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Slate Speculates on Internet Operating Systems
Slate features a discussion of possible internet operating systems, a Google OS foremost among the potential contenders. The author views the fledgling YouOS as a proof-of-concept that an Internet OS is feasible. He dismisses the idea of a Google-built thin client, arguing that Google would rather build a service available from any Internet-capable device. Google's already-fast service would theoretically translate easily to other web-based applications. From the article: Dollar for dollar, network-based computers are faster. Unless you're playing Grand Theft Auto or watching HDTV, your network isn't the slowest part of your setup. It's the consumer-grade Pentium and disk drive on your Dell, and the wimpy home data bus that connects them. Home computers are marketed with slogans like "Ultimate Performance," but the truth is they're engineered to run cool, quiet, and slow compared to commercial servers. The author compares Eric Schmidt's denials of a Google OS to Steve Jobs's denials of a video iPod. However, he notes that potential obstacles to a Google OS adoption include: the desire to own things; the requirement for fast, flawless networks; and, the trust-deficit when putting personal information on web-based applications.
I'm assuming it's a buzzwordy way of saying thin-client, netboot, or referring to actually having all your applications as fancy AJAX things. When they say OS I don't think they mean it in a managing the hardware computer science sense, but more referring to the desktop environment.
From Wikipedia:
An operating system is a software program that manages the hardware and software resources of a computer. The OS performs basic tasks, such as controlling and allocating memory, prioritizing the processing of instructions, controlling input and output devices, facilitating networking, and managing files.
This is a bunch of web based applications with a slick interface and some persistant storage.
RDP is hardly the only way to do remote access, and it's true that most Windows-functional solutions (WebEx, PCAnywhere, ThinAnywhere, VNC, etc.) stink, from at least a performance standpoint.
But those aren't really thin clients; they're really remote access sessions to a thick client running over a network.
A real thin-client package does the computing locally, as well as the display. It just uses storage and some heavy features on the back-end.
"your network isn't the slowest part of your setup. It's the consumer-grade Pentium and disk drive on your Dell, and the wimpy home data bus that connects them"
Speak for yourself, mister.
My Verizon DSL 768 Kbps/128Kbps service is a lot slower than my mighty 2.5" 5400 RPM Seagate ST9100823A (sustained transfer rate 38 MB/sec). Approximately fifty times slower "reading" (downloading), 300 times slower "writing" (uploading). No, wait... the DSL speed is in bits, the disk speed is in bytes. Make that 400 times slower "reading" and 2400 times slower "writing."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Mostly the bandwidth of X, the bigger issue being network latency. VNC is slightly better, but you're basically right, a virtual machine running on a cluster of thousands of machines, making use of the least loaded of them. I can be done now. I've actually built such a system, with tens/hundreds of servers rather than thousands, able to support hundreds -> thousands of concurrent users. It is simple and effective.
Deleted
The author is wrong. YouOS is not an “Internet operating system”, it the functional equivlent of Windows prior to NT: an environment which runs on your existing platform. The client still does the heavy lifting and it will never be portable enough to run on anything with a “keyboard and a screen.” If Google were to go this route, they would provide VNC-like access to big iron on their end.
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>your network isn't the slowest part of your setup.
The only things on my computer slower than my DSL line are the legacy serial and parallel ports. To match the PCI bus I'd need an OC-24.
>Home computers are marketed with slogans like "Ultimate Performance," but the truth is they're engineered to run cool, quiet, and slow compared to commercial servers.
Last I heard, the Googleplex was running on dirt-cheap commodity boxes, with IDE drives even. A GoogleOS probably won't be running on heavy Sun iron.
An internet operating system may be possible... but do we need it?
The parent gives some valid points, which are raised by the article itself.
from the parent:
The last thing I want is "503: Service Unavailable" when trying to print a document for a deadline. They may well have backups, but what use is that when I need it *now*.
from the article:
Second, a network computer works fine if you've got a fast, flawless network connection. Most of us in the United States (not to mention worldwide) don't and won't for a long time.
from the parent:
An internet linked desktop environment has all the advantages of the internet - updates, blogging, social stuff - with the advantages of a more traditional system - you actually have your documents stored locally, you're not subject to some company suddenly suspending your service and deleting your account (WGA is another matter...), and things load up quickly and run fast.
from the article:
First, there's the inexplicable human urge to own stuff and have it in your possession. No matter how snazzy Google's online services, people will want to store their files at home. My starving-artist friends use Gmail, but as soon as they land real jobs they buy brand-new Macs and start keeping their mail on their own computers. Inevitably they lose it and don't have a backup, but they still like the feeling of controlling their data. Every network computing gadget I worked on faced the same objection from would-be customers: "Those things are fine for secretaries, but I need a real computer on my desk."
and the final paragraph from the article:
But the real deal-breaker is trust: Are you going to let someone else handle all your data? If you use a Google-served computing environment, everything you upload, download, or type potentially passes through Google's computers. I'll be the first to sign up, but that's my blind faith in statistics. If there's a privacy breach at Google, I figure I'll be about 10 millionth in line to get hurt. How about it: Would you trust Google to protect your e-mail, your tax documents, and your family photos?
If you want to mod me down for copy-and-pasting, mod the parent down as redundant. He didn't bother to RTFA.
While that is true, FreeNX pretty well solves that problem.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
But this is one of the fundamental problems, people don't understand what an operating system actually is.
There have been many debates between geeks about what an operating system actually is, and obviously people writing about these "Internet" operating systems, and the ones creating them, don't have a clue as to what they truly are.
An operating system isn't just a file manager, its a layer of software that allows you to interface with hardware, manage data, and control devices. By its very definition, and "Internet" based OS cannot exist, as it requires SOME form of operating system in order to run. You NEED an OS first in order to access the Internet and manage the network protocols and access network hardware. You NEED an OS first in order to run the web browser to access the Internet. you need an OS first in order to access the application data stored on disk and loaded in memory before you can even launch an "Internet" OS.
Instead, what these people are actually creating is just an online file manager, A SHELL.
Sorry, I just can't tolerate a blatant misrepresentation of terminology in this case. When people start talking about a Google OS as an online service, it is just irritating that there is so much ignorance, especially coming from a supposedly technologically literate community.
I am not saying the concept of an online SHELL isn't valid. Having the ability to create and store and share files online, without worrying about losing data locally if your local hardware fails is a sound idea and I welcome it. Just don't confuse a glorified AJAX P2P front end as being an operating system.
Even in the case if we move to a purely online services based market where you use a thin client to access the internet, you still need an OS before you can access the internet.
Call it what it is, and Online File Manager. An AJAX based P2P front end. An online portal. Just stop calling it an operating system, its not and never CAN be.
It is also a brilliantly f*cking stupid idea to have an embedded web browser within a web environment? I mean, I need a browser to access this service, duh? What makes an AJAX based web browser better then one running natively on your system?
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Slashdot is more than a web page. It is an Internet Application. Although this particular app would be immensely boring to use on a disconnected PC if a heavy client were created.
The boundary between web page, web application, internet application, distributed application, and dedicated heavy apps are blurring very heavily. These Internet OS's may or may not be a wise way to enable a better future for merging all of these into something more cohesize to the end user, but whether or not these Internet OSs will play any roll in our future, does not invalidate that someone is trying to make progress toward our future of computing.
When I first saw Mosaic 1.0 I thought it was stupid and a waste of bandwidth. I said no one would ever want to use the World Wide Web. This was in 1993. Obviously I was way wrong in my assessment for how wasting currently valuable resources would become irrelevant for a greater good in the future. I *could* have been right. But the point is.. what makes sense to us today by our measures today, will not apply tomorrow as these new concepts will enable things we cannot do at all today.
There are lots of examples of distributed and online applications that you use all of the time. But you see them as a web page. Does it really matter where the source code lives, if it is statically compiled or dynamically interpretted, if it is rendered on the server from one form into another (say PHP to HTML) or rendered on your desktop (Flash), or even used with an locally installed heavy application (Goodle Earth, Quicken, online gaming, etc.)? The boundaries are not as simple as Web Page or Software Application anymore. You can fight it.. but the desire to distribute will win in the end. Who knows what it will look like.. I'm sure the fabbled Web 2.0 will play a big role in all of this.
Slashdot.. where people join together in deliberate ignorance.
Operating System == Software that manages the machine's resources like CPU time, memory and storage, and makes them available to applications in a controlled way. At least that's how I learned it.
Maybe I'm getting old... Has the definition of OS changed all of a sudden??? Aren't they rather talking about an Internet-based application suite?
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For anybody who hasn't used Slax, they give you an option to upload personal data (passworded, of course), making it a very good live CD in that you can travel anywhere and are still able to access your personal data provided there is an internet connection. Perhaps an Internet OS could take a route similar to this?
If we can hit that bull's-eye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards... Checkmate.
> I think it was written by a windows user who never built a gentoo system from scratch
Typing emerge and watching compiler messages scroll by is not "building from scratch".
And no one really cares if you do build from scratch. Write it from scratch and I'll be impressed.
I don't see why these so called "online OS" projects don't just use existing X infrastructure to create an easy way to access standard X windows applications and run them remotely over SSH.
You can actually get such solutions.
These are running over FreeNX which is basically a compressed X connection where the local machine pre-guesses parts of the communication to cut down lag. I've tried them and they work quite nicely over a 512K DSL. In principle dial-up should work ok too, but I haven't tried.
Notice that a Dutch provincial agency has switched its 100 desktops to running over FreeNX. They're running their own server though.
That said, I tend to disagree with your point. Part of the idea behind YouOS et.al. is that being on the same machine as everyone else makes collaborative software easier. Just think if you could painlessly set up multiuser editing on any document you were working on. Flickr shows some of the way too.
The last thing is that you can't just pop into the average internet café and fire up an X/ssh connection. Something running in most browsers would work better here. Maybe something like VNC java viewer for NX is the way to go.
What would be really nice is some sort of common protocol for collaborative programs. That way we could both run some program locally (or NX'ed into our own snoop-proof private server) and have them connect to each other when needed. Pretty sure I'll get to see that in my lifetime, but if Open Source was a bit ahead of the curve here it would be so much better for freedom.
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.