For casual users, Chromeboxes and Chromebooks are becoming a viable option for those who do most of their work from within a web browser.ĭespite this growth, ChromeOS appliances face one huge downside – storage. It has zero software DVDs, no anti-malware software, and offfers completely seamless updates behind the scenes. Appropriately named the Dell Chromebox, this desktop ChromeOS appliance is yet another shot at traditional computing. One of the most recent ChromeOS computer releases is from Dell. New computers built for ChromeOS are being released all the time. No matter what your view of ChromeOS happens to be, the fact remains that its adoption is growing. This could change in the future, but at this time, these two groups are largely separate. The point is: the market share for ChromeOS and Linux on the desktop are not even remotely the same. My advice? Stop inventing problems where none exist. In short, these are passionate Linux enthusiasts looking for something to gripe about. And for some individuals, this is fantastic!Ĭomically, the folks who exclaim that there’s a problem here are not even remotely the target market for ChromeOS. Because Google has a pulse on the hardware ChromeOS is bundled with, it allows for a generally error free experience. This is partly made possible due to the ChromeOS being designed for specific hardware builds, in a similar spirit to how Apple develops their own computers. These are environments where Linux on the desktop is set up to be used by users of any skill level or background.īy contrast, ChromeOS is built to be completely maintenance free, thus not requiring any third part assistance short of turning it on and allowing updates to do the magic behind the scenes. Examples include: Homes where advanced users can drop by and handle updates, governments and schools with IT departments. I’ve found the Linux desktop is best suited for environments where on-site tech support can manage things on the down-low. Sadly Linux lacks this here in the States, which is where I see ChromeOS coming into play. However it helps to have someone to install the OS and offer “maintenance” services like we see in the Windows and OS X camps. Yes, desktop Linux is absolutely fine for most casual computer users. ChromeOS or Linux on the desktopĪnyone making the claim that ChromeOS hurts Linux adoption on the desktop needs to come up for air and meet non-technical users sometime. Sorry, but GooglePlus Hangouts isn’t a replacement for VoIP software. Software choices feel limited and boxed in, plus games and VoIP are totally out of the question. Linux enthusiasts, however, tend to feel constrained almost immediately. By extension, moving over to ChromeOS feels fairly natural for these folks, as they’re simply using the browser they’re already used to. Odds are this individual is already relying on the Chrome browser, Google Drive and Gmail. But for non-Linux users, the experience is not all that different than what they may have used on their old PCs.įor example: Anyone who is living a Google-centric lifestyle on Windows will feel right at home on ChromeOS. With everything being launched from a browser window, Linux users might find using ChromeOS to be a bit vanilla. Where ChromeOS’s difference becomes most apparent, however, is in the apps it offers the end user: Web applications. So while the ChromeOS is using the Linux kernel under its hood, it’s still very different from what we might find with today’s modern Linux distributions. Much of the operating system is made up of Google’s own proprietary blend of code and software. In other words, I consider ChromeOS to be a forked operating system that uses the Linux kernel under the hood. When folks ask me if ChromeOS is a Linux distribution, I usually reply that ChromeOS is to Linux what OS X is to BSD. Plus, I’ll talk about the biggest issue of all and how no one is doing anything about it. In this article, I’m going to look at ChromeOS as a concept to market, how it’s affecting Linux adoption and whether or not it’s a good/bad thing for the Linux community as a whole. Exploding with popularity on sites such as, it looks as if ChromeOS could be unstoppable. In recent years, I’ve seen ChromeOS making quite a splash on the Google Chromebook. Anyone who believes Google isn’t “making a play” for desktop users isn’t paying attention.
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