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$600 Chromebooks are a dangerous development for Microsoft

arstechnica.com

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Re: $600 Chromebooks are a dangerous development for Microsoft

#261

Post by reaperducer »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #151
reaperducer wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FTA: "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get." I wonder what the maximum penetration was for Windows OSes on phon…

What londons_explore said. Windows OS didn't succeed, but the comments about the iPhone seem to have been basically accurate...?

the comments about the iPhone seem to have been basically accurate

If by "basically accurate," you mean "not accurate at all."

It's a long way from 2% to 45%. Not many companies get to underestimate their competition's potential marketshare by a factor of 22 and survive.

Re: $600 Chromebooks are a dangerous development for Microsoft

#262

Post by komali2 »

I'm pretty new to tech, and young in general, but I'm curious why what's happening between the different browsers regarding working together to identically implement JavaScript, thus allowing tons of modern applications to be universal across machines as long as you can install a modern browser, not happen before with other programming languages? Or did they?

I don't know anything about desktop application development, but for example in college I would use PowerPoint a lot. Was there some specific limitation that made for PowerPoint to be a Windows only thing? Was it that Microsoft just refused to make it for different operating systems? Or was there no point because everyone had windows installed anyway?

I'm kinda just chewing the fat here but in 2018 with iOS, osx, Android, windows, and Ubuntu being the main operating systems of machines, why'd it take the second level of abstraction of Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and Edge working together to make sharing apps across machines a thing? Like, why didn't, I dunno, some cross platform python library (I know nothing about desktop apps sorry) instead be The Universalizer?

Re: $600 Chromebooks are a dangerous development for Microsoft

#263

Post by pasabagi »

komali2 wrote: post #262

I'm pretty new to tech, and young in general, but I'm curious why what's happening between the different browsers regarding working together to identically implement JavaScript, thus allowing tons of modern applications to be universal across machines as long as you can install a modern browser, not happen before with other programming languages? Or did they? I don't know anything about desktop application developmen…

I think that was basically C, and POSIX. Except Microsoft wasn't particularly interested in it, and they thought they'd be better off if they didn't make their software work for competing OS's.

In a sense, most programs today are really portable. I think in the past, there was a far greater variety of machines, and people used to make programs for them specifically, in assembly, that absolutely wouldn't run on even a different generation of the same familly of machines.

Re: $600 Chromebooks are a dangerous development for Microsoft

#264

Post by komali2 »

Fnoord wrote: post #238
michaelmrose wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any practical benefit right now to switching to wayland?

It depends. For me this is about being future proof. Its more secure than X, but you can compartmentalise as well via VMs (Qubes does this) or Docker (Jessie Frazelle runs everything in Docker). Enlightenment [1] supports Wayland since E20. If you use i3 right now, you can use Sway [2] as drop-in replacement. That's my plan (since I use i3) if I might some time. SailfishOS [3] also already uses Wayland. Tizen apparen…

Ubuntu 18.04 gnome shipped with the option, but if you select there's a 50% of forming a black hole where your machine used to be.

I'm joking, but it really is super beta.

Re: $600 Chromebooks are a dangerous development for Microsoft

#265

Post by rwmj »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #251
sarcasmic wrote: post #24

Any Chromebook more than $400 right now is just there to absorb even more disposable income from the market, because they ship with nicer finishes and faster processors, but they are anemic on memory and storage, making them subpar for intense multitasking, or getting certain types of work done. The situations in which they excel can be reliably hit by Chromebooks around a $400 price point, and even cheaper Chromeboo…

To my way of thinking, this is exactly the blind spot: ... they are anemic on memory and storage, making them subpar for intense multitasking, or getting certain types of work done. Look at the iPad Pro, 2GB of memory, not a "laptop" class CPU. etc. It is eating into Microsoft's market for the same reason. The "big" part of the laptop wedge is people who aren't gamers, or intense multitaskers, or intense local storag…

Back in my day 2 GB was an unimaginably large amount of RAM, and our computers could still do many of the things they can do today.

I recall an article in Byte magazine which talked about when we'd have computers with a gigabyte of RAM (but it also noted that at the time you could have had a gigabyte, given in a mere cubic foot of hardware).

Re: $600 Chromebooks are a dangerous development for Microsoft

#266

Post by tootie »

Crontab wrote: post #156

I like the idea of ChromeOS but I don't understand why anyone would want to own a computer that you can't even create a user account on without the manufacturer's permission. I am also unsure, from a privacy prospective, if it is wise to use an OS created by an advertising company.

It has less lock-in than any iOS device. Those things are pretty popular.

Re: $600 Chromebooks are a dangerous development for Microsoft

#267

Post by nailer »

colordrops wrote: post #244
nailer wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people discredit Jobs' creative vision due to disliking his personality, and, if they're engineers, like to overemphasize Woz because he's an engineer.

Maybe 10 years ago that was true.

What do you think changed those people's minds? My feeling is that in the years post Jobs' death negative stories about his personality have been increasingly common.

For the record: I believe Jobs definitely deserves the credit, I'm just observing the mud that has been slung his way.

Re: $600 Chromebooks are a dangerous development for Microsoft

#269

Post by windexh8er »

j0hnml wrote: post #201
ac29 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Will these more upmarket Chromebooks (which have x86 CPUs and acceptable RAM & storage) be OK to run any regular Linux distro? Yes, with the caveat that full BIOS/UEFI support sometimes lags hardware releases by 6-12 months - out of the box most Chromebooks can only boot ChromeOS. Pretty much all the Chromebook firmware work to support 3rd-party OS' is done by one guy, see his page here: https://mrchromebox.tech I…

Which chromebook do you have and what are its specs? I'm interested in doing the same, and I don't want to spend $800+ for a laptop I'm not going to be super happy with.

Check out GalliumOS. One of the best, Chrome specific, distros around. The question on hardware comes down to what you want. Many of the newest releases of ChromeBooks do not have removable media (M.2 form factor). So, choose wisely up front: hardware that is supported by current releases and storage and RAM suitable to your needs. The latest CB I have is a Toshiba Chromebook 2 with an i3 processor and 4GB of RAM. That model has a removable M.2 and so mine has an upgraded 128GB of storage. It has received app support for ChromeOS and also runs Gallium with full support. You can dual boot these machines easily, which is how mine is setup.

Nick Janetakis had a nice write-up on setting it up from back when the machine was newer, but to give you an idea:

https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/transform-a-toshiba-chromeboo...

Re: $600 Chromebooks are a dangerous development for Microsoft

#270

Post by binmanthrowaway »

krn wrote: post #227
nextos wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in Chromebooks for a different reason, the same reason that brings me to Pixel phones. I hate software that tracks me, but if I wipe out Android and I install a self compiled AOSP, it's a superb user experience for me. Will these more upmarket Chromebooks (which have x86 CPUs and acceptable RAM & storage) be OK to run any regular Linux distro? Right now, Xiaomi laptops are excellent cheap machines to r…

> Will these more upmarket Chromebooks (which have x86 CPUs and acceptable RAM & storage) be OK to run any regular Linux distro? GalliumOS[1] is a Ubuntu-based Linux distribution optimized for Chromebooks with a huge list of supported devices[2]. > Right now, Xiaomi laptops are excellent cheap machines to run Linux on (thanks to having just Intel components). Same for Huawei if you are willing to spend a bit more, bu…

Can't see 4k screen. Come on it is 2018 I don't want to see pixels.
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