Google Chrome OS

I have heard rumors for years and now finally an official statement, move over Microsoft :p. I can't wait to see what they can develop.
 
sunds interesting,wondering on what platform this is going to be on
 
its about time. sounds exciting. i cant wait either. i want to see what the 'desktop" is gonna look like or what ever they might call it. we really need another popular os on the market.
 
Topic belongs in the Linux section. It ain't really a "new OS". It's just a new desktop environment for Linux.
 
They make it sound just like gOS, which everyone assumed was Google :p
 
If Ubuntu on netbooks was any indication for how this may turn out for Google ...
 
Talk about ego.
And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates
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Don't have to deal with security updates? Uh-HUH. Either they think their code is perfect (no such thing, hence ego) or they're secretly updating in the background and installing stuff without my consent or awareness (an unforgivable dealbreaker).

Plus, I do plenty more with my machines than surf the web. Not to mention I prefer my computers to keep working when Comcast starts sucking (which is often enough). No thanks.
 
rflcptr said:
If Ubuntu on netbooks was any indication for how this may turn out for Google ...
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I lol'd for real!

Yeah, there's good reason manufacturers bung Windows on Netbooks. No good loading them up with something people simply don't want.
 
Catweazle said:
Topic belongs in the Linux section. It ain't really a "new OS". It's just a new desktop environment for Linux.
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It's more like Google used Linux or similar to create a minimalistic environment which can directly launch Chrome. There doesn't appear to be any intention to run other applications on it from what I have read so far.
 
Elledan said:
There doesn't appear to be any intention to run other applications on it from what I have read so far.
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Yes there is. It's just that the apps are intended to be a wholly 'cloud computing' experience, rather than a local machine experience.
 
Catweazle said:
Yes there is. It's just that the apps are intended to be a wholly 'cloud computing' experience, rather than a local machine experience.
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Yep this is what I gathered too. Nothing but a slim OS that will more or less launch only Chrome and all applications will be web based.

That'll be good for netbooks, although I still see Windows winning that fight, but overall I think this will only receive mediocre attention in the computer world.

Linux is Linux no matter who it's coming from. Don't get me wrong I use Linux daily but the Average Joe doesn't want it. They want Windows because it's what they know.
 
Remember a couple years ago when somebopy monitored non-windows, non-mac, non-unix, non-known OS packets coming from google and everyone was blowing it off as "they are just masking the desktop OS they use" ... lol
 
Vermillion said:
That'll be good for netbooks, although I still see Windows winning that fight....
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Windows already won it. At best, Linux on netbooks only achieved about 5% market acceptance. The marketplace already spoke and made clear statement that it's not really a computer unless it runs Windows!
 
Catweazle said:
Windows already won it. At best, Linux on netbooks only achieved about 5% market acceptance. The marketplace already spoke and made clear statement that it's not really a computer unless it runs Windows!
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This is true.

Can't wait to get a look at the EULA for Chrome OS though. Wonder if they'll have that same piece from Chrome browser about possibly putting ads directly in the browser in the future. Ads in my OS that's what I want!!! :rolleyes:
 
Catweazle said:
Yes there is. It's just that the apps are intended to be a wholly 'cloud computing' experience, rather than a local machine experience.
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Oh of course, but I doubt they'll make it easy to install/run other than 'approved' applications. Don't expect to just run Firefox on it or so without jumping through some hoops.

I could be wrong, though :)
 
This will hinge on the apps that are released with it. If there is a office suite app, a music app, a picture app, etc. It could work well. People want to surf the web, yes. But they want to do other things too. It needs to fall somewhere between a smart phone OS (iphone, pre, BB) and a full on xp experience. Quick and light, but with a little more power to do actual work.
 
ryken said:
This will hinge on the apps that are released with it. If there is a office suite app, a music app, a picture app, etc. It could work well. People want to surf the web, yes. But they want to do other things too. It needs to fall somewhere between a smart phone OS (iphone, pre, BB) and a full on xp experience. Quick and light, but with a little more power to do actual work.
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Bingo, computers are just web clients, they are many, many, other things these days and over time people are begining to do more and more with there computers. The problem any Linux client device is going to face is not having the simply limitless Windows support in hardware and software. This is not easy to duplicate. If it were someone would have done it already. That said, Windows needs to continue to add feature and function that make it unique in my opionion. It is still the ONLY major dekstop OS to support exstensive OS level support for pen and multi-touch with the arival of 7 (though many are saying that Apple will announce their own tablets in the near future).
 
Elledan said:
Oh of course, but I doubt they'll make it easy to install/run other than 'approved' applications. Don't expect to just run Firefox on it or so without jumping through some hoops.

I could be wrong, though :)
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Yep, that's one of the main "benefits" Android has for Google. Of course it will be hacked, but the world at large won't care. Since it doesn't use the GNU stack I agree there are going to be a lot of hoops to port desktop Linux software. It will be in the same situation as Maemo.
 
very interested in seeing this. It would seem that PC's would be about 7.5 billion times faster than mac or win 7 because of the tiny footprint.

I imagine googles OS will be under 1GB or maybe even around 500mb
 
Headbust said:
very interested in seeing this. It would seem that PC's would be about 7.5 billion times faster than mac or win 7 because of the tiny footprint.

I imagine googles OS will be under 1GB or maybe even around 500mb
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I think that's vastly overstated. Sure Linux can be faster but not always and not it not always on top of that. I really, really appreciate Windows. There's just some much support for it, so many apps, its just a wonderfully powerful and so diverse when it comes to third party support.
 
heatlesssun said:
Bingo, computers are just web clients, they are many, many, other things these days and over time people are begining to do more and more with there computers. The problem any Linux client device is going to face is not having the simply limitless Windows support in hardware and software. This is not easy to duplicate. If it were someone would have done it already. That said, Windows needs to continue to add feature and function that make it unique in my opionion. It is still the ONLY major dekstop OS to support exstensive OS level support for pen and multi-touch with the arival of 7 (though many are saying that Apple will announce their own tablets in the near future).
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I don't know about how important pen and multi-touch is to the netbook experience. Pen doesn't work great because you can just type things faster. Touch screen would be nice, but it drives the price up too high right now. A big mutli-touch trackpad ala macbook would be very friendly.

I would love a small device that functions like my ipod touch, but with a hard keyboard. Something that is lighter and smaller than my macbook, can do almost as much, and works on 1-4 apps at a time. Let me watch hulu, work on a paper, check email, im, and have a web browser up at the same time. Make it snappy, make its battery last a long time.
 
heatlesssun said:
I think that's vastly overstated. Sure Linux can be faster but not always and not it not always on top of that. I really, really appreciate Windows. There's just some much support for it, so many apps, its just a wonderfully powerful and so diverse when it comes to third party support.
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To be honest, you could have reversed Windows and Linux in that post and it would have been just as true.
 
ryken said:
I don't know about how important pen and multi-touch is to the netbook experience. Pen doesn't work great because you can just type things faster. Touch screen would be nice, but it drives the price up too high right now. A big mutli-touch trackpad ala macbook would be very friendly.

I would love a small device that functions like my ipod touch, but with a hard keyboard. Something that is lighter and smaller than my macbook, can do almost as much, and works on 1-4 apps at a time. Let me watch hulu, work on a paper, check email, im, and have a web browser up at the same time. Make it snappy, make its battery last a long time.
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I've heard the keyboard is faster than a pen a million times. Guess what, not always! I'm inking thing note in the bed with one hand. Can you type graphs and pictures and symbols faster then write them? Probably not. Touch devices costing too much? Think again. A basic tx2z machines (my current primary tablet oc) costs less than a lot of Mac models.
 
devman said:
To be honest, you could have reversed Windows and Linux in that post and it would have been just as true.
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Yes and no. Linux has a lot third party support. Windows had a lot more. Sure, there's a lot of FOSS on Linux, much of which is multi-platform anyway. Linux games? Legal and solid support for things like Blu-Ray, phones, mp3 players, games, etc..? Not exactly.

The Linux crowd that hurts its cause by saying that Linux 3rd party support is the same as Windows. I'm no Linux guru. But with all of the hardware and software I buy and having Linux boxen to play with I know just how often a Linux stud will claim "Linux is plag and play with 'x'" only to find out in real life such is often not the case.

I simply get tired of being told that 1% of the desktop/laptop market receives the same amount as 90%. That's not true. Linux will never be sucessful as an everyday, eveyman OS if its proponents knowingly oversell it.
 
It looks like Google made the OS and Fisher-Price designed the GUI. Big, bold, colorful icons! :p

This will be interesting to follow. It may find its way onto a second drive in my PC if it can handle multiple video cards.
 
It seems like you've all missed a key point about this release - Google will be releasing it for Intel *and* ARM platforms, which indicates that there's already a commitment from manufacturers to build such things. ARM netbooks will be far more energy efficient than the current generation, and are highly likely to not even need active cooling or thick heatsinks - not to mention the fact that the platform itself is much cheaper.

If a netbook running ChromeOS cost $150 and the "equivalent" (in marketing speak) from the Intel camp (running whatever OS you fancy) cost $300 as seems the average these days, do you honestly believe that the average non-gadget-obsessed consumer who just wants a small computer is going to pick the more expensive one? Especially since there are significant restrictions on what you can do with the netbook editions of Win7.
 
:LJ: said:
...Especially since there are significant restrictions on what you can do with the netbook editions of Win7.
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I can't find any mention of a netbook edition of Windows 7 on any of the official sites. Got a link of it and what the significant restrictions are?
 
maddude0025 said:
I can't find any mention of a netbook edition of Windows 7 on any of the official sites. Got a link of it and what the significant restrictions are?
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It's the Starter Edition:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions

Check out the comparison chart. To not even be able to change your wallpaper...I know it's not a critical thing, but still...a pointless and arbitrary restriction, to say the least.
 
:LJ: said:
It seems like you've all missed a key point about this release - Google will be releasing it for Intel *and* ARM platforms, which indicates that there's already a commitment from manufacturers to build such things. ARM netbooks will be far more energy efficient than the current generation, and are highly likely to not even need active cooling or thick heatsinks - not to mention the fact that the platform itself is much cheaper.

If a netbook running ChromeOS cost $150 and the "equivalent" (in marketing speak) from the Intel camp (running whatever OS you fancy) cost $300 as seems the average these days, do you honestly believe that the average non-gadget-obsessed consumer who just wants a small computer is going to pick the more expensive one? Especially since there are significant restrictions on what you can do with the netbook editions of Win7.
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Yes, they will pay more. We've already seen it with netbooks as it is. People gladly paid $50+ for Windows versus Ubuntu. Average Joe doesn't want Linux. Period. End of story. No matter how many distros are out there Linux is still Linux and people don't want it because they are familiar with Windows.

And saying Starter is the netbook edition is very wrong. Many people here on [H] have already loaded up Windows 7 Ultimate RC on their netbooks and they're running great. I think you'll find Windows 7 Home Premium will be the netbook OS of choice when it comes to Windows 7.
 
Vermillion said:
Yes, they will pay more. We've already seen it with netbooks as it is. People gladly paid $50+ for Windows versus Ubuntu. Average Joe doesn't want Linux. Period. End of story. No matter how many distros are out there Linux is still Linux and people don't want it because they are familiar with Windows.

And saying Starter is the netbook edition is very wrong. Many people here on [H] have already loaded up Windows 7 Ultimate RC on their netbooks and they're running great. I think you'll find Windows 7 Home Premium will be the netbook OS of choice when it comes to Windows 7.
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It's a brand thing, not a usability thing. Something supported by Google is always going to have a good shot at success - I'm not saying it'll wipe Windows from the face of the planet, just that it will be successful. It'll be all the more successful for the fact that the ARM versions will be slimmer, have batteries that last a lot longer and will probably be around half the price.

Starter Edition is the one which most netbooks will come with, since it allows manufacturers to get closer to the original intended price point for netbooks. Even the Home Premium will (to my knowledge) still add around $50 to the price.

Besides, you're ignoring the economic reality that at $150 (yes, I'm guessing, but that's the price of existing ARM-based laptop-style devices) there are a hell of a lot of people who'll consider buying, who wouldn't ever buy a netbook at current prices - it'll expand the market.
 
:LJ: said:
Besides, you're ignoring the economic reality that at $150 (yes, I'm guessing, but that's the price of existing ARM-based laptop-style devices) there are a hell of a lot of people who'll consider buying, who wouldn't ever buy a netbook at current prices - it'll expand the market.
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Yeah, that's the liquidation price of first generation 400MHz ARM-based netbooks with tiny 7" screens and 1GB SSDs. When those first came out, the import price was around $149-$179 in quantity, and they didn't sell. Of course you can get a refurb EEE PC with 8.9" LCD, 4GB SSD and a much faster x86 processor for the same price now.

The new models shown at Computex last month with more competitive non-CPU hardware specs are aiming for the $200 price point. The processor is still the sticking point. Those new $200 netbooks are based on Cortex A8, running ~800MHz. Sure it's a nice cell phone processor, but it's 2-3x slower than the most common Atom model used in low cost netbooks. Platform "typical" usage power consumption might be a couple of watts less than Atom/945GSE, an advantage for SoC ARM processors. The Moorestown release later this year should narrow that power consumption gap significantly.

The biggest problems those ARM-based netbooks will face are 1) speed (lack of, even by expectations lowered by Linux based Atoms), 2) Linux, which has a still shrinking share of netbooks and 3) slightly more expensive x86/Windows based netbooks. x86 and ARM netbooks priced within $40 of each other won't help ARM netbooks gain much market share, especially if specs of the x86 Windows netbooks are better (bigger SSD, more memory) as current configurations are.

A bigger wildcard is nvidia's Tegra. nvidia has stated those handhelds/netbooks will not run Linux, only Windows Mobile. :confused: I don't really see the demand there, except for the way MS will be using it in Zune HD. Dumb move not to keep the options open even though there's not much demand for Linux netbooks.
 
:LJ: said:
It's a brand thing, not a usability thing. Something supported by Google is always going to have a good shot at success - I'm not saying it'll wipe Windows from the face of the planet, just that it will be successful. It'll be all the more successful for the fact that the ARM versions will be slimmer, have batteries that last a lot longer and will probably be around half the price.

Starter Edition is the one which most netbooks will come with, since it allows manufacturers to get closer to the original intended price point for netbooks. Even the Home Premium will (to my knowledge) still add around $50 to the price.

Besides, you're ignoring the economic reality that at $150 (yes, I'm guessing, but that's the price of existing ARM-based laptop-style devices) there are a hell of a lot of people who'll consider buying, who wouldn't ever buy a netbook at current prices - it'll expand the market.
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And what happens when somebody buys the Chrome OS based netbook for $150 and then realizes it doesn't do jack shit other then email, Internet and has problems with compatibility between Google Docs and MS Office?

They return it and spend the extra $50 for the Windows based version. That's exactly what happened to quite a few people with the Ubuntu netbooks. People bought them based on price and got bit in the ass because of it.
 
Headbust said:
very interested in seeing this. It would seem that PC's would be about 7.5 billion times faster than mac or win 7 because of the tiny footprint.

I imagine googles OS will be under 1GB or maybe even around 500mb
Click to expand...

You speaking of RAM or HDD space? If RAM, what's all this big talk about people getting mad over their OS actually using their RAM for good causes?
 
Somehow I have a hard time believing those pictures are real. Why would the the Google developers give their windows the same border and "-" "x" buttons used in Windows?
 
g1tigi said:
I hope they can get a beta version out before the fall...after all, it would be in their favor to do so, as it might slow the momentum building for Windows 7.
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For the highly computer savy home users who aren't as big of fans of Windows as most people? Sure. For the mainstream market, probably not. Mainstream users are inclined to stay with Windows and OS X.
 
Vermillion said:
And what happens when somebody buys the Chrome OS based netbook for $150 and then realizes it doesn't do jack shit other then email, Internet and has problems with compatibility between Google Docs and MS Office?

They return it and spend the extra $50 for the Windows based version. That's exactly what happened to quite a few people with the Ubuntu netbooks. People bought them based on price and got bit in the ass because of it.
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What Google and most in the software industry these days believe is that the "cloud" will make local computing less and less relavent. I tend to think that there is some truth to this but at the same time local computing environments, ie traditional local OS'es, are changing and evolving in their own right. Indeed if the cloud is the future then Apple and the Linux community have a lot to deal with along Microsoft as well.

Can the cloud replace and at lower cost local computing. Much FOSS is open and free to begin with. Windows isn't that exspensive. In fact what's really exspensive is online storage. People complain about the cost of Windows not realizing just how much more exspensive an internet connection is.

Sure the cloud has its uses and advantages over local computing in that its easier to share data, has security advantages over purely local storage. Clound applications on the other had kind of lack power of their desktop counterparts. Of course in cloud computing there's no reason a cloud component can't run locally.

At any rate, here's what I see as issues with cloud computing on the consumer side

1. Exspensive network connections and current ISP industry issues over privacy, bandwidth caps, etc.

2. Local computing power is well outstripping advances in network speeds and costs. Local power is just getting dirt cheap.

At any rate todays clound is very similar to the battle the age of mainframes and dumb terminals. There are advantages to centralized computing and there are advangates to localized computing. Its not a zero sum game and the most powerful tools and applications will NEVER be totally clound based.
 
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