud computing itself, that could be a bad thing (though I think the threat of that fully happening, in the worst way, at least soon, are small). There are a few people out there who say Windows 7's biggest mistake was that it didn't head more towards cloud computing in even small ways, because Google is already headed that way with it's OS (not that I agree with them or anything, but it shows you that some people really do think the platform and/or OSes should head that way). In that thought, yes, I think it was also a jab at Microsoft.

 

[aceloop]

Well if you hit Ctrl Alt Tab or something like that you can do some terminal.

I think I read this was like a branch of Karmik/Ubuntu, which you can see in terminal.

That is one of the reasons Ubuntu drivers work with it I guess, I confirmed that with my wireless drivers.

my bad CTRL + ALT + T gets you into terminal.