Comment by matejdro

4 days ago

I guess this is more meant as an replacement for Chrome OS? That one is already pretty locked down, so switching to Android does not change much.

4 comments

matejdro

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happosai  4 days ago

ChromeOS is much more close to regular Linux systems than Android. The vendors had support Linux properly to get into ChromeOS. This allowed google go support ChromeOS laptops for very long period. Also, a a side-effect Chrome OS contractors got to contribute a lot into mainline Linux.

Android Otoh let's vendors get away with shipping binaries that work once on one Android version, making upgrades pain. And thus Android devices are generally stuck with the build they released with.

The Google decision to drop ChromeOS in favour of Android is going is going to be a huge disaster for Linux ecosystem.

thiht  4 days ago

I always assumed Chrome OS was some kind of Android build anyway, but apparently not

  • exasperaited  4 days ago

    ChromeOS has been converging on Android for a while but never quite gets there. They are asymptotic ;-)

    It rather looks like Aluminium OS is the intended solution.

    I don't see any problem with it being "locked down", in the sense that it doesn't sound any worse than Chrome OS or Android.

    The open question is whether any open source release will happen worth a damn.

    • Zak  4 days ago

      > I don't see any problem with it being "locked down", in the sense that it doesn't sound any worse than Chrome OS or Android.

      I think the problem is that it further normalizes computers where users don't have the final say. The more normarized systems like that are, the more likely app developers (and even websites, if something like web environment integrity were to be normalized) are to lock out users on systems that aren't so restricted.

      I wish I didn't have to care what kind of computers most people use, but in reality, it matters what's popular.