Google Makes Linux Apps On Chrome OS Official

[johnc]

Maybe therein lies the problem. A linux distro is NOT (yet) a worthy desktop OS. Not even *buntu, Manjaro or whatever else has that ambition. Many things still have not just to improve, but be scrapped, burned to the ground and redone differently before it can be called a real desktop.

That's exactly why Linux distros are going nowhere as a consumer product. As soon as something matures, people decide to burn it to the ground and start over. Imagine wanting to build a skyscraper, laying the foundation and building the first couple floors, only to say, "okay let's demolish the whole thing and start over". Rinse and repeat. Will the skyscraper ever be built?

So they told us that we're all moving over to GNOME3 even when that trainwreck was nowhere near ready for users and GNOME2 was perfectly fine technology. FIVE years later people finally told us that GNOME3 was a usable desktop. Yeah, well you just lost 5 years of momentum and potential user growth.

[Kayote]

By the way, things break via distro updates suck. It is the biggest negative associated with Linux.

That's why I stopped using Arch Linux (and Gentoo), I'm not using ubuntu which maybe is the best distro that doesn't break upon system upgrades, but, using OpenSuse since 13.2 and they are doing a excellent job IMO. I like yast utility and Opensuse gives me more options to configure stuff than ubuntu.

[RelaxTrolls]

Buzzwords, They're killing me cause everyone buys into it...

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS out now

Optimised for multi-cloud infrastructure, machine learning, AI and software development

ref: https://www.ubuntu.com/

buzz buzz buzz.

[Kayote]

I hear SUSE is for sale everything must go..

Is this about Paul Singer Hedge Fund?? those crooks are shit. Worst news ever.

[PackRat]

Is this about Paul Singer Hedge Fund?? those crooks are shit. Worst news ever.

Microsoft and Suse being cloud partners and Microsoft ready to dump windows for the cloud. Microsoft has a trillion dollars I would say it's bad news.

[ssokolow]

If you use these lax definitions, also Android is "linux desktop", which is very different system, what's the point?

Usual definition of Linux desktop is a linux distro, where you can control and upgrade the whole system at will.

It's not even that it's lax. It's that people tend to use "Linux" to mean "Something based on the Linux kernel which presents a glibc ABI and, if a GUI is necessary, X11."

(ie. People whose requirements can be approximated as "If I put it on an x86/amd64 system and it fails to run my GOG/Steam/etc. game/application, and it's by design rather than a bug, then it's not what I'm referring to as Linux.")

[ssokolow]

Linux apps? Is there such a thing? There's java and mono as frameworks that can run applets, but that doesn't make them "linux".

"App", a shortening of "Application" which, if I remember my 90s computing culture correctly, was Apple's 68k Mac-era, by-convention shortening of "Application Software" (as opposed to "System Software" (ie. OS)), which, in turn, was technical jargon of the period.

Given the historical uses of "Application" and "Application Software", an argument can be made that platforms primarily used to run servers (eg. Linux, *BSD, VMS, etc.) have the longest history of having "apps".

(Though I think "Program" has an even longer lineage, with the original term for an OS kernel being a "Supervisor Program"... the branch of the jargon that gave us "Hypervisor".)

[raptormissle]

Brilliant.

An OS that runs on top of the Linux Kernel, running a Linux VM so that it can run basic Linux apps.

What will the incredible minds at Google think of next? A java virtual machine for smart phones?

Linux is running in a container, dookie.

Also, Android uses a runtime called ART and not a JVM, dookie.

The more you know...

[raptormissle]

I wish Samsung would stop tinkering with Tizen and dex just use a a full Linux distro. Tizen is only doing well in India. Samsung is so desperate there is no fee to make apps and they have even given money like $10,000 for unity3ddevelopers to make games.

I hear SUSE is for sale everything must go.. Samsung please buy them! Make a Linux laptop. Isn't opensuse/SUSE a leader with the enlightenment desktop that Tizen uses and it has wayland. Samsung also has a wacom digitizer license that could compete with Microsoft surface.

Samsung TV's, phones, computers and smart swatches. Samsung could make a huge difference here.

Tizen is only doing well in India? LOL good one. Was that supposed to be a joke?

[Luke]

Don't underestimate the power of these machines as bare hardware. When my old Pine Trail netbook died of a GPU failure, I had to find a replacement. Due to the management engine issue, I would not be able to use it with the same passphrase as the AMD Phenom and FX desktops nor anything really sensitive, but it would still be more trustworthy than anything ordered or bought online and then shipped to me, a known target.

I had to get x84-64 so I would be able to use the same operating system images and binaries as the main machines, and programs that won't build or won't run on ARM that I use. A $200 chromebook fit the bill, and gives no money to Microsoft. The slightly older chip (braswell) had the weakest version of the management engine (really only enough to let Chrome users use Netflix etc) and no publicly admitted to remote management support. Also turned out to have what must he hardware accelerated video playback as it can play back 1080p video except in Kdenlive, and can transcode quickly an Avidemux but only slowly (12x realtime) in Kdenlive.

Only thing was, this was the first time I had set up a Chromebook for anything. First challenge: get to a terminal without ever activating with a chrome account. Had to set up a dummy wifi access point with no Internet access to block contacting Google for updates etc. Then was able to get to the "guest" account, but also was able to go by the equivalent of the function keys to a console. Accidenty tried and failed to set a root password, thus wasted hours trying to just get root on my own machine! Finally "powerwashed" or factory reset and got root. Turned on legacy boot and turned off secure boot, wiped Chrome, and installed my system by booting Ubuntu, making a new partition table, encrypting all but /boot, and installing my usual system.

Got a couple issues: have to use an USB sound card (a common problem) and booting from the main drive imposes what seems like a 1 min delay. Booting from the USB drive boots immediately, and has the advantage that if the USB stick is always with me the "evil maid" attack on encryption is defeated. Anyway, this machine can cut and paste video clips together for a quick rough video, though not really edit video in a nonlinear editor. Quite a lot of power for an x86-64 soc, and with 4GB RAM I don't have issues caused by using 64 bit like JS garbage collection slowing Firefox to a crawl. All of Chrome was removed, it's a pure linux box that has never spoken to Google (other than over Tor) while in my hands.