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ChromeOS Zero Released

Posted by timothy on from the for-your-testing-curiosity dept.

charliesome writes "Hexxeh, a student from the United Kingdom, has been the source for ChromeOS builds since the release of the Google operating system. He's just released ChromeOS Zero, a small build designed for speed and aesthetics. He recently did an interview with The Chrome Source."

13 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe he'll make Chrome OS useful! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    As it stands, Chrome OS is pretty useless for most people. From what we've seen so far, Chromium OS is so locked-down and artificially limited that it's just not worth using. You're better off just using Chrome on Ubuntu. At least then you're not stuck using just shitty web apps.

    Independent distributions like this are the only way we'll see Chrome OS be made useful, when the distribution creators remove the artificial limitations that Google has introduced.

    1. Re:Maybe he'll make Chrome OS useful! by FlyingBishop · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You remove the artificial limitations that Google has introduced, and you just have Linux. The point is just to have a thin web client, with no excessive overhead. It's something I've often pined for when waiting for a full-fledged Mac or Windows Desktop to log me in in an Internet lab. I anticipate that Chrome devices will be instant-on, and completely blow any sort of standard "unlimited" desktop out of the water for browsing purposes.

    2. Re:Maybe he'll make Chrome OS useful! by geekmux · · Score: 4, Insightful

      GMail is fantastic. And by "GMail", I basically mean how it can be used as an SMTP server and IMAP server by a real mail client. The only people I know who use its shitty web-based interface are people who don't have the brains to set up Thunderbird, Evolution, Apple Mail or even Outlook to access their account.

      Or the millions of us who simply want to access their email in the same way across multiple systems without having to pointlessly rely on another client-based program to set up, read, and send email. It's bad enough dealing with ISPs that ONLY allow you to send through their SMTP gateways, let alone dealing with firewalls that filter IMAP/SMTP connections in both directions and content filters that block web-based email services altogether. All for the sake of running your own email client? Thanks but no thanks.

      It doesn't take "brains" to realize that sometimes simplicity is key, and the web interface is good enough, and in some cases(search speeds) is superior to damn near any client. And a mail client is a mail client is a mail client. None of them are the next coming of email.

  2. Re:Arrr! by H3XX3H · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And enjoy the ad revenues, you deserve them!

    I'm putting money from the ads back into paying for the server/bandwidth, more users means more bandwidth for the updates, and bandwidth isn't free. I do this because I enjoy making/doing something people find useful, not to make a profit. And maybe to see if I can get noticed by some companies, that too. ;)

  3. And the point of this is ... ??? by MadMaverick9 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If my ADSL connection is down for thirty minutes, I can't do anything with the piece of hardware and software sitting on my desk. Since all the apps are on ... the Internet.

    So ... WHY would anybody use this???

    Anybody remember GMail's outtages ... ???

    Looks like vendor lock-in to me ... all depends on Google. If Google ever goes bye-bye, all your data goes bye-bye too.

    Can anybody explain to me , please ... Why???

    1. Re:And the point of this is ... ??? by dcawrey · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Google is making moves to allow offline use of its apps.. you can now set Gmail to sync for offline use.

  4. Re:OK. I need a Karma whore. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    "I build and tweak Google's crippled Linux distro and make a thing of it because I want a job at Google," would have been sufficient.

  5. Re:SlowNewsDay? by LostCluster · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yeah... but this kid downloaded something from Google, not creating his own OS from zero.

  6. Re:SlowNewsDay? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Yeah... but this kid downloaded something from Google, not creating his own OS from zero.

    Good luck creating an OS from zero. Not even that Finnish kid could do that. He cheated. He used one too.

  7. Re:OK. I need a Karma whore. by electrosoccertux · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Chromium OS is the development version of Chrome OS which, when released during 2nd half of 2010, is also going to be completely open source.

    That's great and all but I'm afraid I'm going to have to say having entered the real world and been working a real job, I was deluding myself into thinking OSS was the way to go.

    There needs to be a deadline, set features, and programmers getting paid full to time to write code that they don't want to write, for important things to get done in the OS. I hope Google will provide this?
    Example would be that mouse-over-button bug that was in bugzilla for 6 years before somebody got the nerve to go unpack the problem and rework the bits of the code that needed to be reworked so that a window with a button in it that was drawn under where the mouse currently was would actually automatically hilight the button and let you click it. Before this guy got the balls go and fix it, it sat there. And bugged the hell out of me for 3 years while I deluded myself into thinking the OSS development model was superior.
    --Which it is. In a perfect world, where people don't only want to write new, exciting code, and are willing to write legible documentation, as well as code.
    Until then, Linux's Firefox/Fasterfox still runs dog slow on my quad core 3.5Ghz processor, and so does Gnome, because whatever is down there in the Linux kernel is so darn bloated that even Windows Vista is faster...snappier.

    You can mod me troll if you like, I'm just reporting what I've seen. I used to love Linux, and it will always have a special place in my heart, [and I'm not coder] but it's just not fast, no matter what hardware I throw at it.

    Here's to hoping having a massive netbook installbase will motivate the OSS crowd to not just tell us to default to XFCE and Fluxbox when we want a faster GUI.

  8. Re:Friend, I am about to destroy your arguments. by MortenMW · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You should get a lawn and tell people to get off it...

  9. Insightful by rvw · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Insightful!

  10. Re:OK. I need a Karma whore. by Fred_A · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Example would be that mouse-over-button bug that was in bugzilla for 6 years before somebody got the nerve to go unpack the problem and rework the bits of the code that needed to be reworked so that a window with a button in it that was drawn under where the mouse currently was would actually automatically hilight the button and let you click it. Before this guy got the balls go and fix it, it sat there. And bugged the hell out of me for 3 years while I deluded myself into thinking the OSS development model was superior.

    Superior to the commercial model where similarly irritating bugs routinely get ignored for years because overworked teams are busy working on $NextLayerOfCruftyFeatures as demanded by marketing instead of fixing their damn product ?
    In that case you're right, it's not always superior. It mostly depends on the team managing the project (in both worlds, be it OSS or commercial).

    --

    May contain traces of nut.
    Made from the freshest electrons.