Introducing the Google Chrome OS • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing the Google Chrome OS

#51

Post by andreyf » Wed, Jul 08, 2009, 7:09 AM UTC

markbao wrote: post #38

mcav wrote: post #2

Key Data Point: > The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.

I wonder if people will be able to take this new windowing system and use it for their own purposes. That would be fantastic, if the new windowing system is good.

Yes, as soon as it becomes open source later in the year. I'm not sure how fantastic it would be, considering it would be Yet Another Windows System which only runs on these netbooks.

Instead, I'd be really impressed witha good windowing systems impemented using the canvas tag, something like:

http://research.sun.com/projects/lively/

Re: Introducing the Google Chrome OS

#52

Post by 10ren » Wed, Jul 08, 2009, 7:16 AM UTC

_cbsz wrote: post #22

Adrenalist wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you clarify your statements a bit more? I don't think that Google Chrome OS would be suitable for most corporate shops that are generally Microsoft centric (and have been for quite some time). I think this free OS will be geared towards light users that primarily use their computer for surfing the web and checking their email.

RAD = rapid application development, the business term for "drag-n-drop GUI builders" that we all know and hate. Not having one for the Web is a valid criticism, but if GWT can handle Swing API input then we DO have one.

That sounds cool, but I don't know exactly what you mean... I think you might mean that you could create a Java applet front-end (using "Swing API"), and drive something in GWT with that, if "GWT can handle Swing API input". But how would you create the Swing front-end? What would driving GWT do you? Please join the dots - doing this often reveals gaps that weren't clear before, so it's a good exercise.

Taking another view: any Java app can be an applet (if you take care of things like access to the file system). Therefore, we already have then, since Eclipse and Netbeans can be an applet, and thus a web app. Theoretically, anyway. :-)

Re: Introducing the Google Chrome OS

#53

Post by pygy » Wed, Jul 08, 2009, 7:23 AM UTC

markbao wrote: post #37

cdibona wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you haven't tried out the chromium nightly desktop builds, they're actually quite nice. The team is still nailing down the plugins, but the browser itself is wicked fast and pretty stable (given its alpha nature)

If you're a Mac user, you can also download the latest nightly build here: http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-ma... (scroll all the way down to the latest build directory) And yes, it is wicked fast . On my system, it doesn't even bounce in the dock before opening. It just opens. Plugins aren't supported yet, but I just open any sites that require Flash in Safari.

It's so fast OS X is unable to register it as a recently launched application for the magic folder in the dock...

Anyone knows why?

Re: Introducing the Google Chrome OS

#54

Post by blasdel » Wed, Jul 08, 2009, 7:28 AM UTC

btw0 wrote: post #30

I wonder if there is possibility their new window system is going to replace the bloated X window system in other distributions.

They have one of the best chances to pull it off out of all the attempts over the last 25 years.

I really hope they try to go big -- bury ALSA cleanly, use Skia for all drawing as vectors, and have an event model intended for Cocoa/WPF/GTK# (not the crapulence of Xt).

Re: Introducing the Google Chrome OS

#55

Post by tvon » Wed, Jul 08, 2009, 7:30 AM UTC

btw0 wrote: post #30

I wonder if there is possibility their new window system is going to replace the bloated X window system in other distributions.

The barrier to replacing X is not replacing X, it is the significant rewriting of software that uses X.

Re: Introducing the Google Chrome OS

#56

Post by gasull » Wed, Jul 08, 2009, 7:33 AM UTC

I wonder if Chrome OS is the same as, or a derivative of, Goobuntu:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Goobuntu

Re: Introducing the Google Chrome OS

#57

Post by blasdel » Wed, Jul 08, 2009, 7:43 AM UTC

I wonder just how Google Native Client will fit into this, especially extended with things like USB support and OpenGL.

There's games, obviously, but what about a NaCL port of iTunes? It's not that far-fetched.

Re: Introducing the Google Chrome OS

#58

Post by 10ren » Wed, Jul 08, 2009, 7:45 AM UTC

kylec wrote: post #5

Let's hope this also means that a Linux version of Chrome is around the corner.

Chrome wasn't built in a day.

Though you'd think if they're announcing a linux-based operating system, centered on their web-browser, making their web-browser run on linux would be trivial. OTOH, could it be the diversity of linux distributions that's making it difficult for them?

Re: Introducing the Google Chrome OS

#59

Post by sovande » Wed, Jul 08, 2009, 7:45 AM UTC

seldo wrote: post #10

Oompa wrote: post #3

A browser is one thing. But an OS? I have my doubts.

You have to re-think what is meant by an "operating system". What is Windows? It's that thing, in the background, that lets you run all the applications you want to run. But what if all your applications were written in Javascript and HTML, and had URLs instead of .exe files? With all the extra power built into Chrome, they could still write to file systems, store data, work offline, do sophisticated graphics and par…

When the iphone was first released, development was going to be via javascript and safari. That didn't go too well with neither users nor developers. Isn't this going to be the same thing? And for the so called windowing system I would not hold my breath and except anything like quartz. Its probably going to be just enough framebuffer code to drop X11 so the browser window can run in fullscreen. The window manager will then be implemented in javascript. Wee!

Re: Introducing the Google Chrome OS

#60

Post by blasdel » Wed, Jul 08, 2009, 7:47 AM UTC

tvon wrote: post #55

btw0 wrote: post #30

I wonder if there is possibility their new window system is going to replace the bloated X window system in other distributions.

The barrier to replacing X is not replacing X, it is the significant rewriting of software that uses X.

And the first massive hump there is getting the replacement good enough to even bother thinking about rewrites.

Google has a chance to leap past that, because they've contrived a situation where they not only don't need X, they don't need to port X apps.