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Chromebooks May Get Apple Boot Camp-Like Windows 10 Dual Boot With 'Campfire' (xda-developers.com)
Google is reportedly working on a secret project to get Windows 10 running on Chromebooks. XDA Developers' Kieran Miyamoto reports on the latest developments surrounding "Campfire" -- the Chromebook equivalent of Apple's Boot Camp. From the report: Earlier this year, a mysterious project appeared on the Chromium Git. The Chrome OS developers had created a new firmware branch of the Google Pixelbook called eve-campfire and were working on a new "Alt OS mode" for this branch. We have since confirmed this Alt OS refers to Microsoft Windows 10 and found evidence that it wasn't just an internal project but intended for public release.
The developers have reworked the way in which they distribute updates to a rarely-used section of ROM on Chromebooks called RW_LEGACY. The RW_LEGACY section on a Chromebook's ROM traditionally gives users the ability to dual-boot into an alternative OS, but it is something of an afterthought during production and the section is rarely updated after a device leaves the factory. Now, with Campfire, Google will push signed updates to RW_LEGACY via the regular auto-update process, so firmware flashing won't be a concern for Joe Public. A recent commit for enabling Alt OS through crosh with a simple [alt_os enable] command indicates that it will be a fairly easy setup process from the user's end too. We may expect to see the first demo of "Campfire" at Google's upcoming Pixel 3 launch event in October. Also, the report notes that the Google Pixelbook won't be the only Chromebook with Campfire support, citing "mentions of multiple 'campfire variants.'"
The developers have reworked the way in which they distribute updates to a rarely-used section of ROM on Chromebooks called RW_LEGACY. The RW_LEGACY section on a Chromebook's ROM traditionally gives users the ability to dual-boot into an alternative OS, but it is something of an afterthought during production and the section is rarely updated after a device leaves the factory. Now, with Campfire, Google will push signed updates to RW_LEGACY via the regular auto-update process, so firmware flashing won't be a concern for Joe Public. A recent commit for enabling Alt OS through crosh with a simple [alt_os enable] command indicates that it will be a fairly easy setup process from the user's end too. We may expect to see the first demo of "Campfire" at Google's upcoming Pixel 3 launch event in October. Also, the report notes that the Google Pixelbook won't be the only Chromebook with Campfire support, citing "mentions of multiple 'campfire variants.'"
It's the new thing, run Windows under Linux. Linux GPU virtualization is even good enough now to run AAA games in a VM. For most of what you do... browsing, social networking, viewing media, the experience is better under Linux now than Windows (e.g., you will never get an upgrade nag while watching a movie.) Not to mention Microsoft won't be spying on most of what you do, except of course for what runs in the VM. You want that to be less every month.
Dual boot is out, sandboxing Windows is in.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
you do not see much effort in reverse.
Not true, actually. Microsoft now officially supports and invests a lot of money in running Linux both under the Windows desktop and in the cloud. I would go so far as to speculate that Microsoft now has more money invested in this than the sum total of all the work that went into Wine.
But the elephant under the rug is, it's actually better to do it the other way: run Windows in a vm, that way you can keep your critical work and data entirely out of the hands of Microsoft. Microsoft knows this and now has a whole bunch of money invested in various efforts to forestall it. To be honest, it's hard to see that as a bad thing, it's the nearest thing to honest competition I have ever seen from that gang.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
did google ever get the chrome-os to run android apps like they said they would? i considered buying a chromebook on sale recently but i want to know if i can run android apps on it, mostly sdrtouch and utilize the sdrplay device driver for my SDR receiver, i have an rtl-sdr but the sdrplay is a much better receiver that makes the rtl-sdr look like a cheap knockoff sdr
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
On at least one model of Chromebook you can load Libreboot and eliminate the risk of accidentally wiping out your Linux install. But it would be nice to be able to keep ChromeOS for those times when you want to interact with Google, and have a Linux install next to it which is completely free of them, and have it stay there like a good install should. I am not even slightly interested on running Windows 10 on the bare metal, like many other commenters in this discussion.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If you want to know what hell is like, run Windows 10 on a celeron N4xxx or N3xxx CPU. They do sell these, mostly HP 15-series laptops btw so I know firsthand. That's the chip of choice for almost all chromebooks then you add the pathetically underperforming 32GB flash storage device (SSD is far too generous of a title) and 4GB of RAM and it take about 4 minutes to fully load and open and render one page in any web browser.
When they first came out they came with Linux and they were an absolute revelation. Small fast and perfect for mobile computing for people who weren't tied down to the Windows ecosystem. Then Microsoft leveraged their ability to charge whatever they wanted for Windows licenses to "encourage" vendors to dump Linux and ship a handicapped version of Windows instead. Once that handicapped version of Windows became standard, Microsoft started dictating hardware specifications and as a result we were stuck with shitty atom processors, tiny amounts of ram, and tiny hard drives for many more years than necessary going with the pace of technology. NetBooks went from being a great mobile PC option into just a shitty small laptop that you bought for your kid to wreck.
I just use vmplayer.
I parted ways with Vmware when KVM (and others) started to get really good. Now, I much prefer KVM. I mean, really strongly prefer. Vmware had its day in the sun.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
It's been a couple of years, but last time I checked 3d performance and compatibility with vmplayer was vastly ahead of KVM.
A couple of years ago was exactly when GPU passthrough was under heavy development. Now there are multiple reports of success and I just don't see horror stories. I have no doubt that VMware player was way ahead at the time, I have tremendous respect for their ability to make stuff work, but they also like to wrap it in layers of cruft that you can't avoid. That's a turnoff for me, compared to KVM, which is accessible at every level, including the one I prefer which is simply the command line. I'm perfectly capable of setting up my own disk images, thanks. VMDK is completely irrelevant to me.
Most folks use KVM via virt-manager or similar, I have no data on that. They seem happy, so I am happy for them. I'm happy for you too. :) The world is a better place with VMware in it. At the very least they keep the KVM devs on their toes.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.