KDE's Falkon Browser Sees First Major Update In Nearly Three Years

[linuxgeex]

What do you mean by this? ChromeOS appears to be ongoing. Do you mean they stopped releasing source? Or updates for your particular machine?

They stopped releasing ChromeOS on the C720 family. Meanwhile they are still updating a perfectly compatible image... you just can't install it without making a small hardware modification and flashing a new firmware which allows installing the other image. Meanwhile Google announced that they are offering ChromeOS for outdated Windows PCs. So now ChromeOS devices are a third-class citizen on ChromeOS, and you can't even update your browser in the meanwhile... hence running GalliumOS and PaleMoon on it.

[coder]

They stopped releasing ChromeOS on the C720 family. Meanwhile they are still updating a perfectly compatible image... you just can't install it without making a small hardware modification and flashing a new firmware which allows installing the other image. Meanwhile Google announced that they are offering ChromeOS for outdated Windows PCs.

Sorry to hear that, but thanks for explaining. I'm glad you have a fallback option.

Given the short update window for phones, I guess I'm not surprised. That's probably how they look at these devices. It's unfortunate, especially when you consider how many people are going to keep using these devices for many years. School kids will be handing them down to younger siblings, using them for projects, or as a fallback device, etc.

Heck, I have a 13" Skylake i3 laptop from 2016 that I still occasionally use for light-duty stuff and streaming. Its battery life isn't great, but it's fine on wall power.

[waitman]

I've been using Falkon for a little over a month. It seems to (at random times) crank up CPU usage to 50 or more (not .50) like it's cryptomining or something and basically have to restart the computer unless you want to wait 20 minutes to get to the point where you can 'killall -9 falkon' This happens with even 10 tabs open, no 'javascript heavy' sites. Happening to anyone else?

[linuxgeex]

Sorry to hear that, but thanks for explaining. I'm glad you have a fallback option.

Given the short update window for phones, I guess I'm not surprised. That's probably how they look at these devices. It's unfortunate, especially when you consider how many people are going to keep using these devices for many years. School kids will be handing them down to younger siblings, using them for projects, or as a fallback device, etc.

Heck, I have a 13" Skylake i3 laptop from 2016 that I still occasionally use for light-duty stuff and streaming. Its battery life isn't great, but it's fine on wall power.

I agree with the comparison to mobile devices apart from one thing - at least an Android phone lets you upgrade the browser.

The C720p has a Haswell 2955u with roughly half the performance of a 6200u. Meanwhile, Atom garbage models from 2013 - 2020 had half or less single-thread performance than it does! It took until the Elkhart lake models (4005) before any of the Atoms broke even with it. Even some of the 5000-series atoms are slower. But they're still coming out with new 3000 and 4000-series Atom garbage today! Seriously! And Google is supporting those pieces of shizzle, but abandoning perfectly capable devices, for marketing reasons.

When it comes to software freedom, say what you will about Windows... at least you have the right to keep it up to date, and a right to update your browser to a secure version even after the OS itself is unsupported. With ChromeOS, you have no rights unless you want to disassemble it, modify the hardware, and flash a has-never-been-approved EFI so you can load a free OS. So I am very disillusioned with ChromeOS now.

Walk into a store today and you can buy a brand-new ChromeOS device that has less than 1 year of OS updates, and therefore less than 1 year of browser updates. Seriously. That's the kind of online security the Google brand stands for.

So it's time to call out the ChromeOS markeplace for what it is - a premature landfill maketplace - because the target audience is never going to modify the hardware and flash a non-approved EFI just so they can update their browser, and all the app sites that audience wants to visit will lock them out for having an outdated browser.

[coder]

...

Thanks for taking the time to write that. I hadn't really looked into the ChromeOS world. First, no reason (thankfully). Second, I assumed it was simply rebadged Android, which my now 10-year-old tablet taught me is a very different animal than desktop/server Linux. I had expected to pair it with a bluetooth keyboard + mouse and use it somewhat like a MS Surface, but running Linux. What a reality check! Luckily, it didn't cost me much.

Funny story about Atom models. I bought an Apollo Lake mini-ITX board, years ago. It seemed pretty good, for what it was. Recently, I tried to boot the thing and it's dead as a rock. ASRock, to be precise. Now, I can't even find Jasper Lake replacement. There are Elkhart Lake boards, but they cost > 2x what I paid for it and don't accept the DDR3 RAM I had for it. Even if I went with a Gemini Lake board, they're now overpriced and still limited to DDR4. At this point, I'd rather wait and get an Alder Lake N board.

[linuxgeex]

Thanks for taking the time to write that. I hadn't really looked into the ChromeOS world. First, no reason (thankfully). Second, I assumed it was simply rebadged Android, which my now 10-year-old tablet taught me is a very different animal than desktop/server Linux. I had expected to pair it with a bluetooth keyboard + mouse and use it somewhat like a MS Surface, but running Linux. What a reality check! Luckily, it didn't cost me much.

ChromeOS is basically a kernel, just the modules required for the platform plus common USB devices and zram for swap, network printer support, minimal gnu tools and shell, a cut-down version of Wayland, and a cut-down sound server, an even more cut down init system, and the Google Chrome browser, packaged in a read-only signed EFI image, A-B boot partitions for the most recent two images but no user control over which starts up, a minimal locked down EFI BIOS, and a locked boot loader. It's very efficient and pretty secure so long as the updates keep coming... but there's the problem.

If you buy a Windows laptop and install ChromeOS you get updates until the hardware is no longer capable. Get a ChromeOS device though, and updates end when Google wants to sell you a new device. Because with the locked boot loader, they can dictate those terms. And to add insult to injury, they build new images monthly that would run on your device perfectly - except that the locked boot loader won't load them, because again, landfill drives sales.

[coder]

because again, landfill drives sales.

They really need a new business model. Even selling a subscription would be better than leaving people out in the cold.

[linuxgeex]

Funny story about Atom models. I bought an Apollo Lake mini-ITX board, years ago. It seemed pretty good, for what it was. Recently, I tried to boot the thing and it's dead as a rock. ASRock, to be precise. Now, I can't even find Jasper Lake replacement. There are Elkhart Lake boards, but they cost > 2x what I paid for it and don't accept the DDR3 RAM I had for it. Even if I went with a Gemini Lake board, they're now overpriced and still limited to DDR4. At this point, I'd rather wait and get an Alder Lake N board.

I think this will be my next fanless HTPC: https://linuxgizmos.com/rock-5-sbc-f...iple-displays/

Pricing is pretty good esp for the 16GB model. It has AV1 decode and 3x8k display support as well as 4k60 HDMI in. Single thread performance nowhere near the Alder Lake E-cores, but I doubt there will be an Alder Lake quad E-Core NUC with 16GB RAM for $159 any time in the next 2 years, and those won't have native HDMI in regardless...

[coder]

I think this will be my next fanless HTPC: https://linuxgizmos.com/rock-5-sbc-f...iple-displays/

Well-spotted!

I've been waiting for RK3588-based SBCs to hit the market for what feels like ages! I wonder if ODROID will launch one. They briefly had a N1 model that featured a Rockchip, but subsequently replaced it with the Allwinner-based N2 (which I have ...and found it lives up to my expectations).

If Mediatek had a better track record on driver support, they might be another good option, since they've also got some SoC's with A76 + A55 cores and a decent Mali iGPU.

with 16GB RAM for $159

The article is dated January 10th and quotes a price of $189 for 16 GB. We'll see if they have to adjust it for inflation.

...an Alder Lake quad E-Core NUC ... won't have native HDMI in regardless...

Huh? I've seen plenty of NUCs with HDMI. Is this something specific to the E-core versions?

What I liked about that ASRock Apollo Lake board I had was that it was passively-cooled, standard form factor, and had native SATA ports. And the thing you just can't beat about Intel's CPUs is the level of driver support. They use the same line of iGPUs as their desktop CPUs, so everything basically just works.

[linuxgeex]

Huh? I've seen plenty of NUCs with HDMI. Is this something specific to the E-core versions?

HDMI *in*, which is super useful if you want to be able to pass another video source through, such as your PVR/cable box/BD-player.