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Early Access to Chrome OS Flex: The Upgrade PCs and Macs

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Re: Early Access to Chrome OS Flex: The Upgrade PCs and Macs

#91

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

car_analogy wrote: post #83
Zhenya wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not defending Google’s actions but it worth noting that not updating devices usually has to do with the SoC supplier ceasing support for the chip by not shipping BSPs which support new OS features. Yes google should have negotiated better support but it’s lack of support has to do more with inability to do so within reasonable means. They have projects ongoing to decouple OS functionality from the base firmware (proj…

> not updating devices usually has to do with the SoC supplier ceasing support for the chip by not shipping BSPs which support new OS features I don't know what a BSP is, but why can I update linux (or indeed almost any OS) on my PC without any support from the motherboard vendor? What OS features need SoC support, and why can the OS not live without them, when it was previously able to do so? This was the case befor…

> I don't know what a BSP is, but why can I update linux (or indeed almost any OS) on my PC without any support from the motherboard vendor? What OS features need SoC support, and why can the OS not live without them, when it was previously able to do so?

Basically, PCs have 2 things going for them:

First, they use standardized, enumerable interfaces. You can boot an arbitrary Linux-based system and the kernel can ask the PCI bus "what hardware is installed?" using the same query on every machine, and get back an answer in the same format. "Embedded" devices don't have that, generally (ARM ServerReady does add this, and does create ARM-based hardware where you just stick in a random distro's USB stick and boot and it works).

Second, Linux on PCs tends to use upstream drivers. When you run ex. Ubuntu on a laptop, it talks to your ex. graphics card using a driver that's in Torvald's official tree. For... reasons... that I don't claim to understand but that probably involve cost-cutting, Android phones rely on drivers that are written by hardware vendors and then abandoned without any effort to get included upstream.

So the result is that in many cases you can boot vanilla Linux on an arbitrary phone or whatever, but it'll come up with access to the CPU, RAM, and USB (because that is still an enumerable bus using a standard interface), but it will have no idea how to query the rest of the hardware and if it did it wouldn't have any drivers to talk to that hardware with.

Edit: I should mention, a BSP is the ... "solution" that vendors use to pretend this whole thing is workable. It stands for board support package, which is a giant blob of source code that includes at minimum a copy of Linux with all their delightfully buggy custom drivers included and all the necessary hardware devices hard-coded so the system can find the hardware when it boots. And by find, of course, I mean "blindly assume it's there". On a good day this data is encoded in a device tree, which is a file format for "here's what hardware is in this system and how to talk to it (ports, memory addresses, whatever) ".

Re: Early Access to Chrome OS Flex: The Upgrade PCs and Macs

#92

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

Closi wrote: post #31
minerva23 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You shouldn’t be getting downvoted for that. It’s a fair question for those educated in Google’s history of cancelling products and uneducated in Chrome OS. A lot of people are unaware that Google is deeply committed in the OS space. Apart from Android, which they saw/see as an existential need for their business, Chrome OS fills a similar space on the desktop (especially as MS ramps up their anticompetitive efforts…

Lol at the comment around Microsoft's "anti-competitive efforts" which were making IE a core part of Windows, in a thread about Chrome OS which makes Chrome core to the OS, and in a world where Chrome has the dominant market share and is solidifying it by building it into their products.

I'm not sure that those are really the same; Google already had Chrome and then made an OS to run it, while MS had OS dominance and used that to force everyone to have IE. The analog would be if Google made Chrome automatically add a ChromeOS dual-boot option to every Windows PC it was installed on.

Re: Early Access to Chrome OS Flex: The Upgrade PCs and Macs

#93

Post by vorpalhex »

leejoramo wrote: post #22

Love how Google is advocating this for cost savings and sustainability. If only my School District could use Chrome OS Flex to get some more life out of the fleet 4 year old Chromebook's that can no longer get updates

It's very possible those chromebooks were underpowered to begin with. At some point the hardware really is dead.

Re: Early Access to Chrome OS Flex: The Upgrade PCs and Macs

#94

Post by vorpalhex »

LoveMortuus wrote: post #46

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but what does "cloud first" mean in the context of an operating system, does it mean that you need to always be connected to the internet to use it, like can you use the computer offline?

It uses Google Drive (or similar) to store all your files. There is a local drive used for caching so you can work offline entirely but the idea is that the workstation is "cattle" - you can throw it into a shredder, log into a new chromebook and have all your apps/files/etc installed and ready to go.

The selling point for these are light computer users.

Re: Early Access to Chrome OS Flex: The Upgrade PCs and Macs

#95

Post by mbreese »

prmoustache wrote: post #89
andrewmutz wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UX is extremely easy to use. For most users, you're just using web browsers and the window manager for chrome os is designed for just manipulating browser windows. Unless you install Linux stuff (most users don't) you can't download any software. This means no malware is possible. It guides you to store everything in the cloud, which allows you to treat your workstations as cattle rather than pets.

Doesn't seem so extraordinary then. I would treat the last point as a con more than a pro though.

It’s not supposed to be extraordinary. It’s supposed to be simple and cheap and robust and working. Storing data in the cloud is part of that contract — if something happens to your computer (physical damage), you can get up and working very quickly with a new one. As in — you buy a new computer, sign in, and you’re done.

It’s not a set of trade offs that work for everyone, but it works well for many environments. I would have loved these back I the day when I had to maintain Windows clients for people to just turn around and use RDP to connect to a terminal server. Having a light weight client (that was secure) would have made that scenario much nicer.

Re: Early Access to Chrome OS Flex: The Upgrade PCs and Macs

#96

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

merwanedr wrote: post #24

Ha, for a minute I thought Google actually built a Cloud-native OS. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't really see the use-case for this. Sounds like it could be an orchestration solution for schools or bootcamps at best. What's incredible about real cloud-native operating systems is that "OS" is merely an acronym. The reality is that companies like Mighty are working on cloud-native computers, where even hardware upgradabi…

> for a minute I thought Google actually built a Cloud-native OS

I'm curious how you would define a cloud-native OS that doesn't include Chrome OS.

> The endgame is that you don't have upgrade your laptop anymore, not just install apps fast.

How are Chromebooks not already this? The whole thing is just a way to run a browser that connects to the real workloads in the cloud, and hardware is only obsolete when it stops getting updates (which is very "cloud native" behavior - the device lives and dies at the will of some remote company that manages it for you).

Re: Early Access to Chrome OS Flex: The Upgrade PCs and Macs

#97

Post by vorpalhex »

fartcannon wrote: post #66

Schools should be using Linux (or a BSD) exclusively. And preferably, open format alternatives to anything locked down. Proprietary software is fine if the data is easily exported to another format. Transforming a perfectly good Linux machine into a Google data pipeline is a horrible thing to do to children.

I'd love to see you maintain 800 linux laptops kept in the hands of kids.

"What do you mean you recompiled ALSA and now you can't join Zoom little Timmy? Did you try invoking modprobe again?"

Re: Early Access to Chrome OS Flex: The Upgrade PCs and Macs

#99

Post by kennywinker »

LoveMortuus wrote: post #40
kennywinker wrote: post #38

In the 1990s Microsoft was heavily criticized, and litigated against, for the deep integration of internet explorer with windows, and their monopoly on operating systems and web browsing. Stunning to think that people are willingly installing chrome the browsers, and chrome the os in 2022.

It is actually possible to install non-chrome browsers on ChromeOS either through the App store or just via the console. But I totally understand your point and the options I've listed aren't either user friendly or straight up require you to be able to use a console.

It was always possible to install netscape navigator over top of windows. The crux of the issue was that it was "unreasonably difficult".

Re: Early Access to Chrome OS Flex: The Upgrade PCs and Macs

#100

Post by andrewmutz »

5d8767c68926 wrote: post #59
andrewmutz wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By default, there is only web browsers and no Linux. Which is nice because by default there can be no malware and it's a good OS for non technical users. But with one click it installs and makes available Linux. It appears to the user as a debain variant. You can install anything and when you run apps they seamlessly work with the window manager. I've used VScode for software development and it works great. Steam is…

Is it Google in name only or does it send telemetry of my every click to the mother ship? Would be interested in trying it as a VSCode remote development + minimal Linux utilities platform.

I don't know what sort of telemetry exists. It is easy to try out. From my memory you can use the install USB just as a normal boot drive without installing. So you can go try it out and see if you like it before you install it
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