[HN Gopher] Early Access to Chrome OS Flex: The Upgrade PCs and ...
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Early Access to Chrome OS Flex: The Upgrade PCs and Macs
Author : type0
Score : 96 points
Date : 2022-06-19 09:56 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (cloud.google.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (cloud.google.com)
| sorenjan wrote:
| I've had two Google Nexus phones and one Android Wear watch, and
| all three became e-waste before their time purely because Google
| stopped updating them. In the case of the watch Google actually
| started sending out "updates" to their own apps that removed
| functionality from watches with older Android wear, with no
| possibility to update. It had less features when I threw it away
| than it had when I bought it.
|
| I'm using Android on my phone not because I want to use a Google
| made OS, but because it's unfortunately the best option
| available, since I have other issues with Apple. A Google OS will
| never be the best option for my real computer, at least I
| certainly hope so.
|
| I find it slightly hypocritical that the company that
| deliberately stops updating their own phones and computers based
| on dates can claim to want to reduce e-waste.
|
| "Each device has an Auto Update Expiration (AUE) date."
| https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/9367166?hl=en
|
| "Reduce e-waste and extend the life of your existing devices by
| transforming them with a modern OS."
| https://chromeenterprise.google/os/chromeosflex/
| [deleted]
| fartcannon wrote:
| Lineage is always good for older (and certain new) phones.
| Zhenya wrote:
| Not defending Google's actions but it worth noting that not
| updating devices usually has to do with the SoC supplier
| ceasing support for the chip by not shipping BSPs which support
| new OS features. Yes google should have negotiated better
| support but it's lack of support has to do more with inability
| to do so within reasonable means.
|
| They have projects ongoing to decouple OS functionality from
| the base firmware (project treble and project keystone).
|
| https://www.googblogs.com/tag/keystone/
|
| This whole issue is probably one reason that Google went
| through all the trouble to first develop their own support
| silicon and then the main SoC (pixel 6).
| yegle wrote:
| This is well known for Android devices.
|
| If you look for "longest supported Android devices", you
| might find: - Nvidia Shield TV 2015: initially released with
| Android 6 and is currently on Android 11. It uses a CPU from
| Nvidia itself and is expected to continue receiving updates.
| - Nexus Player: initially released with Android 5, last
| updated to Android 8. It uses an Intel CPU and does not
| require special binary blobs to support newer Linux kernels
| required by newer Android versions.
| car_analogy wrote:
| > not updating devices usually has to do with the SoC
| supplier ceasing support for the chip by not shipping BSPs
| which support new OS features
|
| I don't know what a BSP is, but why can I update linux (or
| indeed almost any OS) on my PC without any support from the
| motherboard vendor? What OS features need SoC support, and
| why can the OS not live without them, when it was previously
| able to do so?
|
| This was the case _before_ smartphones. It is not an advanced
| feature of linux, developed later, that Android failed to
| backport. I suspect they broke it deliberately.
|
| To my lay understanding, phone hardware offers approximately
| the same features today as it did a decade ago - make calls,
| connect to the internet, interface with the camera and GPS.
| Occasionally a protocol might change (LTE, 4G, 5G..), but
| maintaining support for a slightly older, still-in-use
| protocol or hardware device, that serves the same basic
| purpose as its new replacement, is the bare minimum - it is
| not a radical divergence of architecture or functionality
| that would make maintaining old versions prohibitively
| difficult.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > I don't know what a BSP is, but why can I update linux
| (or indeed almost any OS) on my PC without any support from
| the motherboard vendor? What OS features need SoC support,
| and why can the OS not live without them, when it was
| previously able to do so?
|
| Basically, PCs have 2 things going for them:
|
| First, they use standardized, enumerable interfaces. You
| can boot an arbitrary Linux-based system and the kernel can
| ask the PCI bus "what hardware is installed?" using the
| same query on every machine, and get back an answer in the
| same format. "Embedded" devices don't have that, generally
| (ARM ServerReady _does_ add this, and _does_ create ARM-
| based hardware where you just stick in a random distro 's
| USB stick and boot and it works).
|
| Second, Linux on PCs tends to use upstream drivers. When
| you run ex. Ubuntu on a laptop, it talks to your ex.
| graphics card using a driver that's in Torvald's official
| tree. For... reasons... that I don't claim to understand
| but that probably involve cost-cutting, Android phones rely
| on drivers that are written by hardware vendors and then
| abandoned without any effort to get included upstream.
|
| So the result is that in many cases you _can_ boot vanilla
| Linux on an arbitrary phone or whatever, but it 'll come up
| with access to the CPU, RAM, and USB (because _that_ is
| still an enumerable bus using a standard interface), but it
| will have no idea how to query the rest of the hardware and
| if it did it wouldn 't have any drivers to talk to that
| hardware with.
|
| Edit: I should mention, a BSP is the ... "solution" that
| vendors use to pretend this whole thing is workable. It
| stands for board support package, which is a giant blob of
| source code that includes at minimum a copy of Linux with
| all their delightfully buggy custom drivers included and
| all the necessary hardware devices hard-coded so the system
| can find the hardware when it boots. And by find, of
| course, I mean "blindly assume it's there". On a good day
| this data is encoded in a device tree, which is a file
| format for "here's what hardware is in this system and how
| to talk to it (ports, memory addresses, whatever) ".
| my123 wrote:
| For Chrome OS not the problem a lot of the time, they drop
| support for devices using commodity SoCs that are still
| supported elsewhere... it's a quite hardcoded expiry date.
|
| And they don't even drop support for all machines using a
| given SoC at the same time.
|
| For Chrome OS updates are wholly owned by Google too.
| Zhenya wrote:
| I am more knowledgeable about the arm / android world.
|
| I do wonder if for the chrome os world there are SoC+BSP vs
| ChromeOS feature requirements that cause this lack of
| ability to support (e.g. trust zone etc)
| my123 wrote:
| > (e.g. trust zone etc)
|
| For chromeOS devices, the boot firmware (incl TZ) is
| owned by Google.
| int_19h wrote:
| > develop their own support silicon and then the main SoC
|
| Their Pixels don't exactly enjoy long support lifecycles,
| either.
| Zhenya wrote:
| Pixels use Qualcomm SoCs up through pixel 5
| [deleted]
| nixcraft wrote:
| I wonder if my older "Samsung Chromebook 2 (2014)" model will
| work with this? Google removed support for that model a long time
| ago.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| ChromeOS Flex is for amd64 chips as far as I can tell and your
| Chromebook actually runs on an ARM chip, so I doubt it'll work
| (for now, at least). You never know, maybe they'll release an
| ARM version in the future, but I sort of doubt it.
| roseway4 wrote:
| It would be fun, and possibly quite useful, to run Flex on
| the Raspberry Pi.
| wffurr wrote:
| I wish they'd make Flex available to out of date Chromebooks.
| You lose secure boot, but you could still get updated Chrome
| versions.
| sboomer wrote:
| It may work if any of the mainstream Linux distros run on your
| pc.
| mdaniel wrote:
| Is there a community of "ChromeOS distros" like how LineageOS
| does with open source Android for older phones?
|
| My only experience trying to build ChromeOS was for "Container-
| Optimized OS" which doesn't have nearly the same "random binary
| blobs" problem as trying to build for a piece of consumer
| hardware
| wffurr wrote:
| There's FydeOS (dunno much about it other than it came up in
| a search for "CloudReady ARM", CloudReady being the name of
| ChromeOS Flex prior to acquisition) or build-it-yourself
| ChromiumOS.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| For x86 chromebooks there's https://mrchromebox.tech/ to
| replace the firmware with a normal UEFI-booting coreboot, and
| then you just install whatever you want on it because now
| it's basically a normal PC.
|
| For ARM chromebooks I'm only aware of
| https://archlinuxarm.org/ and that's still pretty patchy; I
| hope that something comes together (or that it already exists
| and I just haven't found it yet).
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| The ChromeOS equivalent of LineageOS is usually just
| installing a normal linux desktop distro, sometimes one
| that's been been tweaked to have drivers specific to
| chromebook hardware like GalliumOS (https://galliumos.org/)
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I wanted to try this in a VM but the install image seems to lack
| decent drivers for libvirt/kvm/virt-manager/whatever caused
| issues. The cursor was invisible, the system was slow, and the
| system didn't boot after I finally got it to install.
|
| This may say nothing about ChromeOS Flex's actual performance on
| real hardware, but open source virtualisation tech seems like an
| obvious point to start at when you're developing an OS for
| general purpose use.
|
| Hopefully support will be better in time, this could be an
| excellent balance between Windows 11 growing ever more resource
| hungry and Linux being difficult to maintain by novices.
| raggi wrote:
| I was really excited about Flex when I first heard about it. I
| then heard it didn't have Widevine or Android or Linux features.
| I don't know if that changed, but I wouldn't be surprised if not.
| If it did ship those it would be a great distro for a lot of
| people.
| andrewmutz wrote:
| > Linux features
|
| Not sure what you are referring to, but I am writing this post
| from Chrome OS flex and the linux features work perfectly.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| What are the "Linux features" exactly? Can you install
| packages? What distro or packaging format are they based off?
| andrewmutz wrote:
| It's debian. Yes you can install packages. You get a built
| in terminal running bash but you can install a terminal
| program or she'll just fine.
|
| Linux app support is extremely good. Everything works with
| the window manager quite well. Even steam is available for
| games. Only limits I've hit are when interacting with
| hardware devices, but I havent done it enough to tell you
| exactly what the limits are
| elkos wrote:
| can you install Firefox on it?
| andrewmutz wrote:
| Yes
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| Assuming it's the same as normal ChromeOS, it's a
| containerized full linux shell that will run most GUI apps
| in the native window manager. It defaults to Debian, so
| uses standard apt, but you can make a container with any
| distro if you have the know-how.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > I then heard it didn't have Widevine
|
| That would strike me as a bit strange? You can get Widevine in
| open source versions of Chromium just by copying some files,
| e.g. https://ungoogled-software.github.io/ungoogled-chromium-
| wiki... Why lock it out of Chrome OS Flex?
|
| (Not saying Google didn't do it anyway, just that I find it
| odd.)
|
| Edit: Although in a way, I'd welcome more Widevine-incapable
| machines as a disincentive to websites requiring Widevine.
| dagmx wrote:
| Title on HN seems cut off. Missing "have been waiting for" as of
| right now
| DoctorOW wrote:
| Personally I would cut off more. "Early access to Chrome OS
| Flex" is the factual statement about the topic of the post and
| "The upgrade PCs and Macs have been waiting for" isn't
| dagmx wrote:
| Agreed. The latter half is marketing speak and doesn't add
| much of value in providing information
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Meanwhile, the Chromebooks we use at an after-school program
| where I teach are no longer receiving security updates. I'm not
| sure how old the machines are, but they're quite speedy compared
| to other Chromebooks I've used, and perfectly capable of browsing
| the modern web.
|
| I love the idea of Chrome OS Flex, but I wish Google extended the
| same support to hardware _designed_ for Chrome OS...
| [deleted]
| car_analogy wrote:
| Meanwhile 20 year old machines running linux still get updates.
| How is it that software support became tied to specific
| hardware? This used to be a solved problem, but with a lot of
| effort and ingenuity, a few corporations un-solved it, first
| for smartphones, tablets, and now for whatever Chromebooks
| count as.
| realce wrote:
| I feel like "unsolving" problems is becoming the only way to
| make a good buck in IT anymore.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Nobody makes money off of a 20 year old machine. This is
| planned obsolescence to maintain demand.
| [deleted]
| boddhi wrote:
| I suspect Google will eventually use Chrome OS Flex as a
| subscription service to provide extended Hardware/Software
| support for Education and Enterprise. They came up with Chrome
| OS Flex after buying Neverware in 2020, which already provided
| Chrome OS support for Education and Enterprise.
| karmakaze wrote:
| Yeah, as I was reading the page I was wonder who this is
| really for, the links in the last paragraph were a tip-off.
|
| > Visit the Chrome OS Flex _website_ to learn more, get
| installation instructions, and see certified devices.
| Additionally, if you want to combine modern computing with
| cloud-first management, you can _start a free trial_ of
| Chrome Enterprise Upgrade to secure and manage your Chrome OS
| Flex devices.
|
| The free trial link says:
|
| > Chrome Enterprise Upgrade provides a simple and secure way
| to manage your Chrome OS devices in the admin console.
|
| > Sign up for a free 30-day trial of the Chrome Enterprise
| Upgrade and enroll up to 50 existing Chromebooks in your
| organization.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| For those maintaining a machine for older relatives: I found that
| switching them to Chrome OS has really taken the burden off me as
| their sole tech support. No installable applications means no
| vector for adware to convince them to fall into a cycle of
| installing other adware until the machine is bloated beyond
| functionality.
| leejoramo wrote:
| Love how Google is advocating this for cost savings and
| sustainability.
|
| If only my School District could use Chrome OS Flex to get some
| more life out of the fleet 4 year old Chromebook's that can no
| longer get updates
| wmf wrote:
| Replacing an EOL version of Chrome OS with a different version
| of Chrome OS makes no sense.
| rufugee wrote:
| I think their point is that Google is forcing perfectly good
| hardware into obsolescence unnecessarily.
| wmf wrote:
| Exactly. It makes no sense that Chrome OS gets 6 years of
| updates but Chrome OS Flex gets 10+ years.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Whoosh.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| It's very possible those chromebooks were underpowered to begin
| with. At some point the hardware really is dead.
| andrewmutz wrote:
| I am writing this comment on Chrome OS Flex and can not say
| enough good things about Chrome OS Flex. I installed it on my
| wife's old macbook air (~2013) and it brought new life to a
| machine that we had written off as useless.
|
| The OS does a great job of exactly two things: web browsing and
| linux stuff. It won't do more than that, but if that's all you
| need it is great.
|
| I honestly think you could make some decent cash just by buying 9
| year old laptops off the internet, installing chrome OS flex, and
| selling them as perfectly usable chromebooks.
|
| Any questions about what the OS can do? AMA
| iainmerrick wrote:
| How well does the trackpad work?
|
| Mac trackpads are terrific, and I don't know if that's down to
| the hardware, firmware or software -- I assume a combination of
| all three.
| dijit wrote:
| Last time I ran chromeOS it was those unofficial builds by a
| guy called "Lex", needless to say it was a long time ago.
|
| Back then it wasn't possible to run anything other than Chrome
| itself outside of dev mode, but I've seen people
| running/installing VSCode on chromeOS (not in the web browser).
| Is that feasible?
|
| At the same time as I was seeing this, it appeared that the OS
| actually has a windowing system now, so you can move windows
| around and have one on top of the other, is that the case? Any
| quirks with that?
| bitwize wrote:
| Microsoft has a whole blog post about VSCode on Chromebooks
| in their Crostini Linux environment. Which is just... gah:
|
| https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2020/12/03/chromebook-
| ge...
|
| I mean, the fact that it can be done is neat, but on most
| entry-level Chromebooks it will be a memory hog, and you
| might be better served with vim or emacs (one or both of
| which should be learned to functional competence levels by
| every programmer), because then you'd have more room for
| running stuff.
| alexnewman wrote:
| The days of underpowered chromebooks is gone.
| doubled112 wrote:
| They're still pretty brutal.
|
| The BestBuy around the corner from me, for example, is
| selling an Asus Chromebook with a Celeron N3350/4GB
| RAM/64GB eMMC and 15.6" 720p screen for $400 CAD.
|
| Is this not underpowered? Sure there are other options,
| but to most people the appeal was the low cost. For $799,
| I'd just buy a PC.
| alexnewman wrote:
| my 4 core top of the line intel 10th gen i7 with 16GB of
| ram i got for 750$ begs to differ
| bitwize wrote:
| A number of models with 4 GiB RAM are still floating
| around out there; I consider that underpowered if you are
| going to be running a browser + heavyweight apps (Visual
| Studio Code is heavyweight). For Windows 1x, 4 GiB is
| barely usable; ChromeOS does better but today's memory-
| hungry apps can take that advantage away.
| andrewmutz wrote:
| By default, there is only web browsers and no Linux. Which is
| nice because by default there can be no malware and it's a
| good OS for non technical users.
|
| But with one click it installs and makes available Linux. It
| appears to the user as a debain variant. You can install
| anything and when you run apps they seamlessly work with the
| window manager. I've used VScode for software development and
| it works great. Steam is even available for games, but I
| haven't tried it.
|
| Window manager is the right balance of powerful and simple.
| Great at manipulating web browser windows (has virtual
| desktops if you want them), but works fine interacting with
| Linux apps as well.
| fartcannon wrote:
| What makes you think websites can't give you malware for
| your Chromebook?
|
| That's like the number one way to get it.
| andrewmutz wrote:
| What are you referring to? Chrome extensions?
| fartcannon wrote:
| I'm referring to the fact that it's connected to the
| internet.
| boddhi wrote:
| What's also great is you can install apps through Flatpak
| and Chrome OS Flex will recognize it and you can pin it to
| your shelf. There's a fork of VSCode called VSCodium
| through Flatpak, which doesn't send telemetry to Microsoft.
| I've also installed Steam, Discord, Libreoffice in Flatpak
| without any issues.
| 5d8767c68926 wrote:
| Is it Google in name only or does it send telemetry of my
| every click to the mother ship? Would be interested in
| trying it as a VSCode remote development + minimal Linux
| utilities platform.
| andrewmutz wrote:
| I don't know what sort of telemetry exists. It is easy to
| try out. From my memory you can use the install USB just
| as a normal boot drive without installing. So you can go
| try it out and see if you like it before you install it
| kybernetyk wrote:
| Is there a terminal emulator included? What shell is installed
| by default?
| boddhi wrote:
| ChromeOS has their own terminal app. It installs BASH by
| default and the linux distro is Debian.
| ASpaceCowboi wrote:
| you influenced me to install it on my 2011 macbook pro! Thank
| you
| prmoustache wrote:
| What does it do better than simply installing any decent linux
| distro?
| jeffbee wrote:
| The difference between ChromeOS and any Linux distro is like
| night and day. The software updates are automatic,
| unobtrusive, and almost instantaneous. Multitouch input stack
| actually works. You can attach and detach displays as you
| like without anything weird happening. And all the binaries
| are highly optimized with profile guidance and link-time
| optimization.
| prmoustache wrote:
| > The software updates are automatic, unobtrusive, and
| almost instantaneous. Multitouch input stack actually
| works. You can attach and detach displays as you like
| without anything weird happening.
|
| I don't know about that multitouch thing and what it
| provides (is it similar to using 2 fingers to scroll down),
| I never have any weird thing happening when I attach/detach
| display and I would describe my software update as
| automatic, unobtrusive and fast on my fedora laptops.
|
| No idea what "binaries highly optimized with profile
| guidance and link-time optimization" are though.
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| > No idea what "binaries highly optimized with profile
| guidance and link-time optimization" are though.
|
| PGO is a thing where you record runtime information about
| the program to optimize better later.
| https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13881292/
| alexnewman wrote:
| The interaction between xwindows and native chrome is
| sickkkk!
| andrewmutz wrote:
| The UX is extremely easy to use. For most users, you're just
| using web browsers and the window manager for chrome os is
| designed for just manipulating browser windows.
|
| Unless you install Linux stuff (most users don't) you can't
| download any software. This means no malware is possible.
|
| It guides you to store everything in the cloud, which allows
| you to treat your workstations as cattle rather than pets.
| sorenjan wrote:
| Can you install Firefox?
| mattlondon wrote:
| Yes. You can also install vscode etc. Seamlessly
| integrated into the UI - cannot tell the difference
| between "native" ChromeOS apps and e.g. Firefox etc.
|
| At least on "normal" Chromebooks anyway you can - I have
| no direct experience or knowledge of flex.
| alexnewman wrote:
| It's a full fledged Debian
| prmoustache wrote:
| Doesn't seem so extraordinary then. I would treat the last
| point as a con more than a pro though.
| mbreese wrote:
| It's not supposed to be extraordinary. It's supposed to
| be simple and cheap and robust and working. Storing data
| in the cloud is part of that contract -- if something
| happens to your computer (physical damage), you can get
| up and working very quickly with a new one. As in -- you
| buy a new computer, sign in, and you're done.
|
| It's not a set of trade offs that work for everyone, but
| it works well for many environments. I would have loved
| these back I the day when I had to maintain Windows
| clients for people to just turn around and use RDP to
| connect to a terminal server. Having a light weight
| client (that was secure) would have made that scenario
| much nicer.
| derefr wrote:
| Be left with your grandmother for 10 years without needing
| any kind of maintenance or repair.
| Crontab wrote:
| I am typing this on a mid-2013 Macbook Air and it doesn't feel
| useless to me - although I maxed out the RAM to 8GB when I
| ordered it.
| Angostura wrote:
| That's odd. My wife is still using a mid-2013 MacBook Air as a
| daily driver - using MacOS, and it's fine or browsing, Office,
| e-mail etc etc. In what way was yours 'useless'?
| raydiatian wrote:
| Why do you smell like a paid shill
| merwanedr wrote:
| Ha, for a minute I thought Google _actually_ built a Cloud-native
| OS. Maybe I 'm wrong, but I don't really see the use-case for
| this. Sounds like it could be an orchestration solution for
| schools or bootcamps at best. What's incredible about real cloud-
| native operating systems is that "OS" is merely an acronym. The
| reality is that companies like Mighty are working on cloud-native
| computers, where even hardware upgradability is handled without
| you having to pay attention.
|
| The endgame is that you don't have upgrade your laptop anymore,
| not just install apps fast.
| csouza-f wrote:
| Maybe I had the same perception as you. Seems like, removing
| the marketing thing of the Google's website, this is just the
| Chrome OS but with support for devices that are not designed
| for run Chrome OS, that's why "Flex" appended in the name. This
| is super nice, by the way.
|
| My first thought, not knowing very much about Chrome OS
| history, was that the OS is just a ground to run the system
| that will connect with some machine in the cloud that will do
| all complicated-processing things and you'll just visualize
| that, like a VNC. But, seems not like it.
| dijit wrote:
| What would a cloud native OS look like to you?
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > for a minute I thought Google actually built a Cloud-native
| OS
|
| I'm curious how you would define a cloud-native OS that doesn't
| include Chrome OS.
|
| > The endgame is that you don't have upgrade your laptop
| anymore, not just install apps fast.
|
| How are Chromebooks not already this? The whole thing is just a
| way to run a browser that connects to the real workloads in the
| cloud, and hardware is only obsolete when it stops getting
| updates (which is _very_ "cloud native" behavior - the device
| lives and dies at the will of some remote company that manages
| it for you).
| fartcannon wrote:
| Schools should be using Linux (or a BSD) exclusively. And
| preferably, open format alternatives to anything locked down.
| Proprietary software is fine if the data is easily exported to
| another format.
|
| Transforming a perfectly good Linux machine into a Google data
| pipeline is a horrible thing to do to children.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I'd love to see you maintain 800 linux laptops kept in the
| hands of kids.
|
| "What do you mean you recompiled ALSA and now you can't join
| Zoom little Timmy? Did you try invoking modprobe again?"
| fartcannon wrote:
| "Timmy, you recompiled alsa? That's kind of impressive. I'm
| going to give you some more challenging work to try and help
| develop your computer skills. We sure are lucky that we have
| open computers that let you do things besides consume YouTube
| and be spied on."
| sokoloff wrote:
| zizee wrote:
| If it is anything like my kids school, the maintenance would
| be exactly the same regardless of the OS. The students are
| instructed to keep everything in their synced drive, and they
| reimage machines at the drop of a hat.
| moondev wrote:
| If Chrome OS Flex supported running android apps and google play
| like upstream it would be a game changer.
| jpalomaki wrote:
| Is there more detailed information about supported hardware?
|
| I'm especially interested if this supports proper sleep on
| Intel/Lenovo hardware (instant on, not draining battery too
| quickly).
| SoftTalker wrote:
| With Google's track record for discontinuing products, would you
| commit to moving your school or business to this OS?
|
| Yes, schools and businesses often replace technology on a
| schedule, but standardizing on an OS is a longer-term decision
| than desktop replacement.
| [deleted]
| e-clinton wrote:
| Agreed. This is def good for the industry as it'll push
| Microsoft to be more competitive
| minerva23 wrote:
| You shouldn't be getting downvoted for that. It's a fair
| question for those educated in Google's history of cancelling
| products and uneducated in Chrome OS.
|
| A lot of people are unaware that Google is deeply committed in
| the OS space. Apart from Android, which they saw/see as an
| existential need for their business, Chrome OS fills a similar
| space on the desktop (especially as MS ramps up their
| anticompetitive efforts with their own browser again).
|
| Google also uses a chromium build internally in GCP/GKE, so the
| OS is being maintained for servers as well.
|
| Lastly, Chrome OS has been around for a long time and is based
| off an open source project with passionate maintainers.
| Closi wrote:
| Lol at the comment around Microsoft's "anti-competitive
| efforts" which were making IE a core part of Windows, in a
| thread about Chrome OS which makes Chrome core to the OS, and
| in a world where Chrome has the dominant market share and is
| solidifying it by building it into their products.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| I'm not sure that those are really the same; Google already
| had Chrome and then made an OS to run it, while MS had OS
| dominance and used that to force everyone to have IE. The
| analog would be if Google made Chrome automatically add a
| ChromeOS dual-boot option to every Windows PC it was
| installed on.
| sboomer wrote:
| I would have loved to have this as my secondary os. It's shame
| that one cannot multi boot this. I'm looking for a way to multi
| boot this.
| LoveMortuus wrote:
| Sorry if this is a stupid question, but what does "cloud first"
| mean in the context of an operating system, does it mean that you
| need to always be connected to the internet to use it, like can
| you use the computer offline?
| fartcannon wrote:
| It means you're renting it and they're using your data for
| profit.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| It uses Google Drive (or similar) to store all your files.
| There is a local drive used for caching so you can work offline
| entirely but the idea is that the workstation is "cattle" - you
| can throw it into a shredder, log into a new chromebook and
| have all your apps/files/etc installed and ready to go.
|
| The selling point for these are light computer users.
| LoveMortuus wrote:
| That sounds pretty cool, having access to all of your file
| from any computer that you login. But would guess that you'd
| have to pay quite a lot for such a luxury especially if you
| store more then just text files and such.
|
| Thanks for the explanation! ^o^
| kennywinker wrote:
| In the 1990s Microsoft was heavily criticized, and litigated
| against, for the deep integration of internet explorer with
| windows, and their monopoly on operating systems and web
| browsing. Stunning to think that people are willingly installing
| chrome the browsers, and chrome the os in 2022.
| LoveMortuus wrote:
| It is actually possible to install non-chrome browsers on
| ChromeOS either through the App store or just via the console.
|
| But I totally understand your point and the options I've listed
| aren't either user friendly or straight up require you to be
| able to use a console.
| kennywinker wrote:
| It was always possible to install netscape navigator over top
| of windows. The crux of the issue was that it was
| "unreasonably difficult".
| shadowgovt wrote:
| As history has unfolded, it seems to have become increasingly
| clear that the antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft in the 90s
| was ill-conceived. At the very least, it doesn't appear to have
| been based upon any underlying philosophy of monopoly that
| shows any consistency, for the very reasons you've indicated.
| [deleted]
| timnetworks wrote:
| I don't want to downvote the post, just the subject, and I wonder
| if it should have been 'downgrade' instead.
| alexnewman wrote:
| I love my new flex machines. My favorite Linux distro is that VM.
| Wish it had android going
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Does Flex not have that android-on-chromebook feature?
| PascLeRasc wrote:
| This looks really great. Here's the installation guide that they
| make you put in an email to get to:
| https://support.google.com/chromeosflex/answer/11552529
| jeroenhd wrote:
| You don't actually need to provide an email address if you have
| Google Chrome installed.
|
| You can use the Chromebook recovery tool (a browser extension)
| to write an installer image to a flash drive. I'm pretty sure
| you need 8GB of space or more. Others have intercepted and
| extracted the downloaded image, but I never cared enough to use
| that approach.
|
| This process doesn't work with all Chromium derived browsers,
| though, probably because they added extra permissions to the
| extension because I wouldn't normally want a browser extension
| to have raw disk access.
|
| https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chromebook-recover...
| [deleted]
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