Sunday, July 26, 2009

Chrome OS, I'm not sure what to think about it. Going from what we know, it sounds like Linux booting the Chrome browser, because where Google is comming from, the browser is the OS. Nothing stops you from creating a similar expirience with any decent linux distri currently available. On my 4G Surf i did just that, basic Linux (Ubuntu minimal) and then adding several packages to make ACPI working for example. It boots up lighting fast and all you get is a browser, no other apps. I have build in a terminal though (who can live without?) by installing tilda, which is excellent in this scenario. I have now something you could call Firefox-OS.

What else is great? It is still linux as we all know it. It uses X and as a result i have all excisting toolkits available. In case i do need some app, i can still quickly install it, and it will work. For my netbook i won't do this too often, but Google is targetting Chrome-OS towards desktop/laptop systems, and they do not regular X and not any regular toolkit which will break compatibility with any current linux app. That for me reduces the functionality of that system consideratly.