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See, I understand the wish to leave the windows lock-in behind, but I'm not sure the alternative really exists yet. "Raw" linux, even the likes of ubuntu, is n

by nolok 10y ago

See, I understand the wish to leave the windows lock-in behind, but I'm not sure the alternative really exists yet. "Raw" linux, even the likes of ubuntu, is not ready for it, I'm not even sure it ever will be. No, I can't give my dad a linux box and expect him to read the upgrade instruction when his distro moves to system.d or whatever, and fix the likes of "can't update kernel because /boot is full". Of course to anyone who knows anything even remotely about it those are trivial non issues, but to my dad it's a complete show stopper. On the other hand, the best example of widespread cleaned up easy to use linux we have in android or chromeos, well, ... Sure, the code is a lot more open source and yada yada, but while I can do whatever I want on my windows box, I suddenly need to hope there is a way to root my own phone/tablet for lots of stuff. That is definitely not where I want my computer to go. Disclaimer: I'm a happy windows user at home, and linux at work. And my phone is Android. I'm not bashing here.

freehunter 10y ago
Man I wish Palm hadn't flubbed the hardware and the geek community backed WebOS instead of Android. HTML/JS as a first class citizen, C++ to back it up, boot a kernel over USB, rooting directions printed on their developer website for everyone to see. It had such promise.
- nolok 10y ago
  If only they hadn't spent a decade going circles producing nothing, it could have been. Just like Blackberry and Nokia could have provided entirely different phone ecosystem, if only they had woken up.
ekidd 10y ago
> On the other hand, the best example of widespread cleaned up easy to use linux we have in android or chromeos, well, ... The new hybrid Android / ChromeOS systems like Samsung's Chromebook Plus are surprisingly useable as low-end laptops. Chrome is fully operational, and you have Google Docs. You also have the entire Android ecosystem, which gets you things like the Kindle reader. And I can confirm that Termux (https://termux.com/ https://termux.com/) works fine, so you can get a basic command-line without rooting the machine. If you want a light, expendable travel system, or a gift for somebody who wants a computer that "just works", it's a surprisingly viable option.
- nolok 10y ago
  Oh I don't mean they don't work, they work very well in my opinion. What I meant was that, while "open" as in open source is very important to us as developers, I feel like open as in "it's your computer and you do whatever you want with it" is just as important, and it's often a neglected criteria, and I feel this is one of the things where there is little if any competition to windows that is ready for prime time.
- blacksmith_tb 10y ago
  Hmm, I don't think you need to install anything on ChromeOS to have a shell[1] though your Chromebook does need to be in Developer Mode. 1: https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/poking-around-your-chrome-os-device#TOC-Getting-to-a-command-prompt https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/poking-around-your-chro...

by nolok 10y ago

freehunter 10y ago

Man I wish Palm hadn't flubbed the hardware and the geek community backed WebOS instead of Android. HTML/JS as a first class citizen, C++ to back it up, boot a kernel over USB, rooting directions printed on their developer website for everyone to see. It had such promise.

nolok 10y ago
If only they hadn't spent a decade going circles producing nothing, it could have been. Just like Blackberry and Nokia could have provided entirely different phone ecosystem, if only they had woken up.

ekidd 10y ago

> On the other hand, the best example of widespread cleaned up easy to use linux we have in android or chromeos, well, ... The new hybrid Android / ChromeOS systems like Samsung's Chromebook Plus are surprisingly useable as low-end laptops. Chrome is fully operational, and you have Google Docs. You also have the entire Android ecosystem, which gets you things like the Kindle reader. And I can confirm that Termux (https://termux.com/ https://termux.com/) works fine, so you can get a basic command-line without rooting the machine. If you want a light, expendable travel system, or a gift for somebody who wants a computer that "just works", it's a surprisingly viable option.

nolok 10y ago
Oh I don't mean they don't work, they work very well in my opinion. What I meant was that, while "open" as in open source is very important to us as developers, I feel like open as in "it's your computer and you do whatever you want with it" is just as important, and it's often a neglected criteria, and I feel this is one of the things where there is little if any competition to windows that is ready for prime time.
blacksmith_tb 10y ago
Hmm, I don't think you need to install anything on ChromeOS to have a shell[1] though your Chromebook does need to be in Developer Mode. 1: https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/poking-around-your-chrome-os-device#TOC-Getting-to-a-command-prompt https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/poking-around-your-chro...