Posted on 07/08/2009 1:16:20 PM PDT by Red in Blue PA
In a direct challenge to Microsoft, Google announced late Tuesday that it is developing an operating system for PCs based on its Chrome Web browser.
Paul Sakuma / AP --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The move sharpens the already intense competition between Google [GOOG 402.49 5.86 (+1.48%) ] and Microsoft [MSFT 22.56 0.03 (+0.13%) ], whose Windows operating system controls the basic functions of the vast majority of personal computers.
In a post on its company blog, Google said the operating system would initially be aimed at netbooks, the compact, low-cost computers that have turned the PC world on its head. It said the open-source software, called Chrome OS, would be available in the second half of next year.
“Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS,” the blog post said. “We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the Web in a few seconds.”
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
One more flavor of Linux/UNIX.
There aren't enough yet.
What do you call a ChromeOS equipped Netbook without an internet connection?
A brick.
And there is where it will fail. That is if I read about it correctly. It is a linux distro stripped down to as light as it could be with google chrome. If it has no added benefit to the consumer in the desktop space then it is only half useful. Yes I know they are called netbooks but many people who buy them will do other things besides use the net.
The problem with all the *nix derivatives save OS X (as well as most FOSS projects in general) is 1) inconsistency and 2) lack of competent support or design for those less technically oriented than the programmers.
If Google can overcome these two issues, they might have something.
> One more flavor of Linux/UNIX.
>
>There aren’t enough yet.
Agreed. Unix, and it’s design-philosophy, are in my opinion horrible. Because Linux embraces its design-philosophy it to is a horrible OS.
Windows Vista was a HUGE step in microsoft OSes... too bad it was in the WRONG DIRECTION. (An OS is supposed to enable you to use your computer, not interrupt you every operation with a message saying “do you want to continue?”!)
Why can’t we get an elegant, well-designed, and robust OS?
(Well, I DO have an OS idea... but haven’t done much on the implementation side.)
The command line is so much more powerful than a GUI.
Have to disagree.
The main hinderance to Linux growth on the desktop is nobody can settle on a specific distro as the standard. With google’s backing, their chrome OS could be it.
You see this all the time with various technologies. Different standards are produced by different manufacturers, there is a chaotic time as the standards battle it out, eventually one wins out, and then the technology takes off.
The current customer decision is Apple or Windows. 10 years from now it could be Apple or Windows or Chrome. It is also possible Windows won’t survive (remember WordStar, Lotus, etc...)
Why can’t we get an elegant, well-designed, and robust OS?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
You mean like MVS?
I don’t want Google to have access to any more of my information than necessary. Count me out...
hh
>Nothing wrong with Linux/UNIX.
>
>The command line is so much more powerful than a GUI.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking the UI; I can and do use CLIs... I have even made my own.
The underlying design-philosophies for Linux/Unix are pretty horrible. Take IPC, for example, which is most often done through pipes via text (stdin/stdout & redirection)... this means that should a program update/change its textual output (or even how it expects input) then any [script] using it will fail.
That is very much like the problem of parameters and passing [in programming]; Ada has an elegant solution where you bind the inputs to parameters via syntax (name1 => name, IIRC). Just the piping idea would be much more elegant with such a feature... though, even better, would be non-textual transfers of objects, and not text. (Though there are some interesting problems with that design it would be a LOT more versatile.)
Also, an interesting read is the Symbolics LispM; which was a computer w/ a hardware implementation of the LISP interpreter and the whole OS was written in LISP. (It also had interactive/live debugging capabilities and some interesting exception handling.)
if Google Chrome is any example it won’t be ready for prime time for quite awhile
Where does one start with that one? Do you still have to re-build every time a new device is added?
hh
Actually, I’ve never gotten my hand on the MVS... though it DOES look pretty nifty. The Memory-layout looks a lot like what I was imagining my OS’s would, with an OS-shared, App-Specific, and App-shared portions.
I think that it might be a good idea for the OS to provide ADTs and procedures/functions, probably through shared libraries, so that all programs using them could have both a standard convention (IE making IPC easier, as well as allowing programmers to concentrate on solving a problem rather than on implementing an ADT all over again). Sort of like how Java has its List generic interface (along with the others); though it would need to be much more advanced than Java’s .util package. (I’m thinking when you’re to the point that you can specialize VMs into existence, like the JVM, DOTNET, and FVM then you’ve got a good stopping point. [a little hyperbolic, though not much.]) And having things like the Memory Manager available to programs/compilers could turn some nice profit in terms of both debugging and consistency (rather than forcing programmers to have to do their own memory management).
I’m also kicking around the possible ideas of doing a postscript-based UI... for the simple reason that I could use the output to screen and the output to printer w/o worries (IE the screen, and maybe even apps would be WYSIWYG in terms of printing.) AND the idea of using SNOBOL for the search engine (as it was designed to handle strings as well as pattern matching).
MS opened the door for this themselves, with that horrible excuse for an OS they called Vista. I predict that unless Windows 7 comes out as a slam-dunk, it’s going to be the motivation needed for enough people to consider dropping Windows to allow another OS to move in. And by slam-dunk I don’t mean “better than Vista”, I mean significantly better than Windows XP (which IMO is, in it’s final incarnation, one the best desktop OS’s out there and certainly the best desktop MS has ever produced).
Google may well be the one that moves in. They certainly have the cash, know-how and clout to make a serious run for it. On a side-note - one of Microsofts biggest anti-trust losses was the bundling of Internet Explorer and Windows. As I recall, they ended up paying through their noses and having to de-couple the two eventually. Aren’t Google setting themselves up for the same thing here?
I believe that this is a step in the right direction for 90% of computer users. Most people don’t have the competency to maintain operating systems, software updates, etc.
The next logical step would be to move file download capability to online storage. That would eliminate the possibility of the user screwing things up.
The OS should be 99% SAAS.
I have read a number of positive things about Windows 7. I was encouraged enough to download the ISO and make a DVD so I could try it out.
I thought I could make my WinXP notebook dual-boot to it.
...it will only allow an overwrite install: kill the existing Windows XP and put on Win 7. No dual-boot... UNLESS I have a machine with Vista already on it!
Microsoft drives me flipping BATTY with their manipulative marketing gotchas. There is NO technical reason I can imagine which would prevent a WinXP / Win7 dual boot.
M$ stimply wants to force users to upgrade, one way or another.
WHy not install W7 and then your Linux distro?
As far as Google OS - no thanks, it’s hard enuf to find drivers for popular distros....
Exactly. I could name hundreds of companies that I would rather by an OS from, in lieu of Microsoft. Google is DEFINITELY NOT on that list. If you have some small reservatation about what MS might do with the data they collect off your computer, the information that Google would collect could be TRULY scary.... and what would they do with that data, BEYOND what MS already does with their data?
Sounds like you don’t know how to make a partition. That is the only way you will have a dual boot.
Well if I read what he wrote correctly he thought he could plop his disc in and perform an install with the option of having a dual boot. Which is wrong, no OS will allow you to do that. You have to have a seperate partition to allow that.7 does not care if you have xp, linux or what ever on there as long as it has it’s own partition. It will just put in it’s own boot loader.
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