XLAB Tech

As with anything new coming from Google, there has been a lot of expectation regarding the new Google “operating system” for PCs based on the Chrome browser.

Truth is that, as the mobile-devices-oriented Android, ChromeOS can be hardly called an Operating system but rather a Linux distribution.

ChromeOS’s concept is simple; remove absolutely everything from GNU/Linux that is not essential for browsing the internet. That lets ChromeOS boot quickly, in about 10 seconds, a bit more time than of Moblin or the tuned-up version of Fedora by Intel. Google Chrome has still a lot of glitches, but I’m sure they will fix’em all in time for production.

As soon as we boot ChromeOS we are prompted not for a user on the computer but for our Google account and password. On log-on you are presented with your gmail and calendar in the Chrome browser/interface.

There are no programs available in the machine, and you are expected to use Google Docs for office tasks, gtalk for chat, gmail for your mail, or actually any web based application (e.i. meebo or Photoshop Express or Zimba). And that’s pretty much it; you cannot install any additional desktop programs, services, and you are not even supposed to get to the shell)

Another advantage is the low memory usage, since there are almost no services running in the background (except for network, sound, and printing sometime in the future), and the only application running is the browser.

Apart from not being able to install any desktop application, the main problem with ChromeOS is that, at least so far, it’s so cloud-oriented, that your computer will be absolutely useless if you are not connected to the internet.

Now, my desktop computer is connected to the internet all day, no big deal; but why would I cap-down my inexpensive powerful desktop computer with ChromeOS if I can have the Chrome browser together with any desktop application I want?

Of course, ChromeOS is probably oriented to MIDs, UMPCs, nettops, laptops, and other energy efficient devices to have on the go, right? But those are not connected to the internet 24/7, at least not yet.

On the other hand, there are other non-bloated Linux projects to choose from, from DSL and Puppy to Moblin and Ubuntu Mobile, that provide the full desktop experience.

It’s success will be very much connected with the hype Google produces, but we are still to see if it will let Google jump the threads-hold from something that sounds cool to something that actually is, for instance, by allowing the installation of at least ChromeOS applications. For one, when I thought they were reinventing the wheel with Chrome, they did manage to create something different and useful, so we will see if they’ll succeed again or not.

The review ends here, you can stop reading now.

It’s clear that Google, in spite of its “Don’t be evil” motto has decided to spread its tentacles as wide as possible, competing with other open-source like FireFox, Moblin or NASA’s World Wind, and closed-source initiatives like GPS routing or Photo-albums. Intelligently, whenever competing with a strong open-source option Google decided to open the source to their own projects, at least partially (Andriod, Chrome, ChromeOS), but not with other projects. Let’s not forget that you can use Google Earth, Google Maps, Sketch-up and several other pieces of software at home for personal use, but they are still closed-sourced and not free for commercial use, unlike their open-source counterparts.

Thus, by making users dependant on their software, Google can affect open-source initiatives (World Wind, OpenStreetMaps, Blender, etc.). We’ve already seen how Google sent a cease-and-desist letter to avoid a custom Andriod installation from including gmail and other Google applications. With GoogleOS, they have already said that it will not be available for machines with traditional hard disk drives; a completely artificial restriction.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 20th, 2009 at 19:39 and is filed under internet, linux, mobile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.