Neowin.net

This will be mostly for those mini portable laptops so I dont think Microsoft should be worried

Considering netbooks/smartbooks are canibalising the traditional notebook market quite extensively, I think they should be concerned. GNU/Linux already has about 15-20% of the market, so the introduction of something from Google that's going to be supported by manufacturers across the board will no doubt have Sweaty Steve throwing more chairs around the room

And when the new smartbooks enter the market with their significantly longer battery lives, the amazingly powerful dual core arm cortex cpu, and hd capable chipset, GNU/Linux will have a monopoly on the OS Exciting times indeed.

Microsoft has to worry about this? I think not. MS is so imbedded in the home/business that this isnt even a threat to them.

And apple isn't a threat?

Or shouldn't this also be a threat to Apple?

I don't see myself using the insecure and unreliable internet to get my work done, not to mention that I won't ever see in my lifettime a great online equivalent of my 2D, 3D en video editors or a program like Dreamweaver or Office. So sorry to burst your bubble, Microsoft (and Apple) have nothing to worry about...sigh

Um, so you plan on doing video editing on a netbook?

I can't see it being a threat to Apple or Microsoft. Sure it will be great for low end machines and netbooks, but its relative lack of usefulness as a gaming platform, and orientation towards cloud computing will stop any real uptake in the mid and high performance sectors of the market

Are you talking about windows? Because GNU/Linux is inherently secure. I know I wouldn't trust windows to do my banking due to the high incidence of viruses, key loggers, and root kits that exist on it. Linux is always the safer and more secure option.


Erm, GNU/Linux has many web development, office, and video editing applications. And if you absolutely can't live without proprietary programs, then wine is allways available to run them.

I might add though that netbooks really aren't the best platform for 3D video editing. Smartbooks will do that kind of thing better. Not only that, but you are also limited to 1 gig of ram, a single core cpu, and a limited screen size with windows 7 starter edition; no such limits exist on GNU/Linux machines.

Looks pretty freakin' ugly to me. If this is real, I don't think Microsoft has much to worry about. Apple, on the other hand might...who knows? ^_^

And that will also be it's downfall, for it relies on familiarity to maintain hegemony. This can in itself be a curse, since we only have to look to the epic failure of vista to realise that XP is the standard, and users refuse to learn the new versions of windows. I fully expect the same response to seven.

And while windows is trading on familiarity GNU/Linux is innovating and staying ahead of the curve, instead of just slapping on a new coat of paint and reselling the same product.

Hm.. Looks like the functionality is very limited. I know that this is netbook-oriented, but it looks more like a more elaborate browser that focuses on just web services than a full OS.

Did I say apple wasnt a threat? The post i replied to was about Chrome and Windows. Tho I dont think Apple is that big of a threat considering Windows can do more and it would take A LOT for Apple to get their products as a home/industry standard. Companies, and home users, would not want to undergo the MAJOR expense of switching platforms.

I really wish you FOSS people would stop spreading FUD. I have been banking with Windows for 4 years now, and have never had a single problem related to Viruses, Keyloggers, or Rootkits. You do realise it would also be possible for a keylogger to run on Linux right? Most keyloggers don't even require elevated privileges

Yeah, cause Linux can stop someone from packet sniffing you.

No, but maybe because 80% of Windows PC's are exploitable.
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=811446

And encryptation is there to prevent packet sniffing, that's not a problem.

Last edited by Lechio on 17 Aug 2009 - 23:17

He's talking about the fact that web apps are inherently less secure than applications running on a local computer.

Yes, Starter only supports 1 GB RAM, and that's good because it means manufacturers can't use this crippled version for their more powerful machines.

As for the screenshots, fine, but what I'm not seeing is a way to move windows with multiple tabs around. Chrome's behavior is to move the individual tabs when grabbing their title bars and move the window when you grab the border... but I'm not seeing a border here.

(And in case you think I'm a MS fanboy, I'm typing this from Ubuntu 9.04.)

Might be time to change your name to outoftouchbeck.

Looks like you don't know a dam thing about securing windows and unaware what is running in your background. That statement applies to a person who don't really know anything about computers and just browse the web only.
I know how to secure my windows with my own tactics, 3rd party apps, plugin. This is all done when you fresh install windows. Looks like you don't know a single thing about security.

Is that you Billie G? I though you changed your mind about the internet?

Anyway, the internet is only not secure (you sound insecure), and unreliable if you are using Windows and Internet Explorer. The very fact that you laud Dreamweaver shows that your opinion is highly suspect.

Um, dude? I'd say GOOGLE has more to worry about.... Try as they might, they won't be able to create a product that doesn't infringe on any of MS's COUNTLESS patents.... MS legal team will be eating Google for lunch. No joke.

Fixed.



And this is Windows's fault... how? For the record, Flash does pop up an auto update window. If users blindly dismiss that, then fair game.

This only needs it's own version of Adobe products, an office suite, firefox, a media player, a couple chatting packages and some easy way to do backups, it would seriously hit Windows.

And of course tons of themes to personalize your google os. Not just different shades of "transparent" like windows does.

I have to agree with you there on that.. this aero theme really does get a bit old .. i wonder is this is what microsoft if gonna stick to throughout their OS line up from now on.. .

Google has all of what you mentioned as their own application. Question is, will developers and users open up to it as a main OS?

And limited if not completely plain.

Dreamweaver great editor ? wow

Well it's only version 0.1.15, so I imagine they are concentrating on the internals, rather than fancy graphics at the moment.

See, that is where they are going wrong. Microsoft spends a lot more time on the fancy GUI, and great animation, this where you need to concentrate. Security can come later, maybe sp3. Nobody cares about security anymore, they just want whoosh sounds and animated windows.

I fixed it for you

I totally LOL at work for this. Hilarious!

hehe, thought that myself

If those are the final icons, they're probably designed to be high contrast and easy to see on small (10in) screens. All the detail that Apple has in their icons is lost at smaller sizes.

The user interface probably isn't a top priority at version 0.1.15.

The Mac OS X and application icons from Apple look better in my Dock at 32x32 pixels than those made by Google...

You're comparing apples to apple seeds, bud.

Icons are icons.

Not to mention Apple finished working on those icons 8 years ago, I think they are even working on some new ones for OSXI...

These are leaked screenshots from version 0.1.15. What do you expect, rotating compiz cubes?

Oh dear god, let's be spared from the Compiz cubes.

Huh? you do know this is for netbooks right? they only have 10" screens, so what Google has done is perfect for it (also Linux for netbooks follows a similar simplistic approach too I believe).

People should be banned from forums for saying, "so and so" is awful, without giving at least one opinionated reason.

That would just force all these people into some other, poor, unsuspecting forum, with there ignorant opinions. Better to keep them all here.

Considering Google calls "Beta" stuff that they had released years before, I would say this is isn't "alpha" yet but "big bang".

True, but the netbook/smartbook market is growing exponentially, while traditional notebooks are losing share. Who wants heavy, almost unportable, and low battery life notebooks when you can have a netbook/smartbook? The notebook is a dying breed mark my words

What? My laptop is under 4lbs with dual core and 4gb of ram and 4 hours of battery life, my little acer nettop doesnt even last 1 hour without needing to be plugged in and the damn thing can barely play flash content without lagging. Nettops are only good for twitter facebook and checking your email. Doing any real work is a joke.

At 4lbs (lots are heavier than that) it's still twice the weight of the newest netbooks. I don't know which netbook you have but the acer one I saw had approx 6-8 hours of battery life depending on wireless activation. I think yours must be running XP with a hdd, because those two factors decrease battery life significantly.

As far as flash goes, it runs fine on Linpus (the acer one default OS). I mean it's no workhorse, but considering hardware it does just fine. Hell, flash can lag virtually any system sometimes; now with the inclusion of native video playback in the most popular browsers, flash is starting to become superfluous.

If you want better performance, take a look at the new smartbooks coming out. Those things can play hd video content without breaking a sweat, and have more than double the battery life of netbooks. Of course, you can also get as much ram as you want, and dual cores to improve performance. Windows 7 starter edition limits you on all these.

i must confess I agreed with his post until I read yours.

(although I will also admit I know jack about netbooks and therefore am easily influenced in that regard....)

they are just saying this is for netbook, then Microsoft goes back to sleep again and BAM! RIGHT IN THE COJONES!

I'm hoping they're concurrently developing an arm cpu branch, so we can run it on the smartbooks as soon as the OS gets released

I doubt it. Google never releases betas. Oh wait a minute...

Shouldn't that be Google never releases final products?

You have got it the wrong way round. Google releases finished products, and calls them betas, Microsoft releases betas, and call them finished products. For evidence, just look at Vista pre-SP3.

Vista has run great for me since day 1. most of vistas problem were 3rd party drivers, and the crappy pc makers out their (hp, dell, gateway, sony, and acer)

just so you know there is no vista sp3 and prolly will never be 1

apple never releases finished product, as a matter of fact 99% of all software are never finished. if this would be the case then there would never be upgrades, improvements and new versions

the only software out there that are finished products are the one that are "finished" er i mean dead and no longer in development.

What a load of BS.

+1
Legendary statement

I thought it was a terminal/console at first. We hackers need a cli to function you know xD.

I thought it was a news paper aswell, but I can not be too certain and didn't want to risk publish anything that I wasn't fully sure of... But these screens aren't exactly from a reliable source anyways.

Could be a "contact card" as well, somethnig like Windows Contacts.

Did you not read the leaked part?

Are you telling me Google hires people who still use CRT monitors?

Look like flat panels to me.

I'm with LoveThePenguin, looks flat

Who said it was a Google employee at all that took the shots?

Considering this OS was just announced recently, I'm assuming there are only a handful of people who would have access to it, most of them probably some sort of Dev/Programmer. This may be a flat panel CRT, but it's definitely not a modern LCD that a tech company like Google would have for these sorts of employees, which was more my original point.

This is GNU/Linux based, so you can anything. No limitations unlike windows.


Smartbooks are going to be where Chrome OS will really shine. Ubuntu too. Most of the current netbooks are way overpriced, and some are even pecuniarily comparable to notebooks Chrome itself will be free, so take the hardware cost and subtract the price of windows. They may even be partly subsidised by advertising etc, which would also lower the price tag. Besides, once smartbooks fully enter the market, the prices will all be pushed down. And we all know GNU/Linux benefits from low margins because it's free xD.


Except that these web applications are built into the OS. Are the live services going to be tied to windows? I ask because that would probably get them into anti-trust hot water again. hehe.


The OS itself is costless. The hardware is what will determine the price.

Not the case. You can do anything with the CODE, but the limitations of the actual platform will be the same as any other Linux distribution

The live services are downloads you can get from windows update.

What limitations? You can do whatever you want, it's unrestricted.

The only thing that I would point out is Google hasn't said anything about licensing yet, so they may be using some non-free parts.

Gizmodo seems to agree on my assessment of this being a CRT monitor.

http://gizmodo.com/5339157/is-this-the-fir...ot-of-chrome-os

There really isn't enough in those pictures to be able to tell either way, it looks like a lot of cheap thick-bezel LCDs that I've seen before.

I think the biggest issue I see with these pictures is with the browser window itself. Where do you click to drag the window around or resize it? If there is only ever supposed to be one browser window open then why does it use so little screen real estate?

It is an operating system based on a web browser... kind of sad really. This is still early stages, I didn't expect a Windows competitor out the gates.

This is an early look at it. If you want to see what it could turn out like, take a look at the HTC dream which runs android (also developed by Google).

... the hell? is it even announced to not be free? Where did you get that figure from, and why didn't any of the above guys call you off on that odd claim?

I was assuming he was talking about the price of the machine including the OS. Which obviously in Chrome OS terms is zero, so it's just the cost of the hardware. I could be wrong though.

because its going to be free and bundled on netbook type devices. AKA £200 for the netbook that runs a browser, lame....
But I hope they will add more.

Nah, this is the final version, the gold. This is being sent to hardware manufacturers right now. That is why they gave it the final version number 0.15, that is how you can tell it is finished. Don't you have to get back to work, professor.

My thoughts as well. Until Google comes out and says "This is what we got" i'm taking all of these "leaked" screens with a grain of salt.

Exactly, these pictures should be taken with a grain of salt until Google shows us what they got. I thought that these pictures are circling the Internet and could be the first screens of it. However, we go through this stuff all the time with new products coming out, such as Game consoles, electronic devices and other stuff that usually ends up with fake mockup images

Minimalist is not the same as ugly. Just compare google's front page to yahoo's.

Did he say the word "minimalist"?

Regardless, people complained when XP had a "simple" UI, but it went down pretty well.

Or their own Google Chrome browser. :p

Beos was a really nice OS, could handle real time tasks much better than Windows (or even Linu, due to its advanced interrupt support. You could play 8 videos at once, on old hardware, with no problems. Shame that it didn't get more support.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one to notice the similarity. If you could get it running on a modern netbook (drivers would be the main issue), BeOS would run circles around most other operating systems on a netbook. It really is too bad that BeOS died off (and the same could be said for the Amiga).

Totally agree! I really missed the advanced architecture that BeOS has, and the speed of the OS. It's really a shame that it couldn't get attention from consumers.

Smartbookalicious too xD

Might as well be Atomalicious since most (if not all) netbook runs on Atom.

You do know that this OS is not aimed at mainstream desktop PCs right? Its not a Windows-Mac competitor. Googles knows it has no chance in hell of gaining market share there.

yes, i'm aware and Windows 7 will occupy my netbook, when i do get one, 7 just seems like the better OS to use all round for any job... though i will probably give Google OS a try at the very least

Look at the top of the web browser. It has chrome in all lower case. IF it is real, it's how they are branding it, must like Apple brand their iPods in lower case (nano, touch, etc).

Could be. But I suspect a minimalistic approach might not be pushing the realms of possibility considering the search and android layouts.

+1 for fake

+1 for fake. The fact that the OS is in "beta" made it sounds more phony.

Maybe the small grey X in the 4th image?

That's to close a tab like you see in today's Chrome as well. Not to close an entire window with multiple tabs open.

while you'd be right in other operating systems, it looks like in this case google has not made any distinction between a browser and OS. For them all applications would be web based or at the very least if its downloadable, then its an application coded in html/js/css etc.

so following this logic, the tab is kind of the window, and the blue chrome area, is now just the OS backdrop.

This could potentially be the wave of the future if things pan out right. if Onlive and Gaikai turn out to be doable services (i remain skeptical), then gaming, and really any applications could be done without needing anything more than maybe a monitor thats hooked up to the internet.

if those dont go through, things like photoshop are already being built with flash. for example, you have aviary. its no photoshop competitor right now, but i can see in the future that it may have the same power as photoshop.

as for 3D gaming, maybe we will always need a high powered graphics card, (of if intel has its way, a high powered all in one CPU/GPU). if this ends up being the case, google has released a JS based O3D api, which i believe is based on open gl. They have demos up on their o3d site.

while i cant see myself making music on the cloud, there are already services out there that emulate stomp boxes, sequencers, and drum machines that are flash based, and work very nicely. it could be a matter of time.

aside from the high end applications, the internet really can do everything you need. if google doesnt offer online storage, that kind of thing is already available with dropbox and other services. text editing, voice communication, email, presentations, spreadsheets, etc can all be done whether its from google, ms, or other services. Not to mention the fact that coupling google wave with chrome os really starts to make sense in terms of their vision to keep people on the internet as much as possible.

talk about typing too much...

maybe close and minimize buttons appear when hovered?

Screen burn in? Or you've just stared at your XP taskbar for farrrrrrr to long.
If real, its probably their own version of the start menu.

It is screen burn.. CRT's get that from Windows XP a lot

Check picture 2 and you will see that its not screen burn.

"Google chrome OS
Developers beta 0.1.15"

It's completely out of focus but you can make out two white lines of blur.

Huh. They don't tell much at all.

"0"

None of the other distro's have the diplomatic muscle to get the top manufacturers to sign up before it's even released. That's the difference. Just look at the success of android

Google also has the resources to fund R&D to make it a great OS.

Success of Android? So that's why HTC recently said that Android (and Windows Mobile) based phones were selling below expectations?

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/913...an_HTC_expected

Last edited by lordcanti86 on 17 Aug 2009 - 23:23

Those ARE webpages.

It's to foster the tight integration of OS and the google services. In the same way they did with android. After all they're out to promote their services. I'm not complaining though because android rocks and if this is as good as that I'll want to install it.

Take a look at android if you want to see the kind of quality you will see in the release version.

I own the G1... and although its a good OS, its not really that impressive. The 1.5 update fixed some things, but its still does not run that great on the Dream, and its missing several important features.

it's funny that there is even a search bar there, isn't the chrome address bar enough?

It's different.


I can clearly see a difference. Almost all pointers in much-used OSes have the slightly curved model like the Aero one has, so my guess is they made a new one.

Internet, serious business.

Anyways, thanks for the comparison.

I'm willing to bet that's it's more secure than storing them locally without encryption. What happens if your netbook gets stolen or you lose it?

BitLocker ftw.

For me, I'm not worrying about data being stolen. I'm more worried about data being lost (eg. due to fire on multiple server sites).

its hard to believe that would happen, especially since ms has done a lot of its own R&D on its own technology. anyway, in the event that MS decides to completely change character, take something open source, add their feature set and recompile it as their product, that still doesnt really hurt google now does it? The whole point of chrome OS is to have a very fast and secure way of getting people on the internet, and to stay there. Google's entire justification for giving out applications, an making an operating system is that people will be on the internet. the more people on the internet, the more likely it is for google to get more revenue from its advertising business. basically they waited to do this until their idealistic vision of an OS met the practicality of their business.

Mono already runs .net on Linux. I also imagine an arm built of it exists. Although I wouldn't recommend using .net on Linux, because of MS's aggressive patent trolling, and bate and switch techniques.

More info: http://www.fsf.org/news/dont-depend-on-mono

My first thoughts as well.

Except that all the top OEM's are supporting it. Unifying them alone is something only MS were capable of before this. I predict it will take the netbook/smartbook market by storm

Perfectly suited for netbooks?

People underestimate the capabilities of netbooks. They're becoming more powerful, why are companies releasing stripped-down, featureless, simplified operating systems.

No, it's gOS!!

lol.

Hehe.

Could be fake, but probably not to far from the truth even if it is.

I highly doubt it will be designed for gamers.

If you like classic arcade / snes / playstation 2 games, then it will probably run those fine. Assuming this will run on top of X.

WTF are you talking about? Developer and Beta are not mutually exclusive terms, and they wouldn't necessarily display the full build number on the desktop.

@ roadwarrior,
I say like as SVN work because i dont know how exactly they work. we work with SVN in team develop ...

also in develop mod this is necessary to display full build number because developers and testers need to record everything accurate .
so Developers Beta have not meaning ! dont need any terms need logics