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

41–50 of 122 posts

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

#41

Post by babypuncher »

bgwalter wrote: post #8

The goal is banishing any and all questions of what to download, what desktop, what apps, packaging formats, software stores, user accounts, backing up, all of it: run the browser locally, sync the data – and only the data – to the cloud. That is not really popular in the open source world. Who finances the cloud, is it open, who can read or sell your data?

I would argue it goes against the desires of the open source world.

ChromeOS is a product designed to suck people further in to the Google ecosystem. All its limitations, like basically being a web browser with access to the Android Play store, are built around that. The simplicity of not having to worry about anything else is how Google sells that as a benefit of their platform to the masses.

I don't know any of my fellow nerds who want a ChromeOS kind of experience, so why would any of us dedicate our free time to making one?

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

#42

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

Well there was that novel CloudReady solution, which would have allowed people to repurpose old PCs/laptops and replace them with ChromiumOS, but then Google acquired them, and it became "ChromeOS Flex". [0] Not sure where it went from there. Presumably once ChromeOS gets axed (or merged into Android), Flex would go away, too.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChromeOS_Flex

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

#43

Post by cosmic_cheese »

righthand wrote: post #20
floppyd wrote: post #17

Linux desktop in general suffers from not having good "default" options. I can't really recommend any single distro, can't recommend even a single desktop environment as good for most people. Mint is very good, but it looks painfully dated in many places. Fedora is very good, but Gnome Shell is not for everyone in the slightest and debian base is just too wide-spread to ignore. Ubuntu is very good, but actually it's…

> I can't really recommend any single distro, can't recommend even a single desktop environment as good for most people. I can and do all the time: KDE Plasma + Debian Testing

KDE has its own problems, though they’ve been improving in recent years. Out of the box defaults still need some work for example, and settings can still be confusing and difficult to navigate for less technical individuals. It also still has some behaviors that aren’t found on other desktops that can put off switchers.

The best DE for switchers would be one that brings as few surprises as possible and has defaults good enough that the overwhelming majority feel no need to change them. Basically, there needs to be near-perfect clones of the two big commercial desktops that don’t try to be clever or shake things up in any way so the switch is close to seamless.

Debian Testing packages may also still be too old, depending on the user. Anybody having to work cross platform or collaborate with people using other platforms is going to wind up dealing with version mismatch issues, since commercial OS users have most of their apps auto-updated to latest without Testing’a lag.

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

#44

Post by bradfa »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #24
the8472 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tractor wheel, the race bicycle wheel or the 50000RPM flywheel?

The fact that the customer just needs a vehicle to get to and from work, but they're offered tractor wheels and 50k RPM flywheels is exactly the problem. Stop inventing wheels, stop offering esoteric wheels and start solving customer problems simply.

But there are customers who are looking for tractor wheels and flywheels. Maybe not you or people you know, but there's definitely large industries for both. Just like there's a market for "vehicle to get to work". Same thing exists in software. Linux caters to all the uses, from low power embedded systems to huge high performance computing systems and everything in between.

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

#45

Post by RebeccaTheDev »

lotharcable wrote: post #22
sussmannbaka wrote: post #4

There were a bunch of these during the netbook boom and they were grandparent-proof. Sadly, all of my favorites (Moblin/Meego, Joli OS and xpud) are long dead.

Netbook boom happened and then people actually started trying to use them. That is why the netbook boom died. Because while they promised to make cheap Linux devices that anybody could use none of them actually delivered on it. In fact the whole thing was a fiasco. The classic Linux problem can be described as "9 clicks to shit". Meaning that a Linux desktop looks, on the initial viewing, as something that is actuall…

> Another problem is that programmers specialize at being good at programming, but things like documentation and UI testing are their own disciplines that are separate and distinct in a lot of meaningful ways.

Even having decent UIs is a problem for many Linux apps and many are often deeply unpleasant to use day-to-day. This is one thing that has started to slowly get better in the last decade or so, but I can always tell what applications were designed by programmers and which ones have had at least some UI work done on them.

Also, accepting feedback from users on UI improvements often gets either ignored or de-prioritized in favor of adding new features. It's very frustrating to see an otherwise really fantastic application with a lot of neat functionality hamstrung by a bad UI.

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

#46

Post by bethekidyouwant »

floppyd wrote: post #17

Linux desktop in general suffers from not having good "default" options. I can't really recommend any single distro, can't recommend even a single desktop environment as good for most people. Mint is very good, but it looks painfully dated in many places. Fedora is very good, but Gnome Shell is not for everyone in the slightest and debian base is just too wide-spread to ignore. Ubuntu is very good, but actually it's…

How is gnome shell bad for the masses?

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

#47

Post by bee_rider »

The basic problem of this line of thinking has always been (and always will be) that FOSS, in the end, is just a loose-knit community of people who do eachother the favor or sharing out the programs they made. There’s absolutely no reason for that community to go and try to attract a bunch of non-technical people who won’t be able to contribute back.

Who wants to deal with a bunch of users who only switched because Windows 10 stopped updating? I’m going to have to switch my stupid gaming PC away from Windows because it stops updating, and I don’t even want to deal with myself in that context, because he’s a grumpy guy that just wants to relax and play videogames after working (in Linux) all day.

Valve might be able to do it, but it won’t really be a FOSS community project, it will be a proprietary layer on top of FOSS (maybe an Open Source layer on top of FOSS, but it will still be proprietary in the sense that they’ll mostly do the development in-house and in the service of their business model). Which is totally fine, but subservient to their business needs.

I mean… the Register reports on Free Software stuff a lot. Maybe they are the entity that should do it.

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

#48

Post by encom »

righthand wrote: post #20
floppyd wrote: post #17

Linux desktop in general suffers from not having good "default" options. I can't really recommend any single distro, can't recommend even a single desktop environment as good for most people. Mint is very good, but it looks painfully dated in many places. Fedora is very good, but Gnome Shell is not for everyone in the slightest and debian base is just too wide-spread to ignore. Ubuntu is very good, but actually it's…

> I can't really recommend any single distro, can't recommend even a single desktop environment as good for most people. I can and do all the time: KDE Plasma + Debian Testing

Based. I run the same setup myself, but "testing" does mean testing, and while it usually works fine, you have to examine apt output and make sure it's sane, before you update your system.

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

#49

Post by cosmic_cheese »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #39
floppyd wrote: post #17

Linux desktop in general suffers from not having good "default" options. I can't really recommend any single distro, can't recommend even a single desktop environment as good for most people. Mint is very good, but it looks painfully dated in many places. Fedora is very good, but Gnome Shell is not for everyone in the slightest and debian base is just too wide-spread to ignore. Ubuntu is very good, but actually it's…

What does ”looks painfully dated” mean? I hope that doesn’t mean they avoiding bad ideas like hidden scrollbars or menus. I think mint+cinnamon is fantastic, my only gripe is that packages get old after a release has been out a year or two. edit: specifics please.

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.

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

#50

Post by lotharcable »

amlib wrote: post #34
lotharcable wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netbook boom happened and then people actually started trying to use them. That is why the netbook boom died. Because while they promised to make cheap Linux devices that anybody could use none of them actually delivered on it. In fact the whole thing was a fiasco. The classic Linux problem can be described as "9 clicks to shit". Meaning that a Linux desktop looks, on the initial viewing, as something that is actuall…

Can't you say most of these things about Windows or even any other useful desktop OSes? If you want a computer that does useful things and isn't just a locked down social media consumption machine, you end up with a lot of that baggage you've mentioned. Sure MacOS and Windows fare better (insert trillion dollar companies backing it spiel here...) but they are no smooth ride if you are doing anything more than consumi…

It is especially acute when it comes to Linux desktop.
Post reply on HN