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$149 Chromebooks

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Re: $149 Chromebooks

#351

Post by jrockway »

Scarbutt wrote: post #335
jrockway wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that the Chromium process is what's compositing windows is relatively uninteresting to the end user. It's Linux with a different GUI system. Ubuntu is ditching X11 also, as I understand it, so people other than Google appear to be prepared to redo Linux GUIs. There's Native Client, so you can write native code. I believe there are things like Emacs for NaCl, though Emacs is relatively useless until someone a…

I guess the terminal is just a browser tab? can the configs made to the browser terminal tab persist? like font, text size, color, etc... Also, when running emacs in the terminal through ssh, doesn't emacs keybindings interfere to much with chromeos's browser?

Apps running in a window can capture whatever keys they want. So Control-W is interpreted by your shell/app, not by the browser (closing the window). In a tab the browser keybindings still exist, so be sure to set "open in new window" by right-clicking the app before running.

Terminal settings are configurable and persistent.

You can have as many windows open as you like.

Here's the app: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/secure-shell/pnhec...

It works on any machine running Chrome. Things don't quite work right on MacOS, I'm told, but it seems native on Windows and Linux. (And CrOS of course.)

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#352

Post by Mikeb85 »

flinty wrote: post #342
Mikeb85 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe part of some of it, but I'm talking about the Internet Terminal idea. I'm pretty young, so I was woefully ignorant of this. However the more I read about it, the more it sounds like 'Cloud computing' and 'internet of things'. In fact, Chrome OS isn't too far from their Java Internet Terminal idea. > Have you tried Web IDEs? They're probably decades behind their desktop counterparts. I have. My main IDE, and p…

any good sources on sun's history?

Not really. Just Googled and found some old pages. Others could probably do better.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#353

Post by hyperpallium »

cardine wrote: post #91
austinsharp wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's cheaper and simpler with less functionality. Isn't that the broad idea [1]? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_innovation

A disruptive innovation is an innovation that creates a new market. What market does the Chromebook create that a $200 netbook didn't already create?

That wiki's definition is simpler than I'd thought possible. But a "new market" includes a new group of people (doing the same old thing), and the same people doing the same thing in a new way (e.g. people with landline phones using cell phones).

Just in the comments here are mentioned: low-hassle machine for grandparents (which the HNer has to admin, who influences the decision); low cost and low hassle machine for school kids (which the school has to admin, an who decides); second or third backup machine; machines for the developing world; for people working mostly in chrome browser (which is faster than on Windows), which includes most of us, and some HN even dev in web IDEs.

Cheaper + low-hassle + web-optimised also makes them attractive, to almost everyone.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#354

Post by vdaniuk »

SwellJoe wrote: post #294
beagle3 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who downvoted SwellJoe: Can you explain? The facts about the "netbooks" are verifiable facts, see e.g. [0]. That's a business version of "embrace, extinguish" (no extension here), and it's classic for the Bill Gates / Ballmer era. Microsoft was strongarming the manufacturers - in 2009, they could still do that easily (and they might still be able to today). The carrot and stick was reduced Windows licensin…

I have a theory about humans having a generally short memory for corporate malfeasance, or to put it in a better light, having a much more forgiving nature than I do. I also tend to get down-voted whenever I talk about nasty stuff Apple has done. And, occasionally, when I do get a reply rather than or in addition to a downvote it will be of the form: "Well, X also does what you accused Y of." i.e., complaints about t…

Consider the HN audience and the disproportionate percentage of megacorps employees in it. Actionable community consensus that is being critical of Microsoft/Apple/Google is now nearly non-existent on HN.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#355

Post by Mikeb85 »

aikah wrote: post #245
Chefkoochooloo wrote: post #164

I think this product will do well especially for students, start-up businesses, or even for leisure use. Google's goal is to be able to address the affordability and at the same time not sacrificing quality. It definitely isn't the best machine out there but it is sufficient for daily use of middle-income consumers and students. On their video ad, it's obvious that they are also focusing on an international market wh…

> Google's goal is to be able to address the affordability and at the same time not sacrificing quality. Google's goal is to sell its cloud services, not the hardware here. The specs are crappy and that laptop is basically useless if you are doing anything else than internet. Sure it cost 150$, but that's an expensive surfing machine. And Google is off course selling internet services... > I think this product will d…

> Why would people want to pay JUST for a fucking browser?

Because there's a lot you can do with a browser these days. You can even run offline apps and native code (Emscripten, NaCl, PNaCl).

Also, if you turn on developer mode, you can access all the Gentoo bits that hide underneath the Chrome bits.

Consider common use cases - word processing, social media, organising photos, communication - all can be done with a stock Chromebook. Once developers realise the full potential, you'll see bigger, better games that run on Chrome (check out Bastion and From Dust on the Chrome web store - pretty impressive already).

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#356

Post by Scarbutt »

jrockway wrote: post #351
Scarbutt wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the terminal is just a browser tab? can the configs made to the browser terminal tab persist? like font, text size, color, etc... Also, when running emacs in the terminal through ssh, doesn't emacs keybindings interfere to much with chromeos's browser?

Apps running in a window can capture whatever keys they want. So Control-W is interpreted by your shell/app, not by the browser (closing the window). In a tab the browser keybindings still exist, so be sure to set "open in new window" by right-clicking the app before running. Terminal settings are configurable and persistent. You can have as many windows open as you like. Here's the app: https://chrome.google.com/web…

cool, I think I'm getting one, one last question :)

you said it is your main workstation, I'm guessing you are an external monitor, how well does external monitors work?

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#357

Post by zyx321 »

bandrami wrote: post #348
KeytarHero wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are no native apps on ChromeOS—the correct question is not "Can Mozilla write a browser for ChromeOS", its "Can Mozilla write an app for ChromeOS" Exactly - ChromeOS is a browser. "Can Mozilla write a browser for ChromeOS" makes about as much sense as "Can Mozilla write a browser for Chrome" or "Can Google write a browser for Internet Explorer". ...or it would have made that little sense before Mozilla wrote…

> Can Google write a browser for Internet Explorer Sure they could; it would just be an ActiveX control, or whatever they call that this week.

They could, and they pretty much did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome_Frame

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#358

Post by aikah »

jpatokal wrote: post #273
aikah wrote: post #263

This thread is being totally astroturfed by Googlers, or people actually like the specs of that thing? I don't get it. People, you can buy machines that have a proper os AND a browser ... but you're ready to spend money on a glorified browser?

So where's this proper machine of yours that sells for $150?

Go to amazon,plenty of products for a reasonable price.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#359

Post by millstone »

eli wrote: post #121
cardine wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A disruptive innovation is an innovation that creates a new market. What market does the Chromebook create that a $200 netbook didn't already create?

These things are only obvious in retrospect. Why did the iPod create a new market when the Nomad MP3 Player already existed?

In the case of the iPod, the answer is surely the iTunes Music Store, which was the first legal online store that sold popular music in digital formats.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#360

Post by aikah »

kowdermeister wrote: post #244
ssmoot wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Maybe they're not the present, but they ARE the future." That reminds me of Sun in the early 90's. I'm not saying you're wrong. But I don't think it's inevitable you're right either. Especially since browser UI toolkits are still stuck in the stone age compared to native counterparts. Until that gets fixed, I actually think it's probably just wishful thinking.

There are orders of magnitude more UI kits for HTML/CSS then there are for native.

> There are orders of magnitude more UI kits for HTML/CSS then there are for native.

of course you need them because working directly with hTML/CSS is total crap.

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