Wow, it has been almost exactly 2 years since I've updated the blog here. I suppose I've been busy. Anyway...
I do have a special interest in Operating Systems, and I am intrigued by the recent announcement that Google is creating their own, brand new, OS, named "Chrome" (just like their new browser).
I do have a few questions about some of the notes in the that blog announcement. First off, this quote: "The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel." Hmm...doesn't sound as much like a new innovative operating system when it is running a Linux kernel, does it? Linux has been around for many years an open source initiative. The new windowing system is of interest; perhaps it would be a replacement for Gnome or KDE. But, does a new windowing system make a new OS? A windowing system is more or less an application running on top of the OS. None of the media reports I've seen have picked up on that the Google Chrome OS is depending (perhaps greatly) on Linux.
Not that this is necessarily bad, but Linux is a monolithic, and some might say bloated, operating system. To contrast, Apple's recent OSes have also been based on a UNIX-like operating system (Mach), which takes a different architectural approach - it is a micro-kernel based system, which at the surface would make more sense for a lighter operating system. Anyone interested in comparisons between these architectural approaches can look search the web for "Tanenbaum Torvalds" to see (perhaps endless) debates on these approaches.
I also have another question about the blog post. From the post: "Even more importantly, they don't want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware..." This is one area where Microsoft has it over Linux - mostly due to the massive popularity of Windows. A new piece of hardware usually must come with Windows drivers, so the configuration usually isn't all that painful. This is hardly the case with Linux systems, where the drivers lag the hardware, and configuration of a Linux system to work with a new piece of hardware isn't necessarily straightforward, and can take many hours for early adopters. The blog post simply states that Google's new OS will take care of this...should we trust that at face value?
Perhaps Google's new OS is really nothing more than another new Linux distribution with a new windowing system. We shall have to wait and see how much innovation is really there, but until more details are divulged, count me in as a skeptic.
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4 comments:
Good to see you back posting. How about a cross-post on your mysite page?
I would guess that Chrome-OS will provide the necessary tech-support and driver-support to make it a worthy alternative to its competitors. That said, I thought it's the hardware developers that develop drivers, not the OS. In my opinion, a new desktop Chrmoe-OS is a necessary milestone towards what I think Google is truly envisioning - a web based OS.
Thanks for your comment. But...what is my "mysite" page? Maybe I just don't remember.
I do wonder what a web-based OS would be. There are already experimental distributed OSes out there where the OS spans many computers on the network. How would that differ from a web-based OS?
Mysite is APL's internal "facebook". Check it out at http://mysite
I would expect that a Web-OS would allow a thin-client interface to a server-hosted virtual machine. Applications and data storage would be hosted in the cloud.
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!
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