The Pixelbook is being used to test Google's Fuchsia OS • Hacker News Board

Re: The Pixelbook is being used to test Google's Fuchsia OS

#41

Post by jkmcf » Sun, Dec 31, 2017, 6:51 PM UTC

aphextron wrote: post #25

jkmcf wrote: post #2

Aside from control, what does this provide over Linux? IMO, the Linux desktop problem is due partially to relying on the antiquated X Windows system, but mostly a lack of funding a good vision, e.g. Unity. After growing up with OpenLook, then Motif, the plethora of Linux window managers, and unhappy years with Windows, I noticed most of the elegant apps were being written for OSX. I’m not sure how much of this is due…

>The solution I want is a Linux OS, a WM with a good, cohesive, long term vision, and an easy way to build apps within at vision — something like a native Electron minus the memory and CPU overhead. I believe Google could do this. This is literally MacOS/Cocoa/AppKit minus Linux plus BSD

More or less. Not sure about appkit, but the Apple dictatorial control bothers me. E.g., Apple apps on iOS have tight integration unavailable to other apps, and they don’t improve their apps for power users or broader use cases.

Also, the first thing I do on non-GNU/Linux systems is install GNU tools :)

Re: The Pixelbook is being used to test Google's Fuchsia OS

#42

Post by lobster_johnson » Sun, Dec 31, 2017, 6:52 PM UTC

aceofspad3s wrote: post #27

krylon wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. That is part of the idea. So the vulnerability is isolated and does not automatically compromise the entire system.

Who cares? In consumer devices, userspace is the entire system.

It's not just one userspace. Fuchsia is capabilities-oriented, when apps are sandboxed by default and only get access to the services it has been granted access to.

Re: The Pixelbook is being used to test Google's Fuchsia OS

#43

Post by tw04 » Sun, Dec 31, 2017, 7:00 PM UTC

blablabla123 wrote: post #24

jkmcf wrote: post #2

Aside from control, what does this provide over Linux? IMO, the Linux desktop problem is due partially to relying on the antiquated X Windows system, but mostly a lack of funding a good vision, e.g. Unity. After growing up with OpenLook, then Motif, the plethora of Linux window managers, and unhappy years with Windows, I noticed most of the elegant apps were being written for OSX. I’m not sure how much of this is due…

The Linux distributors might be able to solve this. Obviously there are tons of Window managers and a dozen of consistent, working Desktop Environments. Ubuntu already made clear that they are moving away from X and moreover that a better UX on the WM part will be a priority. I use Linux again since this year after working almost only on OS X for 5 years or so. It has been more setup work than I wished but I'm really…

>Either they will support running Linux or Android drivers, or otherwise their system will be just useful for Marketing demos.

Are you just saying that, or do you actually believe it? You think all of the phone vendors that write custom closed source drivers for Android will abandon Android if the core is no longer Linux? Seriously? And what, move to tizen? Windows phone?

Be reasonable... Google can and will move to a different core, and all of their partners will move with them.

Re: The Pixelbook is being used to test Google's Fuchsia OS

#44

Post by aphextron » Sun, Dec 31, 2017, 7:03 PM UTC

jkmcf wrote: post #41

aphextron wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The solution I want is a Linux OS, a WM with a good, cohesive, long term vision, and an easy way to build apps within at vision — something like a native Electron minus the memory and CPU overhead. I believe Google could do this. This is literally MacOS/Cocoa/AppKit minus Linux plus BSD

More or less. Not sure about appkit, but the Apple dictatorial control bothers me. E.g., Apple apps on iOS have tight integration unavailable to other apps, and they don’t improve their apps for power users or broader use cases. Also, the first thing I do on non-GNU/Linux systems is install GNU tools :)

>More or less. Not sure about appkit, but the Apple dictatorial control bothers me. E.g., Apple apps on iOS have tight integration unavailable to other apps, and they don’t improve their apps for power users or broader use cases.

This is what drove me away from the whole ecosystem, iOS included. The fact that all of their APIs are closed source headers only is a complete nightmare. I'd rather spend my time working with open Web standards than digging through some arcane Apple manual page.

Re: The Pixelbook is being used to test Google's Fuchsia OS

#45

Post by fauigerzigerk » Sun, Dec 31, 2017, 7:09 PM UTC

Shoothe wrote: post #11

krylon wrote: post #10

I wish Google was more outspoken about their plans for Fuchsia. So far, all we have is a lot of speculation.

I think they don't know themselves what will become of it. It's more a research project similarly to Midori.

I think there's a lot more going on than they are publicly letting on.

If the general public starts to believe that there is an Android successor in the works, many people will stop buying Android devices until further notice. This could be absolutely catastrophic for the Android device market.

If I were Google, I would bury the name Fuchsia, call the thing Android 10, and let it be known that it's years out.

Re: The Pixelbook is being used to test Google's Fuchsia OS

#46

Post by rtpg » Sun, Dec 31, 2017, 7:09 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #26

petra wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't treble fix the Android fragmentation problem ? Why is this needed/better ?

The two aren't mutually exclusive. Treble attempts to fix fragmentation by re-standardizing and more loosely coupling between the driver layer and system APIs. We won't know if this is a solution until later and this XKCD[0] kind of explains why. This is a real time OS from the ground up. Some have SPECULATED it might be run in a VM/container rather than directly on hardware, effectively further standardizing in a si…

A bit pedantic but that XKCD doesn't apply if your standard is an overlay to another standard, for the most part.

USB2 didn't fragment the "USB standards " space, because USB1 devices work on it.

Re: The Pixelbook is being used to test Google's Fuchsia OS

#47

Post by Someone1234 » Sun, Dec 31, 2017, 7:12 PM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #46

Someone1234 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two aren't mutually exclusive. Treble attempts to fix fragmentation by re-standardizing and more loosely coupling between the driver layer and system APIs. We won't know if this is a solution until later and this XKCD[0] kind of explains why. This is a real time OS from the ground up. Some have SPECULATED it might be run in a VM/container rather than directly on hardware, effectively further standardizing in a si…

A bit pedantic but that XKCD doesn't apply if your standard is an overlay to another standard, for the most part. USB2 didn't fragment the "USB standards " space, because USB1 devices work on it.

Treble doesn't overlay an existing standard in all cases, it completely replaces them in some areas.

Re: The Pixelbook is being used to test Google's Fuchsia OS

#48

Post by derefr » Sun, Dec 31, 2017, 7:21 PM UTC

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #22

cbhl wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Control is all of it. Security on Android is a joke for 80%+ of users. They can't run on the latest version of Android, because various vendors' drivers are in out-of-tree kernel patches that are un-upstreamable for non-technical reasons. (By comparison, Chrome OS is also Linux-based, but, IIRC, it requires all shipping devices to have drivers upstreamed.) Owning an OS with a stable device driver ABI would allow Goog…

> un-upstreamable for non-technical reasons It was my understanding that it was almost completely technical reason, i.e., vendors write drivers that mostly work but are completely terrible from a quality perspective.

Quality problems with code at this magnitude aren't really a technical problem (i.e. not something you can fix by asking the same programmers who created the problems to fix them.) It's rare that good programmers could write code as badly as these patches demonstrate. Even actively-harmful coding standards directed from the top down wouldn't cause this kind of code.

Instead, the kind of code that ends up in these driver blobs is caused by, in essence, a political problem: they simply hired bad programmers. The only way to fix that, is to demand that the driver vendors' management teams adopt higher standards for their software hires: that they fire many of the programmers they have, and hire new ones in a much more stringent process. And probably also pay them more, because that stringent process will likely choke their existing funnel out of existence.

It's much the same as, say, finding that a company is using a low-quality outsourcing firm. Would you say that there's a technical problem inside the outsourcing firm? No, you'd say that there's a management problem in the choice of outsourcing firm.

Re: The Pixelbook is being used to test Google's Fuchsia OS

#49

Post by johansch » Sun, Dec 31, 2017, 7:22 PM UTC

krylon wrote: post #10

I wish Google was more outspoken about their plans for Fuchsia. So far, all we have is a lot of speculation.

There probably are no intricate plans for the future on an executive level, besides having some smart people enjoy their work while building something that may or not be useful in the future, depending on a) how their effort, and b) the future turns out.

Re: The Pixelbook is being used to test Google's Fuchsia OS

#50

Post by on_and_off » Sun, Dec 31, 2017, 7:22 PM UTC

cmurf wrote: post #38

From Wikipedia: Chrome OS is an operating system designed by Google that is based on the Linux kernel and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user interface. OK so why not Google Chrome web browser on top of Fuchsia, instead of Linux kernel and the usual user space stuff? Google can call that retrofit anything they want, so it could still be Chrome OS.

Not an expert on ChromeOS but it has more than simply Chrome right now, for example it can run Android apps.

It is although true that Google could replace the low layers of Chrome OS as long as it replicates most of the user facing features.

If Google intends to make Fuchsia some kind of Android successor (we have no way to know if that's the plan though), this feature is utterly needed anyway : an Android VM for 'legacy' apps and Flutter for the future.