I have the first CR-48 Chromebook that Google sent out a few years ago. The first iterations of Chrome OS were a disaster. It was basically a full-screen version of Chrome browser behind a login window. Ugh.
However, for kicks and grins I pulled out the CR-48 a little while ago and was pleasantly surprised that I was able to update to the latest version and - gasp - it was actually quite usable!
I have been using it on and off ever since (it sits in our conference room as a general note-taking and projector device) and I must say - there's absolutely something to this thing. The battery life is great (like 9 hours), screen is OK, keyboard is nice. Trackpad is still miserable.
For the most part my non-professional-work-life lives in a Chrome window anyway (gmail, google docs). If it had a decent text editor (I guess there's a SSH app you can get) I could see it working pretty well as a web development machine.
But for the proverbial "Aunt Tillie", this would be not a terrible device if the iPad was a little too simple. Auto-updates, Chrome syncing, Google docs? Pretty compelling.
I recently installed lubuntu on mine and was pleasantly surprised with the performance, although its probably not what Google had in mind. At least I'm still running chromium.
It was the opposite for me. I've been using it for some time and stopped due to the constant crashing.
Each new update I had hoped the stability would improve, but it seems they're for new features only the new models could flawlessly run. Alas, I gave up a month ago. It's sitting in my pile of netbooks.
Ah, let's remember one thing real quick. When people talk about macbooks being the best selling laptop line by a large margin, someone else always points out that that is because it represents the entire access to that ecosystem (i.e. the total sales are not split between brands).
In this case, you're also looking at a very cheap laptop in an OS where there are only two MODELS even on sale, one of which is older. It does not necessarily, or even probably, signal a sea change in the way people think about OSes.
> It does not necessarily, or even probably, signal a sea change in the way people think about OSes.
I think this is a true statement and I agree completely, but only because Joe Averageuser doesn't think about OS's _at all_.
I think this very much does signal a sea change in the way people use their computers.
There will always be folks like you and me who want to get down to the nuts and bolts of things and start tweaking, but most people just want to check their email/facebook and work on that spreadsheet/document for the boss.
For years we have all been talking about what moving 'to the cloud' would mean for computing as a whole and now it's happening. Your data goes with you wherever you go and your computer is a super cheap and nigh-disposable way to access it.
The writing is definitely on the wall. In fact, at this point, it's been there long enough that it's starting to fade a little.
Microsoft may not last as long as we (I) have always assumed — on the PC front at least it seems to be bad news and more bad news. Mobile sales already dwarf desktop, and installed base will soon follow. Even if MS is successful in mobile, there's far less fat to play with — it can't sustain licensing costs (netbooks already dinged it) either for OS or applications, and its network effect lockin is pretty much broken.
The Titanic took two hours and forty minutes to sink. Long enough for someone to make a motion picture about it.
Microsoft is a lot larger than is readily apparent. That's because in the enterprise they're about as entrenched as can be.
Take away excel and the impact would be about as bad as taking away google would be (or maybe even worse).
MS will be around in some form or another for a long time. The question is more whether or not they'll be able to leverage the remains of the old into something new. My guess is not as long as Ballmer is still around.
Their enterprise division is huge, and Office is still a cash cow. They may have to trim some fat at some point, but they aren't even close to hurting.
The most interesting thing about ChromeOS (to me) is the way that it updates. My understanding is the ChromeOS has two root partitions and when it updates, it updates the one it is not currently booted from. After updating, it then boots from the newly updated root.
I haven't heard of this technique being used in any other Linux distribution and I think it is quite novel. Sure, it wastes some disk space, but that if fairly cheap these days.
Even if you do I'd be careful in assuming a Chromebook is the answer. I bought one to use with C9 (IDE) but found Chrome OS very poor in terms of basic functionality and C9 ran unusably slowly on it.
As the Windows Phone get the top selling smart phone in Amazon, I do not trust any list from Amazon anymore. I think they make these lists for some reasons.
Most likely it is the 'not very tech savvy' crowd which is buying these laptops for themselves or others without realizing that it's not a fully functional Desktop OS.
I can imagine a loving grandparent buying this affordable "Laptop" for their grand kids thinking this suits my budget.
Or someone thinking sure this thing is like the one I have back at home.
I imagine if the returns start getting out of hand that Amazon will put "Does not have Windows" prominently somewhere. Also, at least as of right now, the second review clearly mentions that this does not have Windows.
I don't know about your parents, but mine don't browse Amazon looking for gifts for my kids. They go to BestBuy or Walmart and pick something up.
Additionally in an office full of software developrs there are multiple people who are looking to pick one up or have already done so ( Myself included ). I think the "not very tech savvy" crowd would be buying the name brand laptops with Intel processors and Windows since that's what we have trained them to do for 20 years.
I think return rate would be a very useful statistic for Amazon to give out. I love the Chrome OS but my guess is that many who buy these Chromebooks expect a full blown laptop and return them or sell them as soon as they realize it isn't. My local Best Buy has stopped carrying them for this reason.
The Thinkpads I buy run Linux. Except of course I pay the Microsoft tax and Lenovo never knows that they actually sold a Linux laptop not a Windows laptop. I use the Windows for configuring BIOS fingerprint access and in the olden days playing the occasional game.
For Mac OS sales in-store will always trump sales out-of-store; the Mac buying experience is quintessential for the average consumer. This comparing Linux Chromebook purchases on Amazon with Mac OS is irrelevant to me.
I will say the comparison to Windows-based computers is a bit surprising however. Still, the type of person who buys a computer on Amazon is more tech-savvy anyway and would prefer a Linux-based OS as compared to the other two.
This is sort of like when netbooks took over a significant marketshare for a brief period. It's new, it's novel, more importantly it's cheap and that's a big motivator. When netbooks were selling like hotcakes a lot of them came with Linux distros pre-installed, so it's not like Linux doesn't get its moment in the sun every now and again.
The chromebook is not a general purpose computer, it is a google appliance. Like an iPod is not a computer, it's a music-playing appliance. Chromebook is not a computer, it's a gmail/google-docs/google-calendar appliance.
I only think it's misleading in the fact that Chromebook is distinctive enough that it should say "top selling laptop runs ChromeOS". It's like if they said the top smart selling OS was Linux. Technically it is, but we all know what Android is.
Funny to see something even more locked down than Windows being cheered by the Linux crowd. There are no native apps,you need a Google account to access it(don't know what happens if your Google account happens to get disabled for whatever reason). Google neither releases the source for it's online offerings, not is it very useful even if they do.
The kicker is that the 100GB free storage on Google's cloud is only free for 2 years, after which you have to pay for it.
How is any of this better for consumer freedom than just Windows 7? The answer is not "because it has a developer switch on the back to install Ubuntu"; you can do that on a Windows PC as well. And an overwhelming percentage of normal consumers buying it won't be installing Ubuntu on it. In fact, I suspect that this kind of device that is absolutely at the mercy of a corporation is much closer to RMS dystopian vision than any Windows PC.
Would it make any difference to the user or even developers if it ran GoOS as the kernel instead of Linux? This is pretty much like a Tivo or a router.
>How is any of this better for consumer freedom than just Windows 7?
Ecosystem. This is a limited function device, which is bad, but anything you can do on it you can also do on a full Linux distribution. Which means that anyone who can get by with such a device will have no barrier to switching if they are ever inclined to do so.
That is the difference from a Windows machine. Because if you have Windows then you start accumulating Windows apps and you become accustomed to their interfaces and your files are in those formats, etc. etc. Windows locks you into Windows. ChromeOS doesn't lock you into ChromeOS; you can switch to a full desktop Linux distribution whenever you want and everything still works.
* Linux gains from having many people using it, what is effectively happening when a lot of people are buying Chrome Books. So ARM support is likely to become even better, and hardware manufacturers are going to build something more "linux"-friendly
* You can do whatever you want with it if you turn on the developer switch, so that's a plus
* You don't actually pay for a license for windows 7 if you buy this chromebook, so you are not supporting "closed source software" with money
* Google as a company has done considerably more for open source software than Microsoft (or so I think)
These would be my points, why I think of the chromebook in better regards as Microsoft Surface. However, it would be kind of awesome if you'd have an open, touch-enabled platform (like the surface) and could use it however you want i.e. installing Ubuntu on it. In that case I'd probably be really tempted to even buy one, though it'd come from Micro$oft.
Because it's THIN, CHEAP and has a developer switch on the back to install Ubuntu. The ones doing that are also likely to run a webserver on their Android smartphones to have access to more storage and services via something like EyeOs, so goodbye Google cloud.
Web apps are supposed to be the native apps, that was kind of the point of Chrome OS. Email, docs, calendar... all those are rich HTML5 apps, its not really a matter of google locking you out of their native OS app api. It's no more restrictive then the web is, honestly.
The part about logging into your Google account is definitely questionable, but it's a cloud device and that's what you're buying in the end... the fact it has a developer switch is what makes it more like a PC in terms of control and not like a tablet or phone where installing your own OS has a few hurdles.
My thoughts exactly. Back in the day I thought MS was evil. Now, the things happening in the "consumer computing" almost make me see those Windows times as a paradise of openness.
Why would it matter to users what kernel is being run?
The great thing about Chromebook running Linux is that more work is put into Linux kernel, Linux harware supporting and Linux software support.
Linux is not GNU. Locked down devices were explicitly allowed when kernel devs opted to keep GPLv2 instead of moving to v3. They don't care about openness of devices but about the source code.
> Funny to see something even more locked down than Windows being cheered by the Linux crowd.
Just to set the record straight, I was at the last Linux Crowd™ meeting and nobody was cheering over some inaccurate link-bait title of an article in zdnet.
The need for a Google account is definitely the biggest concern of mine. In terms of supporting and promoting OSS though I think it is a better direction that Windows ever took. The major pieces, Linux and Chrome are both open, if the user is curious. True they probably have to be curious on another device, or after flipping the switch, but at least it is possible, unlike Windows. The second part is that, if the web is the new user-space, then that is tremendously open. Chrome's dev tools are amazing, and still prominent on the right click menu for any site. Unfortunately JS obfuscation is pretty much defacto for most large sites, but at least HTML and CSS are still navigable.
"How is any of this better for consumer freedom than just Windows 7?"
Perhaps not for consumer freedom, but think about it in this way: You're getting a laptop largely subsidized by a corporation which is somewhat more guaranteed to successfully run your own brand of Linux. If you buy a PC with Windows and use only Linux, you are paying a lot for something that isn't even tangentially useful for you.
Do you mean Win RT? In which case that's much more locked and you can't run your own binaries or alternate OS's on it, or did you mean Win 8, which isn't really locked at all?
I agree it's not that 'open' for the average consumer, but the very existence of a developer switch makes this substantially more open than RT devices.
Linux crowd is just happy because of no more "I need %s windows-only software". But in everything else -- you're absolutely right, it's horrible that this type of vendor-locked systems even exist.
SJVN and the like are more about bashing Microsoft and Windows down rather than championing for user or developer freedom. SJVN knows what kind of articles bring the most hits and looking at his previous articles,seems to writing precisely such kind of articles.
Stallman, on the other hand, is remarkably consistent and sticks to his principles. I doubt he'd be happy with the Chromebook
[+] [-] MattRogish|13 years ago|reply
However, for kicks and grins I pulled out the CR-48 a little while ago and was pleasantly surprised that I was able to update to the latest version and - gasp - it was actually quite usable!
I have been using it on and off ever since (it sits in our conference room as a general note-taking and projector device) and I must say - there's absolutely something to this thing. The battery life is great (like 9 hours), screen is OK, keyboard is nice. Trackpad is still miserable.
For the most part my non-professional-work-life lives in a Chrome window anyway (gmail, google docs). If it had a decent text editor (I guess there's a SSH app you can get) I could see it working pretty well as a web development machine.
But for the proverbial "Aunt Tillie", this would be not a terrible device if the iPad was a little too simple. Auto-updates, Chrome syncing, Google docs? Pretty compelling.
[+] [-] lemma|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] redegg|13 years ago|reply
It was the opposite for me. I've been using it for some time and stopped due to the constant crashing.
Each new update I had hoped the stability would improve, but it seems they're for new features only the new models could flawlessly run. Alas, I gave up a month ago. It's sitting in my pile of netbooks.
[+] [-] jamesaguilar|13 years ago|reply
In this case, you're also looking at a very cheap laptop in an OS where there are only two MODELS even on sale, one of which is older. It does not necessarily, or even probably, signal a sea change in the way people think about OSes.
[+] [-] tankbot|13 years ago|reply
I think this is a true statement and I agree completely, but only because Joe Averageuser doesn't think about OS's _at all_.
I think this very much does signal a sea change in the way people use their computers.
There will always be folks like you and me who want to get down to the nuts and bolts of things and start tweaking, but most people just want to check their email/facebook and work on that spreadsheet/document for the boss.
For years we have all been talking about what moving 'to the cloud' would mean for computing as a whole and now it's happening. Your data goes with you wherever you go and your computer is a super cheap and nigh-disposable way to access it.
The writing is definitely on the wall. In fact, at this point, it's been there long enough that it's starting to fade a little.
[+] [-] Tloewald|13 years ago|reply
Interesting times.
[+] [-] jacquesm|13 years ago|reply
Microsoft is a lot larger than is readily apparent. That's because in the enterprise they're about as entrenched as can be.
Take away excel and the impact would be about as bad as taking away google would be (or maybe even worse).
MS will be around in some form or another for a long time. The question is more whether or not they'll be able to leverage the remains of the old into something new. My guess is not as long as Ballmer is still around.
[+] [-] evandena|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RexRollman|13 years ago|reply
I haven't heard of this technique being used in any other Linux distribution and I think it is quite novel. Sure, it wastes some disk space, but that if fairly cheap these days.
[+] [-] tbirdz|13 years ago|reply
No and No. I guess chromebooks aren't for me.
[+] [-] colin_jack|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] so898|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eli|13 years ago|reply
Sure, the ChromeBook is the best selling SKU, but wouldn't it make more sense to combine numbers for the 500GB MacBook Pro and the 750GB MacBook Pro?
[+] [-] kurrent|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vilgax|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] black4eternity|13 years ago|reply
I can imagine a loving grandparent buying this affordable "Laptop" for their grand kids thinking this suits my budget. Or someone thinking sure this thing is like the one I have back at home.
[+] [-] prewett|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dkhenry|13 years ago|reply
Additionally in an office full of software developrs there are multiple people who are looking to pick one up or have already done so ( Myself included ). I think the "not very tech savvy" crowd would be buying the name brand laptops with Intel processors and Windows since that's what we have trained them to do for 20 years.
[+] [-] smallegan|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shmerl|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rogerbinns|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arindone|13 years ago|reply
I will say the comparison to Windows-based computers is a bit surprising however. Still, the type of person who buys a computer on Amazon is more tech-savvy anyway and would prefer a Linux-based OS as compared to the other two.
[+] [-] nicholassmith|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] plg|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrisringrose|13 years ago|reply
This is a win for web apps. This is proof that traditional desktop apps are dying.
[+] [-] k_bx|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] willvarfar|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zura|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tuananh|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abraham|13 years ago|reply
> Amazon's top selling laptop doesn't run Windows or Mac OS, it runs Linux
[+] [-] SquareWheel|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cooldeal|13 years ago|reply
The kicker is that the 100GB free storage on Google's cloud is only free for 2 years, after which you have to pay for it.
How is any of this better for consumer freedom than just Windows 7? The answer is not "because it has a developer switch on the back to install Ubuntu"; you can do that on a Windows PC as well. And an overwhelming percentage of normal consumers buying it won't be installing Ubuntu on it. In fact, I suspect that this kind of device that is absolutely at the mercy of a corporation is much closer to RMS dystopian vision than any Windows PC.
Would it make any difference to the user or even developers if it ran GoOS as the kernel instead of Linux? This is pretty much like a Tivo or a router.
[+] [-] SiVal|13 years ago|reply
...and the claim in the body text: "True, there is Linux under the hood but you have to go out of your way to find it."
So, huzzah for another great victory for Linux (like TiVo, Android...) made possible by hiding Linux as much as possible.
[+] [-] AnthonyMouse|13 years ago|reply
Ecosystem. This is a limited function device, which is bad, but anything you can do on it you can also do on a full Linux distribution. Which means that anyone who can get by with such a device will have no barrier to switching if they are ever inclined to do so.
That is the difference from a Windows machine. Because if you have Windows then you start accumulating Windows apps and you become accustomed to their interfaces and your files are in those formats, etc. etc. Windows locks you into Windows. ChromeOS doesn't lock you into ChromeOS; you can switch to a full desktop Linux distribution whenever you want and everything still works.
[+] [-] w1ntermute|13 years ago|reply
That's not necessarily true with UEFI secure boot.
[+] [-] droelf|13 years ago|reply
* Linux gains from having many people using it, what is effectively happening when a lot of people are buying Chrome Books. So ARM support is likely to become even better, and hardware manufacturers are going to build something more "linux"-friendly
* You can do whatever you want with it if you turn on the developer switch, so that's a plus
* You don't actually pay for a license for windows 7 if you buy this chromebook, so you are not supporting "closed source software" with money
* Google as a company has done considerably more for open source software than Microsoft (or so I think)
These would be my points, why I think of the chromebook in better regards as Microsoft Surface. However, it would be kind of awesome if you'd have an open, touch-enabled platform (like the surface) and could use it however you want i.e. installing Ubuntu on it. In that case I'd probably be really tempted to even buy one, though it'd come from Micro$oft.
[+] [-] dragonbonheur|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikelat|13 years ago|reply
The part about logging into your Google account is definitely questionable, but it's a cloud device and that's what you're buying in the end... the fact it has a developer switch is what makes it more like a PC in terms of control and not like a tablet or phone where installing your own OS has a few hurdles.
It's a matter of perspective, really.
[+] [-] 10098|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SeppoErviala|13 years ago|reply
The great thing about Chromebook running Linux is that more work is put into Linux kernel, Linux harware supporting and Linux software support.
Linux is not GNU. Locked down devices were explicitly allowed when kernel devs opted to keep GPLv2 instead of moving to v3. They don't care about openness of devices but about the source code.
[+] [-] anotherevan|13 years ago|reply
Just to set the record straight, I was at the last Linux Crowd™ meeting and nobody was cheering over some inaccurate link-bait title of an article in zdnet.
[+] [-] adam-a|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sliverstorm|13 years ago|reply
Windows has been Public Enemy #1 for so long they've got tunnel vision, that's how.
[+] [-] dscrd|13 years ago|reply
Perhaps not for consumer freedom, but think about it in this way: You're getting a laptop largely subsidized by a corporation which is somewhat more guaranteed to successfully run your own brand of Linux. If you buy a PC with Windows and use only Linux, you are paying a lot for something that isn't even tangentially useful for you.
[+] [-] Nursie|13 years ago|reply
Do you mean Win RT? In which case that's much more locked and you can't run your own binaries or alternate OS's on it, or did you mean Win 8, which isn't really locked at all?
I agree it's not that 'open' for the average consumer, but the very existence of a developer switch makes this substantially more open than RT devices.
[+] [-] k_bx|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eru|13 years ago|reply
Google's NativeClient gives you native apps.
[+] [-] recoiledsnake|13 years ago|reply
Stallman, on the other hand, is remarkably consistent and sticks to his principles. I doubt he'd be happy with the Chromebook
[+] [-] transitionality|13 years ago|reply
Not for $249 and not on ARM.