Google Makes Linux Apps On Chrome OS Official

[jacob]

Are there bugs open for your issues on the kernel driver? The hybrid situation for AMD is still better than optimus (which AFAIK is still horribly broken?).

SystemD and Xorg changes dont stop Linux from being an appliance. dumbing it down infact makes it a better appliance

Those niceties we need keep developing at a fast rate - systemd, baloo search, wayland, pipewire, libinput even wine with DXVK if you must play Windows games. We're coming up aces IMHO. Maybe I am an optimistic case user as I select my hardware for compatibility and dont run into any issues?

Yes there are a few bugs open. The AMD situation is probably better than Optimus, but that's still a far cry from being even acceptable. I agree that there is progress and many things are starting to come together, but those are still only the baby steps of what Linux needs to achieve before it can be considered a real desktop OS. You are probably lucky if you never ran into problems. The fact is, if, like me, you use Linux mainly for web browsing, email and coding, you are unlikely to have much trouble (at least not any more than what you would on Windows or Mac). But there is so much more to a desktop OS than that.

[pal666]

In my not-so imaginary world, Windows and Mac users don't have to hold their breath with every game they install to see if it will run or not.

well, you said "graphics Just. Work. Every. Single. Time.", not me. on windows nvidia drivers were main source of bsods, just as one counterexample
on linux all games will run on supported platform, no need to hold breath

Their hybrid GPU support actually works and they don't to try half a dozen of different dysfunctional power management daemons in the hope of finding one where the graphics acceleration will function and at the same time their battery will not drain in 15 minutes.

i don't have laptop, so i can't comment on hybrid gpu or battery. i have desktop and i can say that on same hardware linux is quiet while windows sounds like ascending plane. well, probably you can download some shit from internet and fiddle with fan settings manually, but on linux "different dysfunctional power management daemons" automatically adjust fans

[pal666]

I'm talking about a complete merciless deletion of the entire /etc directory, and replacing it with a set/query API that would enforce that all option values are of the correct type, configuration change commits would be atomic and *ALL* apps would use this and only this to obtain all the information they require (call it a Registry if you like, obviously without the botched implementation that Microsoft has to drag behind it).

merciless deletion is backward incompatible. feel free to add dbus api on top, like https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Sof...stemd/localed/ and friends

A desktop OS is one whose kernel does NOT include the tty layer. Not only is tty an incoherent monstrosity and not only there is something deeply unsatisfying to be here in 2018 running an OS that is first and foremost a giant teletype emulator, but the main problem is that tty, not graphics, is still the only output that a developer can 100% expect. When an app crashes or doesn't work for some reason, error messages are invariably dumped on stderr - which means that unless you launch everything from a terminal window (which is not how a desktop OS should work), then you never know what happened. A desktop OS should *enforce* the use of user-friendly user interfaces.

so you are insisting on forbidding me to ssh into my desktop?

[makam]

Flatpak is a dead horse but it's not what I had in mind. A real desktop OS is one where the primary settings and configuration interface is through APIs, not config files. I'm talking about a complete merciless deletion of the entire /etc directory, and replacing it with a set/query API that would enforce that all option values are of the correct type, configuration change commits would be atomic and *ALL* apps would use this and only this to obtain all the information they require (call it a Registry if you like, obviously without the botched implementation that Microsoft has to drag behind it).

A desktop OS is one whose kernel does NOT include the tty layer. Not only is tty an incoherent monstrosity and not only there is something deeply unsatisfying to be here in 2018 running an OS that is first and foremost a giant teletype emulator, but the main problem is that tty, not graphics, is still the only output that a developer can 100% expect. When an app crashes or doesn't work for some reason, error messages are invariably dumped on stderr - which means that unless you launch everything from a terminal window (which is not how a desktop OS should work), then you never know what happened. A desktop OS should *enforce* the use of user-friendly user interfaces.

A desktop OS is one where apps can be shut down on logout or reboot in a controlled manner, without crashing and/or corrupting or losing open documents. We are almost there with dbus and logind, but with many developers still making a point of pride of not supporting it (because "unix"), it will effectively not work from a user's point of view.

Etc.

Implying that Windows and mac OS are good desktop OS-es is at best a false implication.

Then again first we have to agree upon a definition of 'good' which I doubt that the two of us specifically will ever do. Linux is a much better desktop OS for me than Windows 10 and Mac OS are even close to being.

[jacob]

Implying that Windows and mac OS are good desktop OS-es is at best a false implication.

Then again first we have to agree upon a definition of 'good' which I doubt that the two of us specifically will ever do. Linux is a much better desktop OS for me than Windows 10 and Mac OS are even close to being.

In fact we probably do agree. I don't use Windows or MacOS precisely because I think they are non-free and terrible OSes for many various reasons, and because I think Linux is, on the whole, better. But it is also a fact that from a desktop point of view, Windows users don't run into the same problems that Linux users do (yes, they have their own) and pretending that Linux is just fine because it doesn't have these particular issues is naive at best. There *are* lessons to be learned from Windows on how to design and set up a desktop OS. Microsoft's monopoly and anticompetitive behaviour are real but they don't explain everything, many people use Windows because undeniably it actually works for them.

[jacob]

Implying that Windows and mac OS are good desktop OS-es is at best a false implication.

Then again first we have to agree upon a definition of 'good' which I doubt that the two of us specifically will ever do. Linux is a much better desktop OS for me than Windows 10 and Mac OS are even close to being.

In fact we probably do agree. I don't use Windows or MacOS precisely because I think they are non-free and terrible OSes for many various reasons, and because I think Linux is, on the whole, better. But it is also a fact that from a desktop point of view, Windows users don't run into the same problems that Linux users do (yes, they have their own) and pretending that Linux is just fine because it doesn't have these particular issues is naive at best. There *are* lessons to be learned from Windows on how to design and set up a desktop OS. Microsoft's monopoly and anticompetitive behaviour are real but they don't explain everything, many people use Windows because undeniably it actually works for them.

[jacob]

well, you said "graphics Just. Work. Every. Single. Time.", not me. on windows nvidia drivers were main source of bsods, just as one counterexample
on linux all games will run on supported platform, no need to hold breath

Nvidia drivers are a piece of work generally speaking. I certainly believe you that you had BSODs with them on Windows, although it would be interesting to know if that happened more often than nvidia-induced kernel panics on Linux. But that's not really the point: bugs do happen, on any OS. The fact is that on Windows, your graphics drivers go the extra mile so that don't prevent your laptop from suspending/resuming, don't destroy your battery, once installed and stable, all apps run fine with them (you don't have nvidia games or amd games, just games), they don't break potentially after each OS upgrade and you don't have to spend hours digging through forums trying to find the cryptic kernel command line option to try to make them work.

[hooluupog]

Brilliant.

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

It's just for developer to run linux terminal tools(even some graphic IDE such as android studio).Considering fuchsia is being actively developed,The OS may not run on top of linux kernel for ever.It's more like what MS does on windows 10 with linux subsystem.

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

There is no need to do that cause it already support android runtime and can run android apps.

[jacob]

merciless deletion is backward incompatible. feel free to add dbus api on top, like https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Sof...stemd/localed/ and friends

The problem is that in some situations, backward compatibility is a liability, not an asset. It was the case with MS-DOS, where the wide public (e.g. Windows users) had to wait until Windows XP in 2001, that is 20 years after the release of the original PC (!!!) before they could completely get rid of all 16-bit code and the associated infamous 640k limit. This is a similar situation. For as long as a dbus API is provided in addition to /etc/ and not INSTEAD of it, 99% of projects will simply ignore it because of the pervasive mentality of "no hard dependencies!". In fact Freedesktop and the related APIs have existed for well over a decade and here we are, where virtually every developer without exception systematically handles settings by dumping yet-another config file in /etc (or .somethingrc) with an arbitrary syntax and expects users to edit it. It may not be a popular opinion but I think it is realistic to say that Linux won't become a real desktop OS until this changes and that it won't change until it becomes simply technically impossible not to change. Backward compatibility (with a 1972 tape-based OS, for crying out loud!!!!!) is a collateral that personally I'm willing to assume.

so you are insisting on forbidding me to ssh into my desktop?

SSH uses userland-based tty emulation on the client side so that would be completely unaffected. If you want an example, just consider that you can install an OpenSSH server on Windows and then ssh into it, when the NT kernel doesn't have tty (as far as I know, anyway).

However your example kind of makes my point: yes, being able to ssh into a desktop computer is useful, but as long as people will be more concerned about that than about the use cases of actual desktop users, we won't get anywhere.

[ssokolow]

SSH uses userland-based tty emulation on the client side so that would be completely unaffected. If you want an example, just consider that you can install an OpenSSH server on Windows and then ssh into it, when the NT kernel doesn't have tty (as far as I know, anyway).

However your example kind of makes my point: yes, being able to ssh into a desktop computer is useful, but as long as people will be more concerned about that than about the use cases of actual desktop users, we won't get anywhere.

That said, I often find situations where I wedge my compositor or nVidia binary drivers badly enough that I have to Ctrl+Alt+F1 or SSH in to get the system responding again and I much prefer not having to resort to SSH.

(I'm just glad I'm on X11, because the most common solution involves Kwin seizing up after having been running uninterrupted for a few weeks and needing something in the vein of killall -9 kwin; DISPLAY=:0 kwin & to get the desktop responding again. If I were on Wayland, I might as well just type sudo reboot instead for all the good it would do me.)