I hope it’s too late and nobody wants this. Any modern Linux distro is plentiful for an average Joe. Especially when we know the games are mostly hassle-free now.
Google's new 'Aluminium OS' project brings Android to PC
281–290 of 321 posts
Re: Google's new 'Aluminium OS' project brings Android to PC
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's pretty openly known that GNOME is hostile to its own userbase It's pretty openly in bad faith to assign malice to open-source developers.
GNOME does in fact have a long track record on this point. Decades old.
And in my option is finally good enough for me to switch from macOS and to recommend Gnome to others. Not everyone likes that Gnome 2 (wasn’t bad, I must admit, but I don’t like it) and especially Gnome 3 was. I quite enjoy modern Gnome, and whilst there are some minor inconveniences I’d prefer being different, I can live with that for the sake of overall simplicity.
Re: Google's new 'Aluminium OS' project brings Android to PC
#283I struggle to imagine existing Android apps being useful in a desktop form factor. It's not just about touch vs mouse/keyboard, it's the whole interaction design philosophy. And it's not as if you can say that getting the Android developer experience on desktop is going to entice developers. Compose is decent, but the actual Android system APIs make Win32 look brilliant. At least Win32 is stable. For this to be viabl…
ChromeOS already had an android adapter layer and apps would run windowed, with an option to respect the original size or allow arbitrary resize. I assume we're in the same situation with Samsung's Dex ? It worked decently well, the main issues were unrelated to the handling in itself (the Bluetooth stack was dead for android apps, trying the smart appliance stuff was just a fool's errand)
Right -- it technically "works", but I don't think you'd want to actually be productive in these existing Android apps on the desktop.
Imagine the experience of trying to write a paper in Android Google Docs, vs firing up the web version.
Games perhaps being a big exception.
Re: Google's new 'Aluminium OS' project brings Android to PC
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
ChromeOS already had an android adapter layer and apps would run windowed, with an option to respect the original size or allow arbitrary resize. I assume we're in the same situation with Samsung's Dex ? It worked decently well, the main issues were unrelated to the handling in itself (the Bluetooth stack was dead for android apps, trying the smart appliance stuff was just a fool's errand)
Right -- it technically "works", but I don't think you'd want to actually be productive in these existing Android apps on the desktop. Imagine the experience of trying to write a paper in Android Google Docs, vs firing up the web version. Games perhaps being a big exception.
I don't use Docs to write novels, but for basic official documents and a few reports I'm looking at, there's very few things missing.
When in phone view a lot of the options are hard to find, but in tablet/desktop mode (yes, that's a thing already) it's really close to what you get on the web. The main different is the menu layout, where most advanced functionalities go to an extended menu instead of the standard File/Edit/View/Insert... menus at the top of the page.
Otherwise there seem to be most of what's needed, including extensions apparently. Perhaps media management could be tougher, it's supported by on don't how much of a PITA it could be, I haven't pushed that far on the android version.
Re: Google's new 'Aluminium OS' project brings Android to PC
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
Home computers are inherently more open to sideloading. So I don't see a scenario where they would close it. But may be I'm spoiled by x86, wouldn't be surprised to find out that ARM computers would not be open to boot unlock and all that stuff.
MacOS requires dropping to the terminal to install unsigned applications. There is literally no need for this, except to ensure apple profits.
When do you see this? For me, I just go to System Settings → Privacy & Security.
Scroll down to Security and look for the message about the blocked app, click Allow Anyway, and then reopen the app.
Re: Google's new 'Aluminium OS' project brings Android to PC
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can conceive a couple of ways. GrapheneOS-style sand-boxing for every app is long overdue in Linux. I'd love to have it's granular permissions for every single service. I'd love to have the battery management, the unified settings UI, the effortless disk encryption UX and key management. Could you build it with SE Linux and a lot of glue? Yes, but nobody has. And doing it well, everywhere, would take a lot of hours…
Take a look at QubesOS.
For Linux on x86, it's by far best in class.
Unfortunately, not even close to being as comfortable to use as GrapheneOS, and still significantly less secure than it - even if we completely disregard the sad situation of hardware security on x86 (but can't blame QubesOS for that one).
Re: Google's new 'Aluminium OS' project brings Android to PC
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
Based on my experience using DeX, no. Most never considered "desktop" as a use case, so their UI is terrible on a 27 inch screen, and keyboard navigation is either non-existent or very awkward. Oh, maybe the browser, so we are back to ChromeOS.
To nuance a bit, sure most application aren't designed to be blown up to 27", but then they don't need to. Tiling two or three applications side by side already gives a decent sizing, and it will probably come down to the window manager to make it an good proposition. After all, we also don't use every app fullscreen on desktops, it doesn't need to be mandatory. Chrome OS was already supporting windowed android apps,…
> most application aren't designed to be blown up to 27", but then they don't need to.
The point is that almost any windows/linux/Mac desktop application handles it much better than Android apps, which is what the question was asking.
Re: Google's new 'Aluminium OS' project brings Android to PC
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't sit around all day complaining about Triumphs because I drive a Honda. I mean, you could decide to complain or not complain, either is fine under a discussion thread of that specific topic . I have posted many comments like "I will never buy * because ..." on forums which I think is perfectly fine. What matters is whether a comment contains valuable information and is contributing to the discussion. If othe…
I don't see much value in complaining about something before trying it, before the project has started, when it's just a rumor. Is that an honorable or fulfilling way to spend the limited time we have on earth? Complaining about some product which you will never have any interest of buying, which hasn't even been decided yet? When will hackers wake up? You are wasting your time being angry at completely meaningless t…
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Re: Google's new 'Aluminium OS' project brings Android to PC
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just imagine configuring nginx or apache with UI.
Come on, we're talking about system settings on future ChromeBooks. Of course I don't want a GUI for writing nginx config files. Android is very good at exposing things like * "which service may know the device location?" * "which app accessed the microphone 2 minutes ago?" * "which apps burn the most battery?" All of those make sense on ChormeBooks, and all of those are difficult with Linux.
The point is that many of Linux's system settings are almost as complex as that. You want some examples?
Re: Google's new 'Aluminium OS' project brings Android to PC
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't sit around all day complaining about Triumphs because I drive a Honda. I mean, you could decide to complain or not complain, either is fine under a discussion thread of that specific topic . I have posted many comments like "I will never buy * because ..." on forums which I think is perfectly fine. What matters is whether a comment contains valuable information and is contributing to the discussion. If othe…
I don't see much value in complaining about something before trying it, before the project has started, when it's just a rumor. Is that an honorable or fulfilling way to spend the limited time we have on earth? Complaining about some product which you will never have any interest of buying, which hasn't even been decided yet? When will hackers wake up? You are wasting your time being angry at completely meaningless t…
> completely meaningless things in this world
I wouldn't say so. Based on ongoing discussions, I am 90% sure I won't ever buy any product that is from Google or runs Google's OS.