Google Announces Chrome OS, For Release Mid-2010

Zaiff Urgulbunger writes "After years of speculation, Google has announced Google Chrome OS, which should be available mid-2010. Initially targeting netbooks, its main selling points are speed, simplicity and security — which kind of implies that the current No.1 OS doesn't deliver in these areas! The Chrome OS will run on both x86 and ARM architectures, uses a Linux kernel with a new windowing system. According to Google, 'For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.' Google says that this new OS is separate from Android, as the latter was designed for mobile phones and set-top boxes, whereas Chrome OS is designed 'for people who spend most of their time on the web.'" The New York Times' coverage is worth reading, and there are stories popping up all over the web.

Comments

Competition is good, baby!

[bheer]

This is excellent news, because a commercial vendor with *lots* of clout will - finally! - push Linux to OEMs. Like Android, they really want to go after the OEM market with this one. Don't be fooled by the "it's mainly for web browsing" spin - You might not run AutoCAD or Photoshop yet (or ever) on it, but apps (especially HTML5 enabled apps) for home users will follow, targeting the XP/Vista Home Edition user types. And this would be sweet for corporate desktop deployments -- no virus hassles, little to update, most stuff stored on the server (assuming they get offline support sorted out well, of course).

Fingers crossed that Google's "Linux" will have more polish than what's there in distros so far. Microsoft "love our licensing or leave" and Linux distros "we're open source so live with the flaws" will then both be on notice.

Interestingly, Chrome OS is apparently a bare-bones Linux + a "new windowing system" + the Chrome browser.

I can't wait to see what the new windowing system is. I'd really like to see some innovation there, much like OSX created an amazing GUI layer on top what is essentially Mach/BSD. The challenge to Microsoft aside, this will be a wake-up call to Gnome/KDE. The good news is, because this ought to be open source, the OSS community can really get behind this and improve other products.

And oh, anyone else notice the irony that the Chrome _browser_ for Linux seems largely like an afterthought right now? Still, way to go, Google.

Re:Competition is good, baby!

[contrapunctus]

Actually I'd be more worried about privacy. Can I assume everthing I do (or browse) will be reported back to Google?

Re:Competition is good, baby!

[Eravnrekaree]

Well, these are myths about X. First X does not have "Legacy" code. Code is not like milk where it goes sour after a certain amount of time. Code that is decades can still be perfectly good and in fact newer attempts to implement the same things implementing by older code can actually result in buggier code of poorer quality. X is actually pretty efficient and does not use a lot of memory compared to other GUIs. The core X engines probably use somewhere in the area of a few megabytes.

X also has an extension mechanism where the protocol can be extended to keep up with new features and developments. X is a pretty capable system, and keeps up with all of the most recent needs of GUIs. It also has assured backwards compatability and has become sort of an API standard, so you could always count on an X application running on any X server without having to worry about compatability issues. The network transparent design allows for things that are unthinkable on windows, like running programs on one computer and displaying to another, and displaying programs from several user to one X server, etc.

Re:Huh?

[tjstork]

Chrome OS focusing on speed, simplicity and security does not imply Windows cannot deliver in these areas. It's just an alternative operating system, and has yet to prove itself. The summary sound rather, well, dumb.

Oh, don't beat around the bush. I'll come right out and say it. I think Windows 7 is fast, safe, and simple to use. I have Vista, Win7 and Ubuntu 8 on my machine, each with its own drive, and while Vista is a tad bit better than Ubuntu, Win7 runs rings around both, and is easier to use than either. I do not think I have enjoyed using Windows this much since NT first got the Win95 shell.

Mcdonaldsoft rival at last!

[yossarianuk]

I'm amazed at the amount of negative responses from Linux fans... This is what we have all been waiting for - isn't it ??

No matter how scary google's power is the main things are that:-

1) They are using Linux
2) They WILL make deals with computer manufacturers to get the OS preinstalled.
3) They will opensource the code

The only people who should fear this O.S is MS and existing Linux distros - although the competation and the opensourcing of the code will benifit the entire community.

I'm sure MS will still be the best at saying 'Have a nice day' and flipping CD's.

Re:Uh huh.

[Kadin2048]

This is not to put down any effort to get rid of X11, rather, my guess that cross-operating system application porting will once again go to hell, cause conditional compiles, and much Zantac consumption.

All of which matters ... not at all. The whole purpose of the device is to run ONE application, the browser. Everything else is there to support that.

I suppose they'll have to design some other applications, to manage machine-specific configuration (WiFi settings, etc.) but maybe they'll just do that through a localhost web interface as well.

Google doesn't care if it's impossible to build standard applications on it; actually from their perspective it's probably a plus if you can't. (And I expect they'll probably lock it down to make it intentionally hard to do.) Easier to support.

Based on what's been made available so far, the device is squarely targeted at people who do all their work in the browser, or could start doing it. It's essentially a thin client to Google's web apps.

Re:Uh huh.

[warrior]

Not all of us like KDE and Gnome. Although they have innovated in some areas, they're otherwise both just attempts to make an MS clone. While this might be the right thing to make "Linux on the desktop" succeed, it's not what some of envision as the future of computing or even how we'd like the current state of computing.

I've been a Linux user since 1996 and I've watched the entire "Linux on the desktop" debacle unfold. It's sad to see that the /. crowd has changed from the attitude of "these MS clones are crap, desktop Linux should be something better" to "ho hum, this is how it should be, why innovate"? Back when this was just "Rob's page" you would've been flamed into oblivion for that public show of affection for KDE/Gnome.

Who are you to tell Google what they can and cannot build? It's about time someone put a face on the Linux desktop other than that of an MS clone. Hopefully it's not just a new window manager but a new window system. X, while great in its day, has run its course. I'd like to something fresh that builds on the concept of using modern graphics hardware to do all the heavy lifting for the GUI instead of clever CPU-intensive hacks on top of Xlib**.

You don't like Google's vision for Linux on netbooks. What's your alternative vision?

** I've written many apps with Xlib. The underlying ideas/primitives that X uses for graphics ops are obsolete so doing anything "cool" (and sometimes useful!) requires using crufty extensions rather than calling routines that are a "natural" part of the system.