It's a stupid idea from start to finish. You shouldn't try to make sense of it.
And it depresses me. Its success demonstrates that Linux desktops could catch on in the mainstream market just fine if they had the marketing budget, brand recognition, and vendor support of Google. This team of idiots could have ended the hegemony of Microsoft and Apple for good.
https://fieldguide.gizmodo.com/everything-you-can-do-offline...
Anyway, short answer: because they heavily customized and changed a lot of things. They could not have done this with an existing Distro so easy. And sad as it is -> their goal is and was not to help the linux desktop - it is to help the google Eco system. Cloud-Service. Webapp. Makes perfect sense. No matter how much you want them to support the things you (or me) want.
We linux users are not the target group, target group are ordinary newbs who like that everything just runs and don't like that their exe files somehow don't run anymore. But the ones who handle exe files per hand are rapidly declining I guess.
The problem with Linux on the mainstream is Linux, it has nothing to do with not having a huge brand like Google's nor with marketing, just ask Dell. Linux offers exactly what the enterprise market needs and it is a huge success, far bigger than anyone in the 90s ever imagined. Linux does not offer what the mainstream market demands and no amount of marketing or brand recognition can change that.
AFAIK Portage, Gentoo's package manage, is used only to build the rootfs image. Because Gentoo is really a meta distribution. This distinction is not an empty slogan. You can use Gentoo as a build system to create separate operating system, just like ChromeOS does.
You can use of course use Gentoo directly and prepare tailor built binary packages to distribute them to users. Then it would be a bit more similar to other distributions. But ChromeOS is not an ordinary distribution. It's update model is not really compatible with typical distribution model. It's one of the greatest strengths of the system. You could shoehorn packages meta data, but it would be pointless, because whole image is updated at once.
"That’s because Google is going to start shipping Chrome OS with a custom virtual machine that runs Debian Stretch, the current stable version of the operating system."
Disclaimer: I work at Google, but not on Chrome OS.
ChromeOS/ChromiumOS uses portage for its build system, to produce a signed, read-only image that the OS can boot from. CoreOS uses the same tooling FWIW: http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/build
This is why you can’t just install random packages onto the parent OS. Any additional software needs to run in some overlay filesystem or sandbox.
For example if chromeos users wanted to install steam on their system having a Debian base would help.
Aside from this I'm really surprised that they are using Wayland instead of X11, this decision ought to bring some stability issues until Wayland gets widely adopted.
If I were to guess this feature has been added as a freetime project amongst Google employees. As such, I don't think we can expect continuity. If those developers go away/get reassigned or lose enthusiasm, I don't think Google would allocate resources to maintain a linux VM inside their OS. IMHO if it were important to Google that users could be able to use Linux apps, they would've strived for binary compatibility with Linux from the beginning.
I believe the impetus was enabling Android app development on Chrome OS. Google first said they were working on that a long time ago. I guess in the process of doing so they figured they might as well expand the functionality to cover all Linux apps, not just Android Studio.
As such, I expect support will be stable. Chrome OS in general has had very solid support, too.
I think a ChromeBook with really first class support for Linux apps is very compelling. I run Linux in a VM on Windows 10 on my ThinkPad and it's a great setup. A ChromeBook would be a very similar setup but probably with better native OS integration (for example they are exposing the Linux filesystem in ChromeOS's file browser) and this would all be a first class use case supported by Google.
Most of the time, I'm either at home or at work, so I just remote log into my development systems. I, personally, don't really need to lug around my entire development environment, though I used to be in that school of thought.
So, given that I really just need SSH, a decent Chromebook is cheap (as others mentioned), and can have a decent keyboard with long battery life. The one I have is around 1kg, so it is very "handy", and I carry it everywhere, as I would have a notepad in earlier days.
It can also make sense if you like physical function keys and/or a touch screen larger than a function key row. :)
I used a Chromebook Pixel with Crouton very happily for a year. Granted I spend 95% of my time in Emacs and a web browser.
1. The security model is fantastic compared to the alternatives. DIY security is an endless distraction these days unless it's your full-time job. I am concerned that the team may not be able to keep things so secure as the complexity of Chrome OS increases, but as a starting point it's still the most secure commercial OS out there.
2. Little to no setup. Boot it up, log in, and you're ready. (And now, I guess, install whatever Linux apps you want.) This makes it easy to recover from hardware failure, even if you're on the road. Just go take one off the shelf, no worries about installation, configuration, etc.
3. Disposability. Most Chromebooks are incredibly cheap. If it breaks or if you lose it, it's not the end of the world.
4. Easy, safe sharing. If someone needs to borrow a computer to check their email, you can log out and hand it to them. Your stuff is securely encrypted, and the system is hardened against compromise. This may not be a big deal for everyone, but it brings me great peace of mind!
The promise of Ubuntu Convergence and Windows Continuum on a single piece of hardware, solving the "app gap" with Android support - the best of the web, Android and one's choice of Linux desktop.
An ultrabook/iPad substitute - "power users" requiring a 32GB Core i7 desktop replacement might look elsewhere, naturally.
The hardware support has been really nice, as a lot of the usual linux fiddling required to support monitors, etcetera has been much easier with the intermediate chromeOS layer.
But I will buy a pixelbook in an instant if I can get a fully functional, no bullshit with having to install custom kernels or new firmware or god only knows what and what will happen to the hardware and what just won't work despite The Internet insisting it does, insisting! Oh Lordy. A Linux environment available on decent hardware, without having to MacGyver it together with bubble gum and safety pins? Where things like power management actually work? What other options are there, really, for that? Purism? Dell XPS13! All of those are actually more expensive than the Pixelbook. (Though the Dell thing does look pretty sweet.) Hell, I may go order one now.
You have to be careful about which processor powers your Chromebook if you want to do non chrome os things. The processors from the mainstream core line (Haswell, Skylake) etc do pretty well, although they're usually fairly low clocked. The chromebooks with Atom or ARM processors usually have a harder time booting other things, and the ARM linux ecosystem is a lot trickier than the x86-64 ecosystem.
Avoiding Atom processors is harder than it looks, because Intel keeps changing the branding, probably to confuse users.
There's a good community of folks over at https://www.reddit.com/r/Crostini/ who have been tinkering with this for quite some time.
surface book appears to as well, but i don't have one of them to vouch for
3:2? No thanks I don't really want black bars when watching movies...
What I'd really really like is something with the build quality (especially the touchpad!) of a MacBook Pro, with decent and recent hardware, first class Linux support for all features, support for both USB-C and "old" USB and a decent keyboard with it. And that without paying more than for an technologically outdated yet still top-of-the-line MBP...
A couple weeks ago I did a fresh install with Manjaro. With this the installation process goes down to around 10 minutes and everything (bluetooth, touchpad, function keys, optirun etc.) works out of the box.
What sort of issues did you have?
Still holding out until Crostini is supported by more Chromebook manufacturers and can be used outside of developer mode before I get one.
> "Now, it’s probably only a matter of hours before somebody starts running Windows apps in Chrome OS with the help of the Wine emulator."
Someone should also tell them about running Crossover on Chrome OS via Android[2], which has already been possible for months!
[1] https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/87...
[2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.codeweaver...
On the other hand I have seen products being launched at Google I/O and being non existant for months. Tensorflow lite took months to come out. Why would you do this? Real artists ship and I don't get why you would announce something and have an indefinite launch date? By the time tensorflow lite came out Apple had coreml out for months and was somewhat usable.
And this whole set of applications belongs to which category? https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/overlays/chromi...
Especially this one - Glibc. https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/overlays/chromi...
Also…
>…meaning that even less powerful machines should be able to handle a code editor without issues.
Being able to run a code editor is a statement of a machine's power and system optimization? Welcome to the wonderful world of Electron apps.
>…Wine emulator
Wine is not an emulator, for crying out loud.
To those of us that used it back when Wine officially stood for Windows Emulator, people nowadays getting all upset on this point is an ever green source of amusement.
[1] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.os.linux.misc/_g3F2H4ie...
They hardly can keep up with Mac and Windows...
Not in Europe they aren't, here even as "Deal of day" they hardly get a buyer on consumer shops, always stuck alone in a dark corner of the shop, if they are there at all.
Chrome OS is, as the name suggests, an OS.
https://www.xda-developers.com/chrome-os-linux-app-support-g...
My prediction: VS Code / Pixelbook becomes a formidable devenv for many in the coming months ;)
You can always try Neverware on a live usb to get a taste
:)
Source: I've been testing Crostini for a while now, and Docker works great!
I was toying with the idea of setting up my docker cli in crouton to connect to a docker daemon I host via a VPS (cheap Lightsail box maybe). I think this will work fine.. it's just the docker daemon that won't run because the ChromeOS kernel locks it out of features it needs. Then I could do local dev but any docker calls would run remotely.
But I'm sure that will have its quirks.. if I could run lightweight containers (node, redis, etc) directly on my Chromebook then I'd prefer that.
Yes docker is working with this new funtionality. You use on a machine container. Which runs on a VM.
I just installed GalliumOS on it (a native Linux OS tuned for Chromebooks).
It works really well.
I think it's better than the VM solution that's mentioned in the article because GalliumOS gets installed natively, so there's no VM. You can choose to dual boot it with ChromeOS.
It runs really well, and it's hyper optimized for Chromebooks. It's just a fork of xubuntu.
I've been running it on my Chromebook for 2 years and I use it as a portable development machine. It's nice having a $350 laptop with a 1080p IPS screen, SD ports, enough computing power to run Dockerized web apps and weighs under 3 pounds.
Details on how I set it all up can be found at https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/transform-a-toshiba-chromeboo....
The battery lasts a long time, the screen is very nice, and it is quite lightweight.
For general programming, web browsing, word processing, etc it does everything I need it to. I don't feel the need to "upgrade" to a real laptop, except for the hardware concerns and that I can't dual boot into Windows or MacOS to run non-Linux apps.
I can highly recommend GalliumOS.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Chromebook-CB5-571-C09S-15-6-Inc...
In the US so our school uses Chromebooks which replaced all the Macs. Had to hack together a way to use the CBs for AP CS 1 and 2. But now it will have support built in.
By far the best approach is what Google is doing here. Keep all the security and no need to dual boot or put in developer mode.
Plus this makes GNU/Linux far more approachable. Will also be able to walk into a BestBuy and chose between a bunch of different machines depending on your requirements.
We also have five new higher end CBs in development and would guess partially because of this new functionality.
This is ideal as you can use the hook if a power user to basically do anything you want. Run Wine or Steam or Docker or pretty much anything as you have the vector you needed. But then also can be used by a new user as the approach is basically just a click. Also we should get instant GNU/Linux applications. Container comes down, spins up, do what you need, goes away.
"Here are five high-end Chromebooks in development to challenge the Pixelbook"
https://www.xda-developers.com/google-pixelbook-alternative-...
Depends on who is using it. For me (and I imagine most developers), it's not losing security. It's allowing us to set up a proper Linux development environment with no wasted resources or hacks.
It's no less secure than installing xubuntu or Ubuntu on a different device.
basically have three environments on it:
1 chrome with chromebrew shell and android apps
2 crouton for most linux needs
3 gallium for when i need VMs and other more finicky os interactions
if i could get some wifi drivers working under crouton and also sync with appropriate os header files each google sw update in order to install virtualbox i could forego galliumos.
under crouton was able to do a lot:
1 natively compile with gcc
2 cross compile for kindle paperwhite
3 cross compile for windows ce
4 cross compile for esp8266
5 cross compile for garmin connectiq
the author of the original article is funny about using a linux vm to compile apps for android and run in chromeos. because today i can use the android app named aide to build an android app on my chromebook and immediately execute it. no need for linux, vm, or crouton.
I'm running Kubuntu on a 1 year old XPS 13 and most things work quite well. I do however miss a nice mail clients, reliable notifications about meetings, daily schedule, etc. I've tried almost everything available on Linux and while some things do work, they either are not reliable enough (with cloud APIs, etc) or are too ugly and clunky to use.
I'll wait for the next Pixelbook before jumping ship. Hopefully, Linux apps support would have matured enough by then.
It's quite a powerful and polished mail app. The disadvantage is that it breaks down on me sometimes and by default it adds tracking features to your email, so you'll have to turn that off.
Is this going to be different with this approach?
Web apps and Android apps are more than fine for the large majority of Chrome OS users.
Looking at https://galliumos.org/download
> GalliumOS 2.1 was released on 2017-02-28
https://wiki.galliumos.org/News
https://wiki.galliumos.org/Special:RecentChanges
Is there another resource I should be looking at?
Hooray.
This isn't more Linux, this is a compatibility step towards less Linux being spun as something else.
The complaining on HN is becoming just baffling. seems for the sake of just complaining.
We finally have a machine that support GNU/Linux applications out of the box and from the UI standpoint basically a first class citizen. But the most secure GNU/Linux machine you can get.
Honestly there is no reason the same technique being used by Google could not have been also done by MS and/or Apple.
Could even have been a standard. Click, container comes down, spins up, do what you need, disappears.
It is a bit insane we have basically the same hardware for Windows, Macs and ChromeOS and we make each different in the OS.
I get some CBs are ARM but really not as common as people think.
When measured in terms of number of devices actually running a Linux kernel on physical hardware, in a post-Fuchsia Chrome OS world there will be less Linux kernels executing on devices at the bare metal, according to my prediction.
Between this and Android pivoting to Fuchsia, the number of non-server devices executing Linux kernels on physical hardware will have dropped substantially.
For anyone who values having a well-supported GPL kernel with maintained and modern hardware drivers as an option it should be viewed as incrementally more bad news.
Microsoft and WSL is another facet of this attack on the Linux kernel. By providing a way to run a Linux userspace directly from existing proprietary Windows installs, they remove a bulk of the impetus a Windows user may have had to attempt running the Linux kernel directly on their physical hardware.
We're headed towards a future where relatively few people run Linux at all directly on non-server hardware. Which enters into a self-reinforcing scenario of even fewer people doing so because the kernel development community will be working with fewer resources to keep up with hardware developments.
I hope I'm wrong, but it's looking increasingly like the future of Linux-based clients will be IoT and raspberry pi like devices.
I don't know if I am the only one, but this one made me laugh.
Of course, you can do away with these checks by entering developer mode.
True story. Son was turning his Win PC off for the night and it indicated do not shut off as updating. Told him just leave it on for the night. Wake up in the morning and still do not turn off updating. Just a terrible UX.
I am a huge fan of CBs. Now GNU/Linux support makes it that much better.
Purchased all Acer refurb for about $200 USD. One was $180.
You just can not get any other laptop that is all metal, peppy performance, incredible security, etc for so cheap.
Instead they enabled the KVM on the ChromeOS Linux kernel. Then they implemented a second Linux kernel and then are using machine containers (LXC/LXD) on top of the VM.
This approach gets you container separation of GNU/Linux applications and then a container and a VM from the ChromeOS Linux kernel.
This gets you a very high level of security. Just love the approach. Should also get you instant GNU/Linux applications. Just click, container comes down, spins up, do what you need, disappears.
This also allows a power user to use the hook to do almost anything you can do with any GNU/Linux machine. But also provides a far more approachable way for new to GNU/Linux users to get into Linux.
Have a PB and used Wine, Steam, Docker and not had any problem using anything I would on a regular distro so far.
Would love to see MS and Apple to implement GNU/Linux the same way on their desktop OSs. You could have a standard. But doubt we will see it.
I'm def considering getting a pixelbook for my main machine this year now.
Curious if the next version of Pixelbook will contain a 3G/LTE interface with support for Project Fi.
Is each desktop application going to live in its own sandbox?
So why VM if they provide a Wayland compositor? For security they can use apparmor or other sandboxing methods without resorting to full virtualization.
Then, decided to check my other big usecase for when on the road - Netflix and other entertainment... total flop:
Resolution:
- Up to 1080p on Google Chrome
- Up to 480p on the Netflix app from the Google Play Store https://help.netflix.com/en/node/296
So if you want to save a movie for the flight, 480p is all you get...
Really wish we could get this functionality on iOS. iPad Pro is definitely big enough to code on. All it’s really missing is being able to run commandline tools.
No. Seriously, how is the keyboard mapping? Can the function keys emit F1-F12 or just their special functions? How is people running Linux on them working?
When I was in doubt about getting one, I got an Acer "Cloudbook" that came with Windows 8 and just installed Linux on the eMMS space just because it came with a full keyboard.
