Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Please, FOSS world, we need something like ChromeOS

theregister.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 122 posts

Re: Please, FOSS world, we need something like ChromeOS

#101

Post by autoexec »

jeroenhd wrote: post #52
tytso wrote: post #40

This is ultimately a business model problem. There are FOSS projects out there; some of them are even listed in the article. The problem is that making it "Just Work(tm)" is hard; it's a lot of work, requiring a large number of engineers. And funny thing, engineers prefer food with their meals. Saying "FOSS world" we need XXX is pretty useless. As a FOSS mainatinaer, the answer I always give people demanding their fa…

Programmers do stuff for free, all the time. People also donate to foundations so some programmers can be paid to make free stuff. It's how we got the Linux desktop as we know it. Programmers often stop worrying about the details once they're satisfied, though, and there are a lot of details. Yes we could add thumbnails to the file picker, but we also need to support Nvidia hardware and the archive application is mis…

> ChromeOS works because there's a single entity that can hire a small group of designers to tell an army of programmers what they want everything to look and work like.

ChromeOS works because it's pre-installed on selected hardware devices where it's been configured and tested before any user even get it into their hands which would solve the majority of the problems no matter what OS you're using. Then they also take all power away from the user do make any changes to those systems which helps solve the rest. Ultimately though, most people who know anything at all about computers want the power to make changes to what's installed on them..

Everyone I know who got a chromebook did it first and foremost because they were inexpensive and every one of them at one point or another found themselves frustrated by the limitations. A privacy respecting linux system won't be able to use massive amounts of data collection to lower the price of the hardware like Google can.

Re: Please, FOSS world, we need something like ChromeOS

#102

Post by autoexec »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #35
rapnie wrote: post #16

TIL about Endless OS: Recommended for Learners, Parents, and Schools https://www.endlessos.org/ > Many of our technologies are distributed together within Endless OS. This is not your typical Linux distribution. We don’t use rpm, apt, or any other packaging system. In our quest for simplicity and robustness, we use a read-only root file system managed by OSTree with application bundles overlaid on top. Most desktop L…

What are application bundles?

looks like it's just pre-selected software and flatpak. They offer a way to add whatever software you want to the list.

Re: Please, FOSS world, we need something like ChromeOS

#103

Post by rstuart4133 »

esperent wrote: post #29
benrutter wrote: post #12

I think project bluefin has a similarish philosophy of being a "cloud first os", would definitely recommend checking it out: https://projectbluefin.io/ In all honesty though, there's a tonne of easy to recommend distros which don't need set up if you are a "normie" just wanting to get online: - Elementary - Mint - Ubuntu I think the real "secret sauce" for ChomeOS' success is basically big coorporate backing and bein…

I recently (two weeks ago) decided to finally switch from Windows to plain Ubuntu as a daily desktop. I'm well experienced with it from managing servers and have used it occasionally at a desktop in the past. I've had - and continue to have, a ton of minor and a few large problems. First, wifi. Apparently there's often problems with Intel killer 6e laptop cards, which required me to enter loads of console commands th…

> from Windows to plain Ubuntu

It is unfortunate that Ubuntu still has the mind share it does. I abandoned it a while ago as too unreliable. It is effectively Debian testing (they call it testing for a reason) with proprietary addons that have even less testing than Debian testing.

Originally, Debian making it difficult to get non open source firmware during installation was a reason for using Ubuntu, but now even that justification gone. Meanwhile Ubuntu anti-features like snap accumulate.

Re: Please, FOSS world, we need something like ChromeOS

#104

Post by cosmic_cheese »

rangerelf wrote: post #96
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who appreciates Cinnamon’s approach, it does have a number of rough edges that make it feel less smooth and polished than it could be, compared to even e.g. Windows 7 or OS X 10.9. The practical impact is minimal, but for someone coming from outside of the Linux sphere I could see it leaving a less than stellar impression.

I'm still waiting for specifics. I've been running Mint for ... longer than I care to remember, many years, and it's been flawless for me. I see windows users around me raging when it decides to just freeze, or has weird twitchy behavior, and I just keep on going. And no, I don't spend hours upon hours tweaking and troubleshooting until it's "just right"; Mint convinced me because it was 99% "just right" out of the b…

Windows absolutely issues like you’re describing, but that’s not what I’m talking about (though not needing to tweak and troubleshoot desktop Linux is very much a YMMV thing in my experience, and I’ve played with Fedora, Ubuntu + derivatives (Mint, pop, etc), and arch derivatives among others a lot over the years).

For Cinnamon specifically I’m talking more UX/UI/visual polish sorts of things. There’s little papercuts all over that don’t make much difference individually but give an impression that it’s not quite finished. It isn’t unique in this regard though, you see this in all the DEs to some degree. It really just boils down to a lack of attention to detail and/or unevenly distributed attention (some things have been heavily iterated on, others implemented just well enough to check a box).

Some of the newer Wayland tiling WMs are better about this and are a lot more detail-oriented, but well, tiling WMs aren’t my thing at all. I’m much more in the traditional desktop camp.

Re: Please, FOSS world, we need something like ChromeOS

#105

Post by esperent »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #53
esperent wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently (two weeks ago) decided to finally switch from Windows to plain Ubuntu as a daily desktop. I'm well experienced with it from managing servers and have used it occasionally at a desktop in the past. I've had - and continue to have, a ton of minor and a few large problems. First, wifi. Apparently there's often problems with Intel killer 6e laptop cards, which required me to enter loads of console commands th…

Fedora might support your hardware better, (newer kernel) and not have snap. Windows also sometimes has these kinds of problems. Plus I usually have to dig up many commands to turn off user-hostile defaults or free up a quarter terabyte of disk space wasted. Was an obscure diskadm cli I’ve never heard of. The perfect OS doesn’t exist, maybe not even a good one.

> Windows also sometimes has these kinds of problems

Undeniably, over many years of using Windows I've had many problems. But never this amount on a fresh install. And most windows problems can be fixed with driver updates or changed settings. Linux problems pretty much all require you to be comfortable entering console commands, which the vast majority of people are not.

Re: Please, FOSS world, we need something like ChromeOS

#106

Post by esperent »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #60
esperent wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently (two weeks ago) decided to finally switch from Windows to plain Ubuntu as a daily desktop. I'm well experienced with it from managing servers and have used it occasionally at a desktop in the past. I've had - and continue to have, a ton of minor and a few large problems. First, wifi. Apparently there's often problems with Intel killer 6e laptop cards, which required me to enter loads of console commands th…

Hardware problems are a frequently understated barrier to switching, particularly for laptop users. Long time Linux users are generally selecting their machines with Linux compatibility in mind and so don’t see much of this, but the corpus of potential switchers haven’t, and it creates a lot of friction. It’s difficult to convince people to replace their perfectly good laptop with something else just for the sake of…

Yes, this is an important point. In future, I will always buy Linux compatible laptops and I'm sure most of these problems will go away.

Re: Please, FOSS world, we need something like ChromeOS

#107

Post by esperent »

rstuart4133 wrote: post #103
esperent wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently (two weeks ago) decided to finally switch from Windows to plain Ubuntu as a daily desktop. I'm well experienced with it from managing servers and have used it occasionally at a desktop in the past. I've had - and continue to have, a ton of minor and a few large problems. First, wifi. Apparently there's often problems with Intel killer 6e laptop cards, which required me to enter loads of console commands th…

> from Windows to plain Ubuntu It is unfortunate that Ubuntu still has the mind share it does. I abandoned it a while ago as too unreliable. It is effectively Debian testing (they call it testing for a reason) with proprietary addons that have even less testing than Debian testing. Originally, Debian making it difficult to get non open source firmware during installation was a reason for using Ubuntu, but now even th…

I agree that I'm not happy with the startup times of snap packages. But these are not the reason for my problems, and if Snap was the only problem I have, well I can just not use it. Probably even uninstall if I want, change to KDE and a different app store.

People keep suggesting that I try their favorite distro and that it won't have these problems. But when I dig a bit deeper into any of the suggestions there's plenty of recent threads like mine.

As someone else above said, people who plan to run Linux will choose hardware that's known to work, and won't have these problems. That's the key, it's not about the distro you choose, it's the hardware.

Re: Please, FOSS world, we need something like ChromeOS

#108

Post by esperent »

benrutter wrote: post #94
esperent wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently (two weeks ago) decided to finally switch from Windows to plain Ubuntu as a daily desktop. I'm well experienced with it from managing servers and have used it occasionally at a desktop in the past. I've had - and continue to have, a ton of minor and a few large problems. First, wifi. Apparently there's often problems with Intel killer 6e laptop cards, which required me to enter loads of console commands th…

Ooof! That sounds rough and also makes me realise a huge oversight in my original comment. I've been using linux on desktop for about 12 years and will always pick a laptop that's known to have good compatibility otherwise the endless hardware issues are a big timesuck. Some distros are better than others for hardware support but I think it'd be disingenious to make out like any solve the problem. If you have a lapto…

> Some distros are better than others for hardware support

I did some reading around the and consensus seemed to be that Ubuntu should be one of these. Do you have any suggestions that are likely to have better hardware support than Ubuntu?

Re: Please, FOSS world, we need something like ChromeOS

#109

Post by brennoflavio »

rapnie wrote: post #16

TIL about Endless OS: Recommended for Learners, Parents, and Schools https://www.endlessos.org/ > Many of our technologies are distributed together within Endless OS. This is not your typical Linux distribution. We don’t use rpm, apt, or any other packaging system. In our quest for simplicity and robustness, we use a read-only root file system managed by OSTree with application bundles overlaid on top. Most desktop L…

This is the solution, but as it was mentioned already the challenge is to get it pre installed and tested across a wide range of devices

Re: Please, FOSS world, we need something like ChromeOS

#110

Post by Karrot_Kream »

esperent wrote: post #108
benrutter wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ooof! That sounds rough and also makes me realise a huge oversight in my original comment. I've been using linux on desktop for about 12 years and will always pick a laptop that's known to have good compatibility otherwise the endless hardware issues are a big timesuck. Some distros are better than others for hardware support but I think it'd be disingenious to make out like any solve the problem. If you have a lapto…

> Some distros are better than others for hardware support I did some reading around the and consensus seemed to be that Ubuntu should be one of these. Do you have any suggestions that are likely to have better hardware support than Ubuntu?

No, it's not a distro problem. You need to use a laptop that has good Linux support, one that has hardware well supported by the mainline kernel or through well-maintained easily installable modules. System76 makes such laptops, for example.

I ran Linux on the desktop and then laptop for 8 years ish when I was younger. It was a huge timesink. It taught me a lot about how systems actually work (what is a kernel, what is a kernel driver, why does crashing kernel code hurt worse than crashing user code, what is pid 1, why do daemons double fork, etc etc) but now as an adult with a busy life I don't see myself using Linux like this again. I can probably debug issues much faster than I could when I was younger but the last thing I want to do with my free time is figure out why runit couldn't spawn the log service to tail my logs for the service that I tried to run.

Post reply on HN