Another OS, Chrome OS

[andruoid]

Didn't want to hyjack the WinOS thread so...

Has anyone tried ChromeOS? Hexxeh is making builds for running off USB keys and there is also an option to install, wipes the drive btw. All the details can be found here; Chromium OS builds by Hexxeh

After making the recovery USB disk and imaging my W7 drive to an external drive I thought, why not install ChromeOS. After initially testing it out on a USB key I had nothing to lose by installing it to the hard drive. Everything gets wiped if you do this so take the necessary precautions and backup everything you want to keep.

So far it is a very interesting experience. ChromeOS is a browser interface and that is pretty much it (from what I have seen so far) You have a single, Chrome browser with tabs as per normal. Plug in a USB key and a tab opens, open file manager and another tab opens, etc. There is no Start button or Menu, File, Edit, etc.

Everything is linked to your Google account so its in the "cloud" (lets find a new name please!) Anyway, I uploaded some files; .doc and .pdf which get viewed in a new tab. Not sure if I'll continue with it, maybe for the next few days to give it a chance. One thing it is is very fast. Definitely recommend it for a USB test drive if nothing else.

 

[linuxrich]

I've got it (Chromium OS) installed using Virtualbox. I haven't had much time to play with it but my initial impressions were it seems to do what it's supposed to do very well. Personally, I'd rather use a netbook with a light Linux distro installed on it or an Android device. (Tablet, phone whatever.)

 

[ToastPwnz]

I gave it a whirl when I got my CR-48, but I never used it that much. Its nice for a while, but theres some stuff from "typical" OS's that I missed having.

 

[jwp1223]

I am still interesting buying a Chromebook, so whenever I actually have the extra money to do it, I look forward to using it.

 

[mikedt]

I've seen the Samsung Chromebooks on sale in the UK and China. Quite a lot of money though for something that is only a browser and has no local storage and no local productivity applications.

The things cost about the same as full-blown Windows laptops. I'm trying to think of anyone who'd actually buy one, IMO an Android tablet would be a better option. No internet and Chromebooks basically become bricks

 

[andruoid]

Took Chrome OS off, although it is a simple OS to run. Too simple imho as I like to tweak and play around with settings.

Ubuntu 11.10 is on with Fluxbox which upon login uses 168MB RAM, insanity!

 

[A.Nonymous]

I've seen the Samsung Chromebooks on sale in the UK and China. Quite a lot of money though for something that is only a browser and has no local storage and no local productivity applications.

The things cost about the same as full-blown Windows laptops. I'm trying to think of anyone who'd actually buy one, IMO an Android tablet would be a better option. No internet and Chromebooks basically become bricks

I've used the OS just to mess around with. I was unimpressed with it for all the reasons listed above - lack of local storage, lack of local productivity apps and the fact that if there is no Internet connection they are completely useless. I was listening to a podcast once where someone had taken their Chromebook on vacation figuring they'd use it just to keep up with email and social networks. Then they found that they didn't have connectivity in many of the places they were and it was completely useless.

The cost is a big thing as well. On Amazon, they run ~$400 or so. For that price I can get a decent laptop. Why would I choose a Chromebook over a laptop? I can toss Chrome on the laptop and get all the functionality of a Chromebook plus have the added abilities of a laptop. I see them as a very niche product and I'm not sure that niche really exists.

 

[andruoid]

This is one reason why MS dropped Active Desktop ...remember that ugly beast?

 

[andruoid]

Just a quick note here, if installed directly on your HDD it creates 16(!) partitions.

 

[jwp1223]

I've seen the Samsung Chromebooks on sale in the UK and China. Quite a lot of money though for something that is only a browser and has no local storage and no local productivity applications.

The things cost about the same as full-blown Windows laptops. I'm trying to think of anyone who'd actually buy one, IMO an Android tablet would be a better option. No internet and Chromebooks basically become bricks

Pretty sure I can buy one for pretty cheap off of Craigslist or Ebay. Also I have no problems with not having internet since I have Wifi in my apartment building, and I have wifi at work, and at my church, hell I can find wifi anywhere in my city.

 

[A.Nonymous]

Pretty sure I can buy one for pretty cheap off of Craigslist or Ebay. Also I have no problems with not having internet since I have Wifi in my apartment building, and I have wifi at work, and at my church, hell I can find wifi anywhere in my city.

But if you travel with it and you're in a plane, or at a hotel or on a subway, or even at a friend's house, you may not have wifi access. Then it's useless. Whereas a netbook purchased for the same price is still usuable offline.

 

[jwp1223]

But if you travel with it and you're in a plane, or at a hotel or on a subway, or even at a friend's house, you may not have wifi access. Then it's useless. Whereas a netbook purchased for the same price is still usuable offline.

That's why it pays to have an Android phone and Wifi hotspot .

 

[andruoid]

The concept has a place, I suppose. However, I prefer to keep the majority of my data on external drives (I have 2 for redundancy) and the most used files on my computer. I don't think I'd ever trust a site to keep my data on.

The purchase of a computer is so it can be used at anytime to run apps and files you require. Streaming apps and files from a single location is a single point of failure. We left the mainframe era for a reason.

 

[A.Nonymous]

That's why it pays to have an Android phone and Wifi hotspot .

But if you're riding in a car, going through the mountains somewhere or the boonies just about anywhere, you'll get no 4G at all, no reliable 3G and you'll be lucky to get Edge coverage. Then the thing is useless.

 

[mikedt]

But if you're riding in a car, going through the mountains somewhere or the boonies just about anywhere, you'll get no 4G at all, no reliable 3G and you'll be lucky to get Edge coverage. Then the thing is useless.

Just like my situation for the last three weeks. Was spending the Lunar New Year with friends on their farm in the mountains of SW Hubei province, no wifi, no wired internet, no 3G, just EDGE and CDMA, which was patchy. It actually made me think what a useless thing a Chromebook is, plus if my stuff was in the cloud, that I couldn't get to it. I could still get to my favourite forums okay, read the news online and get email, although it was very slow. Couldn't stream anything, fortunately I've got a short-wave radio so I could still listen to the BBC and VOA.

I did mention earlier that I've seen Chromebooks on sale in China for 4000 RMB, which is a whopping $600 (USD). Don't quite know how one would do any productivity with one of these things, there's no Google Docs here. Just seems like a very expensive way of surfing the internet.

 

[jwp1223]

But if you're riding in a car, going through the mountains somewhere or the boonies just about anywhere, you'll get no 4G at all, no reliable 3G and you'll be lucky to get Edge coverage. Then the thing is useless.

Well, I wouldn't be using my laptop in the car anyways, because usually that means I am driving....and I don't even talk on my phone unless I have bluetooth, if I don't have bluetooth, I turn it on Airplane mode and put it on the charger. Any other smart ideas?

No? Good.

 

[Isthmus]

Personally I think that ChromeOS should be folded into Android and that google should build a version of Android for Desktops.

I envision something that boots instantly right into ChromeOS while the rest of the Android system boots up in the background, thus allowing you virtually immediate cloud based functionality on a desktop. You could even choose to ONLY boot into chrome, say if you needed to look up something quickly online and didn't want to fully turn on a computer that has been turned off.

The chrome side of things would be similar to ICS for tablets and would be deeply linked to all things google as well as relying on versions of the same Google apps that run on mobile, but optimize for ICS and taking advantage of larger screen dimensions. I envision touch interface to be retained, but also better keyboard and touchpad/mouse controls than currently exist. lastly I would bundle a Google fork of Libre office specifically designed to have deep automatic integration with Google docs and Google+, but allowing users to have local editing control.

I would love to have such a system and have a common ecosystem between my phone, tablet and desktop/laptop, much how I currently have with my IOs devices and the Mac.

Imagine if Google did the entire thing open sourced and released it to desktop and laptop OEMs.

A guy can dream right?

If only there was a way to have a bunch of people pitch it to Google.

 

[A.Nonymous]

I don't see a future for Chrome OS on the desktop. It's got limited access to hardware resources and just doesn't fit on the desktop. Windows is far more powerful and has more functionality as does Linux if you prefer the open source route. It just doesn't fit on a desktop. A desktop user will want far, far more functionality than Chrome offers.

The only long term place I see Chrome is on a tablet. Take something like the Transformer Prime. Have it out of the doc and it's pure ICS. Beautiful. Dock it in the keyboard dock and you've got Chrome. That is a use case I could see people wanting.