Slashdot Mirror
Try Out Chrome OS In a Virtual Machine
itwbennett writes "Some very generous Alpha OS geeks have snagged the Chrome OS source code and compiled a version to share with the rest of us, writes blogger Peter Smith. 'The build comes in the form of a virtual machine, which means you'll need VMWare or VirtualBox running, and of course the image of Chrome OS itself. The folks at gdgt are distributing the latter, and they've set up a page with all the links you'll need. You'll need to create a gdgt account if you don't have one yet. The Chrome OS image is only a bit over 300 megs, so it's a fast download. If you need a little more handholding, TechCrunch has a step-by-step guide to getting Chrome OS installed and running using VirtualBox, and a Chrome OS torrent they link to.'"
There's a lot of handwaving about how Chrome is not Windows, how it won't let you use photoshop on the netbook, as if you would. Here's a hint: if you're trying to run Photoshop on a 10" screen, you're doing it wrong.
Look for disastrous reports from Gartner, Forrester and of course the Rob Enderle / Maureen O'Gara flackalyst duet on how Chrome is the worst thing since smallpox. These are your clues that this is the real thing. They said the same things about the When Google says they released the source, people build it and publish virtual machines the same day.
Netbooks are stepping up in performance, as this four-threaded model shows, and will soon be able to do many more things. Yes, VDI is starting to ramp. There is still a place for Chrome. It's the dead-simple desktop interface that many of the technology impaired need. It's a point on the graph twice the distance on the line from Debian to Ubuntu.
A bunch of people are going to whine it doesn't support disk. It's a next-generation operating system and solid state is the storage of the next generation. It has local storage - just not the slow kind you're used to. There is no more reason to support the legacy spinning disk on this platform than there is to support tape storage or floppy disk. Moving parts are so 2008.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Torrents ought to be choice #1 in distributing files of any decent size. As an example, I thought it was utterly retarded that the recent Ubuntu 9.10 release didn't have the download torrents front and center. Why the hell not? Obviously they didn't have the bandwidth to handle all the direct downloads, as I started one just to see how slowly it would go. It crawled along at less than 1 KB/s for hours. They had the torrents advertised on the forums, at least, but they clearly made the launch harder on their servers than it should have been.
Torrents let you do more with less bandwidth. Take advantage of that! I understand some people may not be able to use them because of their ISP being a douchbag or whatever, and those people will need normal HTTP/FTP transactions and mirrors... but everyone else can use torrents and share your burden with you.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
http://gdgt.com/google/chrome-os/download/
Yes it requires an account to download.
However it is not verified. AKA login immediately after.
I pounded the keyboard a few times and dloaded no problem.
I'd tell u my user and pass if I could.
Well - the other thing that's rather cool is that it boots to usable system in less than 5 seconds (on the VM). For most OS's I play with, it's 30-90 seconds..
Am I the only one with a CPU lacking virtualization? :(
Emacs: for people who just never know when to
Call me paranoiac! Call me antique! Tell me whatever you want, but THEY MUST BE OUT OF THEIR MINDS if they think I would leave ALL my stuff on THEIR SERVERS.
It might be faster than blinking, but I simply DO-NOT-LIKE the paradigm they're trying to spread.
It reminds me the "old" ATM machines, when a mainframe did all the processing. I guess I don't have to recall it was a bank who owned the mainframe and that you must pay them periodically.
I think the idea of avoiding the startup delay is really cool, but has a SMALL detail.. data is stored on GOOGLE servers, which means if Google powers down their servers you cannot access your data.
Tomorrow Google could say, "ok, since now you must pay to use our services.." And that's when you regret your decisions. I haven't mentioned the fact they can do whatever they want with the data in their servers (yeah.. yeah.. the data confidentiality agreement - i don't think so).
Nevertheless, I think it might be suitable for some people in some cases. Computers would require less hardware, which is a pro.
In summary, I like the idea of speed up the OS, but I think some stuff is private property and must remain as such (at least for my stuff).
I don't know about you, but long battery life to me would be a killer app. I think that the standard six hours or less shows a peculiar lack of any progress. Sure, I can go to a coffee shop with my laptop. But I can't relax at a coffee shop with my laptop. How long will a smart-phone CPU with a notebook-sized battery last, I wonder?
I also consider a boot time of less than 10 seconds a killer app. The standard 45 seconds or more that even Windows XP (old) on my Core 2 Duo (new) gives me is baffling after 25 years of the PC. (Really, its more like two minutes before it is really ready to give me attention.) If my computer shuts down in two seconds and boots in three, l wouldn't plan my morning around it: "Time to make coffee --- no, wait, start the computer before you make coffee, then it will be ready at the same time."
Security is also a killer app. Encrypted home directory + read-only root + twin root partitions + a lot of other things = a lot more peace of mind. What if my laptop is stolen? Well, at least they're not going to find anything on it. My house guest is asking me if he can borrow my laptop. If it's a Windows laptop, I (but admittedly not the average user) will do a quick mental check --- do I have anything private on it that he might see? Is he going to accidentally download a virus on it? Etc. Sure, I can do things so that it will be less of a problem, but it's a lot easier if the computer already is set up as much as Chrome OS is for sharing.
Now that I look at them, what do these things all have in common? A less-stressed user experience. I don't have to think as much as I used to about taking care of my computer. Sure, it won't run Final Cut Pro. But I say, you should have made these the priorities --- at least with some --- any of your models. Get battery life, boot speed, and security to where you would have expected to be in the 21st century. Then branch out to fancy applications. Which is exactly what will probably happen. Browsers are only getting abler.
..which is some of the shittiest and most expensive pipe on the whole network, cannot be made as efficient as a conventional client/server setup).
Efficient in what sense? Certainly not time in release cases. If host A has a 100MB file and a 10MB/s connection, the most that host can upload that file at is 6/min. At 10,000 users this takes about 28 hours.
If the first torrent uploads to 2 people, and those two people to two more...etc it will quickly (4 hours) beat the single host case even if every pipe after the first is 1/100th the speed.
I got really excited until I realised that I was about to punch my required Google credentials into a VM prepared by someone I don't know or trust. :(
First of all, it's not an OS, so please don't call it an OS. That term has an actual prior meaning that should not be hijacked in an attempt to sound geeky-cool.
Err.. you sure? If it isn't an OS, why do I need a virtual machine to run it? And I'm pretty sure the specs I've seen say it's based on a modified Linux kernel, which suggests to me that it's an OS.
Interesting post.
You're not the only one. IIRC, The reason Netscape had to die was that MS foresaw a day when the browser would supplant the O/S as the primary application environment. Having that sort of control in a non-MS company was unacceptable in itself, but having the browser also be cross platform and therefore capable of eroding MS' lock-in of operating systems generally... You can see how that idea would play in Redmond.
Part of that may be intentional, in the hopes of not provoking MS as Netscape did. If Firefox doesn't try and encroach on MS primary domain, maybe the softies won't allocate too many resources to the "Destroy Firefox" project. That said, I think it's more likely a hold over from the original vision for the Phoenix browser (back before the name changes) when it was supposed to be an ultra-light, ultra-fast browser with all the heavy-duty code shifted out to add-ons. That was by contrast with the old Mozilla (now Seamonkey) browser, which still had a lot of the Netscape O/S convergence features in it, and which were largely considered to be bloat.
Personally, I'd sooner see Firefox move back toward to Phoenix model and shift more stuff out to add-ons than to see it adopt more of the features of a graphical shell. On the other hand, if they are determined to add everything but the kitchen sink (as sometimes seems to be the case), then I really can't see why they can't add a decent filer to the app - it would make life so much easier on occasion.
Well, it's logical to Google. To the rest of the world, there are still issues with having your data stored on someone else's platform. What happens if your internet connection drops? What happens if the cloud service provider folds and takes your data with it? What happens if, in a decade's time they are bought out by BigEvilCo who leverage the vendor lock-in implicit in a cloud architecture and hold a decade's worth of your data to ransom?
"Local" has some compelling advantages.
No argument there :)
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Pirated? How does one pirate open source software?
It's important because you are the exception not the rule
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.