> On Jul 8, 2:07 pm, "Aaron Gray" <ang.use...@gmail.com> wrote: > > The word is Google are going to release an OS second half of next year > > called Chrome and it is reputably based on Linux.
> > Cannot wait !
> And everybody will want to use it. Right.
What I found, said "Chrome OS" is for netbooks. Wikipedia says netbooks are selling, especially in the EU. Apparently, they're acceptable for browsing, email, etc.
> I've heard of Chinese and Russian OSes, too. Where are they?
Were you asking about those posting to alt.os.development? Or, anywhere?
I found some of the later on the Internet. I was searching for DOS style OSes. So, I don't know about more advanced ones. But, unfortunately, they didn't have English doc's, only Russian... I've seen quite a few OSes from other countries. Some looked really good. But, I can't read their doc's either. I have seen many Russian programmers make important software contributions to various OS projects on some of the more technically challenging stuff. It seems the skills are there.
> > On Jul 8, 2:07 pm, "Aaron Gray" <ang.use...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > The word is Google are going to release an OS second half of next year > > > called Chrome and it is reputably based on Linux.
> > > Cannot wait !
> > And everybody will want to use it. Right.
> What I found, said "Chrome OS" is for netbooks. Wikipedia says netbooks are > selling, especially in the EU. Apparently, they're acceptable for browsing, > email, etc.
> > I've heard of Chinese and Russian OSes, too. Where are they?
> Were you asking about those posting to alt.os.development? Or, anywhere?
> I found some of the later on the Internet. I was searching for DOS style > OSes. So, I don't know about more advanced ones. But, unfortunately, they > didn't have English doc's, only Russian... I've seen quite a few OSes from > other countries. Some looked really good. But, I can't read their doc's > either. I have seen many Russian programmers make important software > contributions to various OS projects on some of the more technically > challenging stuff. It seems the skills are there.
What I was trying to say is that there's some noise in the media and on the net that either explicitly says it's (or it's gonna be) a national (or otherwise good) general-purpose desktop OS (alternative to Windows, Linux, whatever) or that's implied. Problem is, it's a huge project and on top of that it needs support from others (users, hardware and application developers). Even Linux has some major problems here despite being comparable age with Windows. Linux is still largely a geek toy. Those words that we hear about new OSes remain just words and will remain so for many years because it's nearly impossible to make a viable alternative general-purpose OS quickly, well, and with lots of apps for it available ((re)written or otherwise). Specialized OSes -- no prob. Alternative general-purpose OSes, now that's a huge problem. Unless one heavily invests time, money and does good management, nothing's gonna happen. I think if people want something better than Linux (and Windows, that is) then instead of doing something from scratch or alone they should fix Linux problems (solve the driver story once and for all, make things even more user-friendly (I mean configuration of various things), fix existing apps, make it easy to develop and port new apps and have it actually happen).
> What I was trying to say is that there's some noise in the media
US media? Yeah, they support all liberal causes and any underdog they find...
> and > on the net that either explicitly says it's (or it's gonna be) a > national (or otherwise good) general-purpose desktop OS (alternative > to Windows, Linux, whatever) or that's implied.
I'll believe that when I see it. I can reasonably believe that Google could create an OS just for netbooks. I can reasonably believe that Google could take market share from MS, Apple, Linux in this area. But, I don't believe they'll ever be dominant. I don't believe they'll every get into the PC market.
> Problem is, it's a > huge project
Yes.
> and on top of that it needs support from others (users, > hardware and application developers).
Users? How much input from users did MS or Apple accept?
> Even Linux has some major > problems here
Yes.
> despite [Linux] being comparable age with Windows.
1981 is comparable with 1991?... A decade, billions of dollars, paid programmers, and many more skilled programmers, makes little difference?
> Linux is > still largely a geek toy.
I'm hoping not.
I think I've decided to install one version from a USB image, and then use it to burn a CD image for another version so I can install it. I can't burn with this OS with a SATA CD. I intend to keep Win98SE and DOS. I'm thinking about installing/moving my installed OSes to external USB drives.
I've been wanting an OS with full GCC/GLIBC support for some time. It'll help with my code development. DJGPP is useful, but Cygwin was painful.
> Those words that we hear about new OSes > remain just words and will remain so for many years because it's > nearly impossible to make a viable alternative general-purpose OS > quickly, well,
Apple seemed to produce new Mac OS versions for rapidly changing hardware fairly quickly.
> and with lots of apps for it available ((re)written or > otherwise).
Yes, that's a serious problem for end-users. It takes much work accumulating the software one needs. That's why DOS users wouldn't give up DOS. That's why C64 users wanted a faster more powerful machine. They didn't really get one, but IBM PC users did. Unlike other systems of the '80's in the US, you could buy a new, faster Intel based PC and run the same software. All other PC systems died, in part, because of a lack of software compatibility.
> Specialized OSes -- no prob. Alternative general-purpose > OSes, now that's a huge problem.
If my OS doesn't support 80% of the PC's hardware, does that make it specialized? No. It makes it limited. But, it'll do all or most of what I need, hopefully... Specialized, to me, implies that it's for a special situation: embedded, single application, etc.
> Unless one heavily invests time, > money and does good management, nothing's gonna happen.
That's true. But, that's not the reason that I think Google's Chrome OS will never be available for PC's. I don't believe Google's employees have the necessary mindset to develop a serious professional grade application like an OS. Yes, they come up with interesting stuff, and have pushed programming boundaries. But, an OS is something they have little to no experience with. If they just slap some startup code under their Chrome browser, it'll be a nightmare of an OS. Once they develop it, they must convince netbook manufacturers to buy and install it on their netbooks. Of course, they've paired up with IBM for other projects... So, they have a partner who _was_ experienced with OS development.
> I think if > people want something better than Linux (and Windows, that is) then > instead of doing something from scratch or alone they should fix Linux > problems (solve the driver story once and for all, make things even > more user-friendly (I mean configuration of various things), fix > existing apps, make it easy to develop and port new apps and have it > actually happen).
Perhaps, true. The keywords being "if people want"... for a few reasons.
Due to the GPL, it is nearly impossible to make a profit developing Linux for retail sales of the OS. This prevents corporations with money who can hire paid programmers from working on Linux. There are companies who hire programmers to fix the stuff in Linux they need. But, that's limited, usually to server issues. "It's free as in beer." I.e., somebody else paid the cost in life, time, money, resources, of developing Linux but can't charge anything for it. And, you, as an end-user of Linux who paid nothing for it, are just a leech. So, "if users want"... users will have to pay for it. Of course, Linux is being embraced by the "3rd world" countries. So, maybe it has a chance. They might do phenomenal work for free, or by force of their oppressive governments... Maybe MS will wake up and realize it costs much less to use GNU tools and/or Linux as a base... or not. If the low cost can benefit MS competitors, it can benefit MS too.
Google's Chrome OS is about what Google wants: revenue. As I see it, the real purpose behind Google's Chrome OS is so that they can sell ads, and/or sell cpu time. Netbooks have weak cpu performance and need remote processing and network aware or client-server applications to be useful. I think they're calling this idea resurrected from the dead: "cloud computing". If Google embraced GPL'd Linux that would mean Google would have to relinquish control of some of the software they developed for interfacing with the "cloud computing" application server clusters. That would probably interfere with their advertisement based revenue stream. MS wants to sell you a new OS for your PC every five years. Google wants to sell dozens of targeted ads per day per PC. Netbooks offer them the perfect captive audience, and it allows them to customize the netbook owners experience to benefit Google's advertisement machine, not MS. If you use our "cloud computing" applications, you must allow us to display so many ads, or we can charge you for cpu time.
> > > On Jul 8, 2:07 pm, "Aaron Gray" <ang.use...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > The word is Google are going to release an OS second half of next year > > > > called Chrome and it is reputably based on Linux.
> > > > Cannot wait !
> > > And everybody will want to use it. Right.
> > What I found, said "Chrome OS" is for netbooks. Wikipedia says netbooks are > > selling, especially in the EU. Apparently, they're acceptable for browsing, > > email, etc.
> > > I've heard of Chinese and Russian OSes, too. Where are they?
> > Were you asking about those posting to alt.os.development? Or, anywhere?
> > I found some of the later on the Internet. I was searching for DOS style > > OSes. So, I don't know about more advanced ones. But, unfortunately, they > > didn't have English doc's, only Russian... I've seen quite a few OSes from > > other countries. Some looked really good. But, I can't read their doc's > > either. I have seen many Russian programmers make important software > > contributions to various OS projects on some of the more technically > > challenging stuff. It seems the skills are there.
> What I was trying to say is that there's some noise in the media and > on the net that either explicitly says it's (or it's gonna be) a > national (or otherwise good) general-purpose desktop OS (alternative > to Windows, Linux, whatever) or that's implied. Problem is, it's a > huge project and on top of that it needs support from others (users, > hardware and application developers). Even Linux has some major > problems here despite being comparable age with Windows. Linux is > still largely a geek toy. Those words that we hear about new OSes > remain just words and will remain so for many years because it's > nearly impossible to make a viable alternative general-purpose OS > quickly, well, and with lots of apps for it available ((re)written or > otherwise). Specialized OSes -- no prob. Alternative general-purpose > OSes, now that's a huge problem. Unless one heavily invests time, > money and does good management, nothing's gonna happen. I think if > people want something better than Linux (and Windows, that is) then > instead of doing something from scratch or alone they should fix Linux > problems (solve the driver story once and for all, make things even > more user-friendly (I mean configuration of various things), fix > existing apps, make it easy to develop and port new apps and have it > actually happen).
What is the 'driver story' as you see it? Chrome OS has already made the wiki pages - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome_OS This is worse than I thought, it advances web centric distributive applications, AFAICT. -not my cup of tea, or should I say java, Mr. Schmidt.
> On Jul 9, 3:17 pm, "Alexei A. Frounze" <alexfrun...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > solve the driver story once and for all
> What is the 'driver story' as you see it?
Well, I took his statement to refer to the problem of hardware manufacturers writing drivers only for Windows, and current versions of it at that... Or, those who are supporting Linux are doing so via closed source binary objects. Without a driver model for hardware that is independent of Windows, Linux or any other PC OS will always be at a disadvantage in terms of hardware support. A while back, I read an article saying Intel had released an software emulation package as GPL. I went and looked and at most half of it was released as GPL. Intel chose to distribute the rest as a proprietary, closed source, binary object.
> > On Jul 9, 3:17 pm, "Alexei A. Frounze" <alexfrun...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > solve the driver story once and for all
> > What is the 'driver story' as you see it?
> Well, I took his statement to refer to the problem of hardware manufacturers > writing drivers only for Windows, and current versions of it at that... Or, > those who are supporting Linux are doing so via closed source binary > objects. Without a driver model for hardware that is independent of > Windows, Linux or any other PC OS will always be at a disadvantage in terms > of hardware support.
Exactly. Users should be able to buy any hardware that's good for Windows and be able to use it all equally well with Linux (all features, comparable performance and reliability, you name it). Users shouldn't be thinking whether something will work with Linux or not (just like they shouldn't have had the Vista nightmare discovering their existing software (apps and drivers) is no longer good for it or the new Windows is no good for the older software). Of course, somebody has to pay for it one way or another, no doubt. But is it really that expensive? Can't the same community that's working on Linux be leveraged/allowed to port Windows drivers to Linux? What's being done in this direction, if anything?
> Users should be able to buy any hardware that's good for > Windows and be able to use it all equally well with Linux > [...] > What's being done in this direction, if anything?
> > What I was trying to say is that there's some noise in the media
> US media? Yeah, they support all liberal causes and any underdog they > find...
Russian media, for one, as well. I believe the dude who's making the "Russian National OS" or whatever the name is, has made it to some news (at least online news), even though he's got nothing but the words so far and will probably never get anywhere (judging by the website content, actually that thing may just be a joke, a silly one). Then some officials are making bold and IMO stupid statements that they would work on making alternative software to that of MS that would be cheaper, better and all. If those statements ever materialize, I expect it to be some customized version of Linux, OO, etc. Anything else would be too big and serious to really pursue and accomplish.
> > and > > on the net that either explicitly says it's (or it's gonna be) a > > national (or otherwise good) general-purpose desktop OS (alternative > > to Windows, Linux, whatever) or that's implied.
> I'll believe that when I see it. I can reasonably believe that Google could > create an OS just for netbooks. I can reasonably believe that Google could > take market share from MS, Apple, Linux in this area. But, I don't believe > they'll ever be dominant. I don't believe they'll every get into the PC > market.
Exactly.
> > Problem is, it's a > > huge project
> Yes.
> > and on top of that it needs support from others (users, > > hardware and application developers).
> Users? How much input from users did MS or Apple accept?
Well, the users' involvement and contribution is not always direct. Users are actually surveyed, their software usage patterns are analyzed to improve things, users find problems that the maker hasn't found, users choose one product over the other, they share with each other on the good and bad and promote things.
> > Even Linux has some major > > problems here
> Yes.
> > despite [Linux] being comparable age with Windows.
> 1981 is comparable with 1991?... A decade, billions of dollars, paid > programmers, and many more skilled programmers, makes little difference?
I don't think any Windows prior to v. 3.xx counts, so I wouldn't go *that* early with it. OK, by that same logic Linux date should be advanced by a few years (5+?) as well.
> > Linux is > > still largely a geek toy.
> I'm hoping not.
OK, maybe not quite a toy, but still needs a pretty geeky user and it misses a lot of applications that are available for Windows. Still a long way to mature. That's why I said it's a geek toy.
> > Those words that we hear about new OSes > > remain just words and will remain so for many years because it's > > nearly impossible to make a viable alternative general-purpose OS > > quickly, well,
> Apple seemed to produce new Mac OS versions for rapidly changing hardware > fairly quickly.
Yeah, but they have had their own hardware, no? And that has been a commercial development longer than people have made money with Linux. On the other hand, Macs lose due to their higher price than that of PCs and that impacts the OS popularity and OS-specific apps as well. The recent overhauls of MacOS and the move to Intel CPUs have probably helped somewhat, though.
> > Specialized OSes -- no prob. Alternative general-purpose > > OSes, now that's a huge problem.
> If my OS doesn't support 80% of the PC's hardware, does that make it > specialized? No. It makes it limited. But, it'll do all or most of what I > need, hopefully... Specialized, to me, implies that it's for a special > situation: embedded, single application, etc.
Specialized can be viewed as a form of limited: limited to do just this and only here, maybe very well, but not much of anything or anywhere else. When you narrow the scope you can do great things quickly, cheaper and more efficiently. When you broaden it to the general-purpose scale and have to carry the weight of various compatibilities (with other software and its own older bugs), it's often the opposite.
> > I think if > > people want something better than Linux (and Windows, that is) then > > instead of doing something from scratch or alone they should fix Linux > > problems (solve the driver story once and for all, make things even > > more user-friendly (I mean configuration of various things), fix > > existing apps, make it easy to develop and port new apps and have it > > actually happen).
> Perhaps, true. The keywords being "if people want"... for a few reasons.
> Due to the GPL, it is nearly impossible to make a profit developing Linux > for retail sales of the OS. This prevents corporations with money who can > hire paid programmers from working on Linux.
Dunno. Linux itself exists already. It's more of a drivers and apps problem than of the kernel. Are closed-source drivers for it a no-no because of GPL? If so, why can't they take on a form of open-source drivers that, if the manufacturers don't want to be that open, are sort of interpretable data + a little code to write that data to the appropriate registers and ports and handle interrupts. Or is that not GPL-ish enough? Games... Do we have so few of them for Linux because Linux has problems with video and audio drivers? Or because Linux is open and has no place to hide secrets (e.g. encryption keys) and is very well hackable by the user and the manufacurers are reluctant to release for Linux because they're afraid of piracy? What?
> There are companies who hire > programmers to fix the stuff in Linux they need. But, that's limited, > usually to server issues.
I know that.
> "It's free as in beer." I.e., somebody else paid > the cost in life, time, money, resources, of developing Linux but can't > charge anything for it. And, you, as an end-user of Linux who paid nothing > for it, are just a leech. So, "if users want"... users will have to pay for > it.
> Of course, Linux is being embraced by the "3rd world" countries. So, > maybe it has a chance. They might do phenomenal work for free, or by force > of their oppressive governments... Maybe MS will wake up and realize it > costs much less to use GNU tools and/or Linux as a base... or not. If the > low cost can benefit MS competitors, it can benefit MS too.
> Google's Chrome OS is about what Google wants: revenue. As I see it, the > real purpose behind Google's Chrome OS is so that they can sell ads, and/or > sell cpu time. Netbooks have weak cpu performance and need remote > processing and network aware or client-server applications to be useful. I > think they're calling this idea resurrected from the dead: "cloud > computing". If Google embraced GPL'd Linux that would mean Google would > have to relinquish control of some of the software they developed for > interfacing with the "cloud computing" application server clusters. That > would probably interfere with their advertisement based revenue stream. MS > wants to sell you a new OS for your PC every five years. Google wants to > sell dozens of targeted ads per day per PC. Netbooks offer them the perfect > captive audience, and it allows them to customize the netbook owners > experience to benefit Google's advertisement machine, not MS. If you use > our "cloud computing" applications, you must allow us to display so many > ads, or we can charge you for cpu time.
I wonder where are ads in my IE and FF. What is this browser competition about? How does either party make money off a browser that costs nothing to the user? Is it about the image or it's an old tradition to make browsers?
> > Users should be able to buy any hardware that's good for > > Windows and be able to use it all equally well with Linux > > [...] > > What's being done in this direction, if anything?
> create an OS just for netbooks. I can reasonably believe that Google could > take market share from MS, Apple, Linux in this area.
From Linux? with a Linux-based OS? I disbelieve.
> Users? How much input from users did MS or Apple accept?
If a million of users will complain on some issue to MS, they will react.
>> despite [Linux] being comparable age with Windows.
> 1981 is comparable with 1991?...
Non-toy Windows is from 3.0 - 1990.
> it to burn a CD image for another version so I can install it. I can't burn > with this OS with a SATA CD.
Try "dvd+rw-tools"
> for retail sales of the OS. This prevents corporations with money who can > hire paid programmers from working on Linux.
What about IBM?
> for it, are just a leech. So, "if users want"... users will have to pay for > it.
Correct. Linux is driven by _maintainer's wishes_, not user's wishes.
>Of course, Linux is being embraced by the "3rd world" countries. So, > maybe it has a chance. They might do phenomenal work for free, or by force > of their oppressive governments...
Nearly no governement in history, even the most tyrannic ones, _forced_ people to do _intellectual_ work.
>Maybe MS will wake up and realize it costs much less to use GNU tools and/or Linux as a base...
No. MS _makes money on OS_ (though yes, the money making on tools is insignificant for them).
>Russian media, for one, as well. I believe the dude who's making the >"Russian National OS"
Anti-Westen, anti-American, patriotic senator Alksnis, ethnically Latvian, former Soviet Army colonel.
He is promoting Russian National OS to make Russia lesser dependent from the West to prepare for the Second Cold War.
Regardless of his political beliefs, he looks like a decent person and is not stupid at all.
From what I remember, he got lots of support from Russian Linux/GNU fans, and set his mind that Russian National OS must be a Linux clone.
I think that the governement just lost the interest to his project due to economical crisis.
The main question here is really funding. It is surely possible to establish some Linux as the _only_ OS in all Russian governemental institutions, but this will require major funding, on educational materials mainly.
> From what I remember, he got lots of support from Russian Linux/GNU fans, and set his mind that Russian National OS must be a Linux clone.
> I think that the governement just lost the interest to his project due to economical crisis.
> The main question here is really funding. It is surely possible to establish some Linux as the _only_ OS in all Russian governemental institutions, but this will require major funding, on educational materials mainly.
We're probably talking about different things. Seems like there's something else besides this joke.
>> create an OS just for netbooks. I can reasonably believe that Google could >> take market share from MS, Apple, Linux in this area.
> From Linux? with a Linux-based OS? I disbelieve.
What Linux-based OS? Is Google's Chrome browser Linux based? I thought they wrote that from scratch.
What I read said Google is going to enhance their Chrome browser to the point that it becomes an OS for netbooks: Chrome OS.
>>> despite [Linux] being comparable age with Windows.
>> 1981 is comparable with 1991?...
>Non-toy Windows is from 3.0 - 1990.
True, but they had already developed a large amount of code by Windows 3.0. They didn't start from scratch in 1990. So, you can compare the start of development, or compare the start of usefulness. As Alex pointed out, Linux's date then needs to be moved forward. He indicated maybe 5 years. I'd think a minimum of seven years. That's being gracious. The Linux versions I used in the late '90's weren't close to MS-DOS or Windows 3.0 in terms of ease of use. The X11 windowing at the time was horrendous. It looked like an early TV video game, e.g., Atari 2600, and hardly functioned. If X11R6 wasn't crashing, then the filesystem was becoming corrupted, etc.
> > it to burn a CD image for another version so I can install it. I can't burn > > with this OS with a SATA CD.
> Try "dvd+rw-tools"
Did you mean for Linux? or for DOS, Windows? If Windows, newer or older? And, does it come with SATA drivers?
I can't locate SATA drivers for this OS, Win98SE. There is partial SATA support for DOS. One version of the driver works with Win98SE. But, only the logical functions in the device driver were implemented. So, there is no low-level or direct access. That's why I needed to install one Linux (from USB image) in order to obtain and burn the CD image for another Linux.
> > for retail sales of the OS. This prevents corporations with money who can > > hire paid programmers from working on Linux.
> What about IBM?
As I mentioned, I don't doubt they use Linux and pay programmers to work on it, likely for servers. But, they aren't trying to sell Linux commercially, like they did OS/2 or PC-DOS.
> >Of course, Linux is being embraced by the "3rd world" countries. So, > > maybe it has a chance. They might do phenomenal work for free, or by force > > of their oppressive governments...
> Nearly no governement in history, even the most tyrannic ones, _forced_
people to do _intellectual_ work.
Not sure. What about the Chinese? Romans? Egyptians? Didn't they all have slaves working as engineers, weapons creators, architects?
> >Maybe MS will wake up and realize it costs much less to use GNU tools
and/or Linux as a base...
> No. MS _makes money on OS_ (though yes, the money making on tools is
insignificant for them).
True, but even MS admitted the man hours, millions of lines of code, etc. of the last OS was becoming too much for them to handle. They might not want a pure GNU/Linux, but they might find GNU/MS_code_with_Linux_code cost effective. E.g., if they invested time and money in developing GCC so that it could replace MSVC (or whatever), that'd be one less tool they'd need to develop and maintain internally. Costs drop and profits rise. I think it will be a larger problem for them to change their beliefs to embrace the GPL... perhaps BSD license would be more palatable.
> > On Jul 9, 3:17 pm, "Alexei A. Frounze" <alexfrun...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > solve the driver story once and for all
> > What is the 'driver story' as you see it?
> Well, I took his statement to refer to the problem of hardware manufacturers > writing drivers only for Windows, and current versions of it at that... Or,
Oh, that. I thought he might've meant something particular to Linux itself. The issue around drivers has been around in some form ever since the beginning of drivers. If not OS centric issues then interoperative issues or source availability issues. I don't think I've had an OS yet that was up to the full capabilities of the hardware I've had it on. Oh well, even the bundled hardware/OS/ Software systems... the last unbundled system I had was a 50mhz x486 EISA Buss w/ scsi drives and scsi cd-rom. I never found a msdos driver for that cdrom, although win3.1 supported it. Years later I updated to a larger scsi H.D. and the diskette utility had a driver for the cd-rom on it - for the background DR-DOS installation utility for diagnostics on CD. That was a system using an ASUS m.b., quite reliable, runs today. When I ordered it with both a 3 1/2 floppy and 5 1/4 floppy, they asked which I wanted as the boot drive. I didn't know enough to make an informed choice. The information I didn't know was the floppy tables were in ROM, and the choice meant different ROMs listing the drive parameter tables as such, in boot order. I had several OS's on 5 1/4 floppies, and one on 3 1/2 so I chose the 5 1/4. Naturally 3 1/2 took the day, and swapping the drives to change the boot preference was no problem - except for DR-DOS's floppy format utility verifies the parameters from the ROM tables and won't acknowledge the 3 1/2 drive media for formatting as 3 1/2 media even with command line parameters. So it goes (the everlasting struggle). The more disappointing mismatch I had with that system was something I couldn't correct, until years later a solution was found by accident. Whenever you booted the thing, a keypress was required to finish the bootstrap. This was quite annoying, as I wanted it to reboot itself unattended if there was a power outage. The solution was found after the keyboard keys started sticking and I replaced the keyboard from an xt/at switchable to an at keyboard - problem automagically solved! I've steered away from unbundled hardware/software since. I've paid Dell to do that, cheaper, since.
So for hobby OS'ing, if the RomBios doesn't lend itself (its services) to something, then its not going to be supported, except case by case, anyway. Yeah, I just _luv_ using my high end video card in VGA emulation mode, right.
Steve
> those who are supporting Linux are doing so via closed source binary > objects. Without a driver model for hardware that is independent of > Windows, Linux or any other PC OS will always be at a disadvantage in terms > of hardware support. A while back, I read an article saying Intel had > released an software emulation package as GPL. I went and looked and at > most half of it was released as GPL. Intel chose to distribute the rest as > a proprietary, closed source, binary object.
Yeah, I know.. should I trust their code more than they trust me? </ humourous quandry>
> Not sure. What about the Chinese? Romans? Egyptians? Didn't they all > have slaves working as engineers, weapons creators, architects?
Slave architects in Rome? doubts.
In ancient times, the intellectual job was the "free man's job", not the slave's one.
As about modern totalitarian regimes - Stalin employed some prison inmates as weapons designers without them leaving the prison, but this soon ceased, they were liberated and became high-rank in the Soviet society.
There are some evidences to suggest that they were first unjustly put to prison during the pinnacle of Stalin's purges, but then there was a process of liberating many of these victims, the weapons designers among them.
> Google's Chrome OS is about what Google wants: revenue. As I see it, the > real purpose behind Google's Chrome OS is so that they can sell ads, and/or > sell cpu time. Netbooks have weak cpu performance and need remote > processing and network aware or client-server applications to be useful. I > think they're calling this idea resurrected from the dead: "cloud > computing". If Google embraced GPL'd Linux that would mean Google would > have to relinquish control of some of the software they developed for > interfacing with the "cloud computing" application server clusters. That > would probably interfere with their advertisement based revenue stream. MS > wants to sell you a new OS for your PC every five years. Google wants to > sell dozens of targeted ads per day per PC. Netbooks offer them the perfect > captive audience, and it allows them to customize the netbook owners > experience to benefit Google's advertisement machine, not MS. If you use > our "cloud computing" applications, you must allow us to display so many > ads, or we can charge you for cpu time.
Anyone want to speculate about the EU slapping Google with antitrust fines by preventing users from choosing the browser they want? Like they did to MS?
> > Google's Chrome OS is about what Google wants: revenue. As I see it, the > > real purpose behind Google's Chrome OS is so that they can sell ads, > and/or > > sell cpu time. Netbooks have weak cpu performance and need remote > > processing and network aware or client-server applications to be useful. > I > > think they're calling this idea resurrected from the dead: "cloud > > computing". If Google embraced GPL'd Linux that would mean Google would > > have to relinquish control of some of the software they developed for > > interfacing with the "cloud computing" application server clusters. That > > would probably interfere with their advertisement based revenue stream. > MS > > wants to sell you a new OS for your PC every five years. Google wants to > > sell dozens of targeted ads per day per PC. Netbooks offer them the > perfect > > captive audience, and it allows them to customize the netbook owners > > experience to benefit Google's advertisement machine, not MS. If you use > > our "cloud computing" applications, you must allow us to display so many > > ads, or we can charge you for cpu time.
> Anyone want to speculate about the EU slapping Google with antitrust fines > by preventing users from choosing the browser they want? Like they did to > MS?
They'll get a pass, it's built on Linux after all, they'll claim it's a novel application, it'll be open source, they say.
As to their marketing strategy, you could be correct. Cable broadcasting was 'commercial free' initally, now you pay for commercial vision.
It'll be interesting to see just how 'lite' their software will really be to turn your laptop into a smart terminal with a web centric gui. I doubt it'll be lite enough for my Dell Latitude circa mmx, win98, and 64mb memory.
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