A quick and grumpy look at ChromeOS [LWN.net]

By Jonathan Corbet
December 22, 2009

There is a lot of change happening in the "desktop" computing area currently, and various groups are trying to figure out how to best support users in the future. One entity with a big stake in the outcome is Google, which has responded with a couple of operating systems of its own: Android for small platforms, and ChromeOS for netbook-like devices. ChromeOS is not meant to be generally available until sometime around the end of 2010, but a preview version was released in late November.

Having been through the challenge of rebuilding Android, your editor was not in a great hurry to try to make a working version of ChromeOS. Happily, that proved not to be necessary: the folks at Dell put together a ChromeOS build for the 10v, one of which your editor recently acquired to play with Moblin. It was just a small matter of downloading the 7.5GB USB image - a task requiring only a few days with your editor's less-than-impressive DSL connectivity. Of course, during that time, the install image was replaced with another which weighs in at a mere 320MB. Progress is always a wonderful thing to behold.

Booting the image is straightforward enough; after about 15 seconds, ChromeOS comes up with a blue login screen. This being a Google product, it should not be surprising that login names are Gmail account names; the system will nicely add the @gmail.com should the user forget about it. Of course, ChromeOS does not come up with a functioning network on the 10v, leading one to wonder just how the login credentials can be validated. ChromeOS can remember login information, but only after a successful login. Your editor was forced to resort to actually reading the instructions, wherein he learned to use the default dell@gmail.com account that comes wired into the downloaded system.

As has been reported elsewhere, ChromeOS presents itself primarily as a web browser. The instructions on the Dell site suggest that it should be possible to get a terminal window, but your editor never succeeded in that goal. It was all Chromium, all the time. As a web browser, it works well enough, but your editor does not spend all of his time messing around on the web, occasional appearances to the contrary notwithstanding.

A small icon in the upper left corner leads to the screen shown on the right. This screen would seem to nicely characterize the ChromeOS experience, at least in this stage of its development. It's all logos for services - generally commercial services - available out on the net somewhere. ChromeOS, it seems, is the ultimate consumer's system. It seems like the logical evolution of the television set. Indeed, one could argue that, like a television, the main reason for the existence of ChromeOS seems to be to show advertisements.

Now, one should use great care in coming to conclusions about an operating system that is nearly a year away from a real release. Things will certainly evolve considerably over the coming months, and ChromeOS can only acquire useful features which are not available in this preview. But the emphasis of this system seems clear: ChromeOS is designed to be a thin front-end, with the real computing happening elsewhere, preferably at Google.

Your editor's review of Moblin-based distributions on the same device had a mixed conclusion. But it must be said: the Moblin approach looks quite a bit more interesting (to your editor) than the ChromeOS approach on these small devices. Moblin, too, has a strong focus on ensuring that the user can distribute wisdom on Twitter and Facebook with as few obstacles as possible. But Moblin is also a Linux system which is more than happy to let the user under the hood and to install and run applications locally. A Moblin system is still a Linux computer; a ChromeOS system - at least, in this stage of its development - seems much more like a closed appliance.

to post comments

A quick and grumpy look at ChromeOS

Posted Dec 24, 2009 9:49 UTC (Thu) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]

I can only think of one case where this would make sense: if Google is aiming for ultra-low-end netbooks, AND planning to subsidise the price to such an extent that it will be free or almost-free. Perhaps as part of a deal with a 3G network. If their goal is to push cheap or free internet devices into as many hands as possible, while locking them into Google services, ChromeOS makes a huge amount of sense: combine the large numbers and "reach" of mobile phones with the power of netbooks, and so what if the result is not what we think of as a laptop computer -- most of these devices will be used by people who don't otherwise use computers very much, and will easily be adequate for what they want to do.

A quick and grumpy look at ChromeOS

Posted Dec 24, 2009 13:20 UTC (Thu) by ikm (guest, #493) [Link] (4 responses)

So, do I understand right that ChromeOS is merely a launcher for a web browser, or is there something more to be had with it?

Anonymous thin clients

Posted Dec 24, 2009 18:13 UTC (Thu) by rillian (guest, #11344) [Link] (3 responses)

Launching the browser is the zero-order feature, but it's more interesting than that. ChomeOS is an example of how to do cloud-tethered thin client.

The OS image it runs is controlled directly by the distribution maintainer. I does have local per-user storage, but it's really an (encrypted) cache of files stored on a server somewhere. One of the design goals is for it be safe to loan (or borrow) the physical machine to another person without the risk of compromise physical access usually implies. This allows the hardware to be anonymous, shareable and disposable even in untrusted environments. That's new, as far as I know.

Now, to achieve anything in this direction on top of what running an encrypted filesystem does requires collaboration from the bootloader to verify the root image. That part hasn't been published yet, and of course means ChomeOS machines will be only one step away from becoming closed, proprietary devices. But taking that step would be Evil.

Nevertheless, the tethered model is interesting because it matches the usage pattern a lot of technical people already have with netbooks; i.e. a secondary computer used casually and when travelling. We just want a choice of whose distribution and backup service to use; having an open source implementation of the basics is a start on that.

Anonymous thin clients

Posted Dec 25, 2009 12:05 UTC (Fri) by ikm (guest, #493) [Link] (2 responses)

If I understood correct, it's basically the browser's cache which would be stored locally. Bringing up e.g. encfs seeded with gmail's password doesn't seem like rocket science to me.

Furthermore, this kind of security paranoia from Google seems misplaced, if not hypocritical. No security-conscious user would use Google mail anyway.

Anonymous thin clients

Posted Dec 26, 2009 13:47 UTC (Sat) by kay (guest, #1362) [Link] (1 responses)

Furthermore, this kind of security paranoia from Google seems misplaced, if not hypocritical. No security-conscious user would use Google mail anyway.

Not from Google's view. Because they are the only trustworthy company =;->

Kay

Anonymous thin clients

Posted Dec 26, 2009 14:08 UTC (Sat) by ikm (guest, #493) [Link]

And that's why it's hypocritical :)

A quick and grumpy look at ChromeOS

Posted Dec 24, 2009 13:56 UTC (Thu) by DOT (subscriber, #58786) [Link] (2 responses)

If ChromeOS will be as locked down as it is now, then why would it fail any less than similar distros such as Acer's Linpus or Asus' dumbed-down Xandros? I believe Android and Ubuntu's netbook variant will be much more popular, because they are fully featured operating systems.

A quick and grumpy look at ChromeOS

Posted Dec 25, 2009 17:48 UTC (Fri) by clump (subscriber, #27801) [Link] (1 responses)

My (admittedly short) experience with the default distros on both the Aspire One and the original Eeepc is that they didn't inspire confidence that you were using a secure and functional Linux.

To best the examples you mentioned, Google's Linux distro would merely need to be maintained and functional. Asus and Acer set the bar pretty low.

A quick and grumpy look at ChromeOS

Posted Jan 5, 2010 9:55 UTC (Tue) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]

I own a Acer netbook, and I have kept the original Linpus distro because it works reliably and boots fast. In comparison Ubuntu takes very long to boot in my other netbook (a Dell).
Once you unlock the XFCE menu (something I did the very first day) you can teach interesting tricks to Linpus, which coupled with a lean desktop and quick booting is a winner for me.
As for security, being not a multiuser machine (moth my wife and I use the same account), local security is not very important. Also, all servers are turned off by default, because its a pure client machine. I only wish the kernel was kept more up to date.

This is your father's operating system

Posted Dec 28, 2009 17:02 UTC (Mon) by sethml (guest, #8471) [Link] (3 responses)

This is not an OS for you or I - this is the OS for your clueless mother or father who relies on
you for computer support. If your computer-clueless relative relies on a computer just for
email, viewing cute kittens on YouTube, and the occasional lightweight word-processing task,
this is the OS for them. Actually, it'll mostly be nice for you - no more long sessions tring to
remove malware from their Windows box. No more overpriced Mac which they use only a
fraction of the availabile features. No more "easy" Linux distro on which you struggle to fix
boot problems remotely.

When my mom's Mac conks out, if she has a decent Internet connection, I'll probably get her
something based on ChromeOS.

Like parent like child

Posted Dec 29, 2009 15:58 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]

This is not an OS for you or I [...]

Not as a primary computer maybe, but it could be very interesting as a secondary web terminal. I am using right now a Windows machine because my debian netbook cannot connect to the local WEP network and I am too lazy to buy an ethernet cable; but in fact all I need from the net is a (decent) browser. My netbook does not require internet connectivity; updating debian testing and pushing my git changes can wait a few days. I could use such a net device (maybe with 3G connectivity) at my inlaws' or parents' if one was available, just as I am using their Windows laptop -- and just as they could use it.

This is your father's operating system

Posted Dec 30, 2009 20:51 UTC (Wed) by amarjan (guest, #25108) [Link] (1 responses)

That's interesting -- I don't think I could ever give something like this to my mother. I introduced her to the joys of Adblock many years ago and I think she'd have a fit if she ever saw the unfiltered web.

I think it's interesting that the Chrome browser's new extension interface is strictly not powerful enough to re-implement Adblock (extensions can't mess with the renderer at load-time; instead they're forced to hide ads after they're already loaded).

As an aside, it doesn't seem to be powerful enough to implement robust cross-platform mouse gestures either (there are numerous complaints to Google about design decisions that prevent that).

So it seems a safe bet that, as the article implied, this device will be an advertising delivery mechanism.

Ad blocking

Posted Jan 7, 2010 9:32 UTC (Thu) by Cato (guest, #7643) [Link]

AdThwart is currently the best ad blocker for Chrome - it uses the AdblockPlus EasyList filters automatically, so it generally works well. It will be interesting to see if Google improves the Chrome extension API to allow improved ad blocking, though.