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The article touches on open-source OS alternatives and touts ChromeOS as one of them, however its open nature is only skin deep -- the vast majority of your act

by ihsw 13y ago

The article touches on open-source OS alternatives and touts ChromeOS as one of them, however its open nature is only skin deep -- the vast majority of your activities occur within the confines of Google's ecosystem (or some other closed-source ecosystem). This is a mostly philosophical issue due to the nature of ChromeOS (everything is supposed to be run from the browser), however it shouldn't be forgotten that this device isn't nearly indicative of any consumer Linux revolution.

samspenc 13y ago
100% agreed. As a developer though, I'm increasingly tempted to get one of these Chromebooks and put crouton+Ubuntu on it for my dev tasks. :)
Touche 13y ago
> The article touches on open-source OS alternatives and touts ChromeOS as one of them, however its open nature is only skin deep -- the vast majority of your activities occur within the confines of Google's ecosystem (or some other closed-source ecosystem). That's up to the individual. You can exclusively use web services running on your own servers if you so choose.
- abrowne 13y ago
  Like run your own Google server so you can create an account and log in? (I'll give you that after logging in you could probably exclusively use your own services. But that's a big exception.)
  - Touche 13y ago
    The parent was talking about open source alternatives to Chrome OS, which is Chromium OS, which doesn't require a Google account.
    - abrowne 13y ago
      Can you log in to Chromium OS without a Google account? I tried it (Hexxeh build) before I got my Cr-48, and I don't remember being able to then, but that was a while ago now.
kllrnohj 13y ago
> however it shouldn't be forgotten that this device isn't nearly indicative of any consumer Linux revolution. This either already happened (Android, TiVo, ChromeOS, SteamOS, etc...), or it's never, ever going to happen. Take your pick. Because Linux the kernel has very much already had its consumer revolution. "Linux" as in "GNU/Linux + X11 + Gnome/KDE/XFCE/Whatever" will never have a consumer revolution. It's just not going to happen, sorry. I enjoy that setup, but it's not going to get mass market appeal.

by ihsw 13y ago

samspenc 13y ago

100% agreed. As a developer though, I'm increasingly tempted to get one of these Chromebooks and put crouton+Ubuntu on it for my dev tasks. :)

Touche 13y ago

> The article touches on open-source OS alternatives and touts ChromeOS as one of them, however its open nature is only skin deep -- the vast majority of your activities occur within the confines of Google's ecosystem (or some other closed-source ecosystem). That's up to the individual. You can exclusively use web services running on your own servers if you so choose.

abrowne 13y ago
Like run your own Google server so you can create an account and log in? (I'll give you that after logging in you could probably exclusively use your own services. But that's a big exception.)
- Touche 13y ago
  The parent was talking about open source alternatives to Chrome OS, which is Chromium OS, which doesn't require a Google account.
  - abrowne 13y ago
    Can you log in to Chromium OS without a Google account? I tried it (Hexxeh build) before I got my Cr-48, and I don't remember being able to then, but that was a while ago now.

kllrnohj 13y ago

> however it shouldn't be forgotten that this device isn't nearly indicative of any consumer Linux revolution. This either already happened (Android, TiVo, ChromeOS, SteamOS, etc...), or it's never, ever going to happen. Take your pick. Because Linux the kernel has very much already had its consumer revolution. "Linux" as in "GNU/Linux + X11 + Gnome/KDE/XFCE/Whatever" will never have a consumer revolution. It's just not going to happen, sorry. I enjoy that setup, but it's not going to get mass market appeal.