Submitted by rich_c on July 11, 2009 - 2:06am
So Google have announced that they are planning a cut down, Linux based OS for Netbooks, to be released in 2010. The idea is that it will boot up on ARM processor equipped machines and enable you to use their Chrome browser to do pretty much any task you want over the web. Presumably there will be very prominent links to Google Apps etc... This has me a bit puzzled. Here's why...
Why go to all the bother? I don't usually subscribe to the theory that there are too many Linux distributions. I'm all for a bit of 'biodiversity'. But in this case, it would seem to me that the smarter thing to do would have been to do something in conjunction with Ubuntu, with their Netbook Remix. By all accounts, it works pretty well on what Microsoft would call low cost, low powered PCs or whatever...
As I understand it, the whole reason Ubuntu Netbook Remix exists is that people weren't satisfied with the cut down versions of Linux distributions that came supplied with some of these Netbooks. Some misguided souls even went as far as struggling with cramming Windows XP onto them. (In the name of all that's unholy, why???) It seems to me that Google are trying to take the cut down Linux concept even further by providing little or nothing more than the OS and the browser. I can't see how users are ready for that extreme. To me, there will always be a requirement to work offline with lightweight office apps on locally stored documents or similar...
Personally if I were to get my hands on one of these little machines, unless the provided OS was reasonably capable, I'd look at installing antiX on it. When these Chrome OS machines come out, I'm sure it'll only be a matter of time before someone figures out how to install a more capable OS on them. Probably sooner rather than later! Maybe Google are onto something, but from what I've read over the past couple of days there are a lot of people that are as unconvinced as I am.
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