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Please, FOSS world, we need something like ChromeOS

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

#71

Post by [deleted] »

zdragnar wrote: post #67
righthand wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your computer illiterate wife is using a browser 90% of the time. The next machine you’ll be installing ChromeOS-clone Linux for your wife, she won’t be. It’ll be just as complex to install for her.

She's using a browser all the time. Using debian out of the box is still more complicated. The setup process for debian to get it back down to the bare bones simplicity of ChromeOS is much more time consuming for me. Hence, as my original post was meant to convey, a ChromeOS clone is a better option to set up a laptop for her than just grabbing debian.

[deleted]

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

#72

Post by tytso »

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…

People will do a small amount of work for free. But if something requires dozens or hundreds of programmers working full time, the chances of this happening is much less.

And if you want something which just works, it means you need a huge number of people doing grunt work, and that's the kind of thing that people are less likely to want to do in their free time.

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

#73

Post by npteljes »

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 don't think it particularly suffers from not having "good defaults", because it doesn't get adopted by word of mouth. And people are not shopping around The Best OS that they find, and sadly, they evaluate that Linux just doesn't have the juice.

Two things here.

One, OSs get adopted because of the package they arrive in. Laptops have Windows bundled, schools get computers with Windows on the cheap. Phones come with whatever they are integrated - often, not even a major upgrade is possible on them, let alone an alternative OS.

In my opinion, products like the Steam Deck are what get Linux adopted. They provide excellent functionality out of the box.

Two, PCs in this age thrive on interaction. Overwhelmingly, they are bought to interact with other PCs, either directly by network or through formats of specific software, like docx. Therefore, the functionality depends on how well they can participate in a network. This is where Microsoft really made it big with how ruthlessly they pushed Windows as an app platform and Office as the productivity software baseline.

Hence, in the end, what makes Linux really competitive today is the proliferation of web apps, because Linux has first class browsers, and the existence of Wine and its related software. Take these two away and the OS is not even talked about as an alternative to anything, just a specialty, or a curiosity.

Really, an alternative OS can do two things. It can either set the trend, which is not very likely, given that we are talking about alternatives. Or it can follow the trend, or "embrace" it, in MS lingo.

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

#74

Post by pjmlp »

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 went from being a UNIX/Linux zealot during the mid 90's, writing M$ on email signatures, back to Windows as daily driver, because I got tired of all fragmentation, hunting for hardware support, that in theory would work but the actual firmware on the bought device was already another incomplete version, and many other stories that I could share since starting with Linux Slackware 2.0 back in 1995 (first UNIX was Xenix in 1993, followed by DG/UX).

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

#76

Post by amlib »

lotharcable wrote: post #50
amlib wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree, it feels like linux is on a perpetual "under construction" flow, except that lately development has been picking up speed (which is a good thing), but results in an even "bumpier" ride.

And you can't really retreat to a more stable distro (Ubuntu LTS, numbered debian release etc) because you often get stuck with "outdated" software, missing hardware support and missing features (might be essential to your use case). Chasing the bleeding edge ends up being pretty essential in desktop linux but as the name entails it ends in lots of pain for the user. Nerds, hackers, developers and maybe even some power users can definitely have fun and thrive in that environment but the casual consumer.. yikes :(

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

#77

Post by pjmlp »

npteljes wrote: post #73
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 don't think it particularly suffers from not having "good defaults", because it doesn't get adopted by word of mouth. And people are not shopping around The Best OS that they find, and sadly, they evaluate that Linux just doesn't have the juice. Two things here. One, OSs get adopted because of the package they arrive in. Laptops have Windows bundled, schools get computers with Windows on the cheap. Phones come with…

Netbooks had Linux pre-installed, and they became an OEM distribution mess, because OEMs can't stop to differentiate themselves.

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

#78

Post by tapoxi »

acrophiliac wrote: post #69
tapoxi wrote: post #5

I think that's just EndlessOS: https://www.endlessglobal.com/foundation/access/operating-sy...

I like what EndlessOS is trying to do but it prioritizes the ability to be a complete OS that doesn't need an internet connection, whereas the article wants a browser-first OS (and assumes an internet connection). So aren't those kind of different use cases?

I think it's also the immutable nature of EndlessOS, its not something you can break as easily as a regular Linux distribution, and acts much more like ChromeOS.

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

#79

Post by bee_rider »

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…

SteamOS is the closest thing to making this work. Valve has somehow worked their way into being a software store that not everybody hates.

Companies should be happy that there’s a FOSS community that lets them build up on top of it for free. It is a great deal! I wonder why there isn’t an EpicOS yet.

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

#80

Post by i80and »

npteljes wrote: post #64
i80and wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience is that distros with traditional package management can't be counted on to work over the long term without manual administrator intervention. Debian in particular would not be my first choice, or my second, for people who can't do their own system administration. (And this is a bit of the problem: nobody can agree on this stuff)

This touches on a larger problem that I think we tech people don't address as much as we should. That the modern big tech OS (Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS) has a huge advantage, which is that it's managed. Actively supported by the vendor, well after the purchase. That, and the heavy restriction of the user makes the computer orders of magnitude more stable. With Linux this is not the way. The closest I can get is un…

I think Fedora Silverblue, Bazzite, et. al. is the right direction for linux on PCs. It still feels a little immature yet, but also I'm way more confident in the system's durability than I've ever been in the past.
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