Campbell: Linux presents a competitor to Chrome OS
By: Donald Campbell / Columnist
Posted on 01. Dec, 2009 in Magazine
An operating systems war has begun.
The possibility of a series of netbooks available for bargain-basement prices became realistic in the minds of computer buyers because of cloud computing and its lack of hefty hardware requirements.
The war might prove not nearly as bitter as the war waged between avid Windows fans and die-hard Apple supporters, but considering the jabs between Google’s Chrome OS and Jolicloud — a new Ubuntu Linux-based cloud operating system for netbooks — the battle looks like it could get pretty heated.
Private invitation-only users currently test Jolicloud, but some people arguing on Computerworld.com’s blogs have, as well.
The approaches that Google and Jolicloud have taken in developing an operating system for “The Cloud” seem to create the main source of contention.
The two operating systems are similar in that their respective developers designed them for low-cost netbooks. They also both rely on Internet applications to provide most of their functionalities.
Both operating systems will allow users to function without a large hard drive, as servers on the Internet store all the data — hence the moniker “cloud.”
Both machines rely heavily on Internet technologies, specifically HTML, JavaScript and CSS, for user interface function and are geared toward running Web applications.
Both operating systems will sport user interfaces that allow quick and easy access to Internet-based information.
Not surprisingly, both operating systems’ developers cite the separation of the Internet and the local machine, prevalent in modern incarnations of Windows, Mac OS X and traditional Linux distributions, as problematic and inefficient.
They differ in underlying platform and generic outlook on the way to look forward for cloud-oriented netbooks.
Google, according to an article on Computerworld.com describing Jolicloud, will actively prevent users from utilizing hard drives on its Chrome OS-enabled netbooks.
It will instead utilize smaller bits of on-board memory for temporary storage, and it will rely completely on the cloud for long-term data storage and application support.
Jolicloud will more resemble traditional Linux, specifically Ubuntu Linux, in that it will include support for hard drives and will gear users’ activities toward the cloud.
Eric Lai, the author of a Computerworld.com article about Jolicloud, described Jolicloud’s approach as allowing some limited local storage, using hard drives within Jolicloud-enabled netbooks, for saving data that users feel reluctant to publish to the cloud.
Jolicloud will also allow users to run specific applications — Lai specifically cites Skype — from a local machine, rather than relying on the cloud to provide application support.
Its developers have also started promoting Jolicloud’s inherent graphical abilities.
Jolicloud has support for the graphics chips that are common among the industry’s top-selling netbooks, allowing them to display high definition graphics. Jolicloud also trumpets a complex, Mac-like user interface.
Tariq Krim, the CEO of Jolicloud, described Google Chrome’s user interface alternatively as “generic.”
In this way, Jolicloud appears to promote itself as a Linux platform first and a cloud solution a close second — Google’s Chrome is comparatively uninterested in pure graphical ability, insofar as it exceeds the requirements of attractive, efficient Internet rendering.
Google plans on aggressively going after the netbook market, while Jolicloud seems to plan to taking over the netbook market by evolution.
Google has started actively seeking contracts with various netbook manufacturers, Lai wrote, to have Chrome shipped with many netbook devices.
Jolicloud’s makers seems content to provide users with a free download of its eventual final product, making it simply to dual-boot machines for users who do not wish to convert entirely and permanently to Jolicloud.
Jolicloud might ultimately prove to be a legitimate competitor to Google’s previously-published plans to take over the netbook market.
Its course seems less severe than Google’s in that its design doesn’t force users to abandon locally stored data and applications.
Ubuntu, the underlying distribution that led to Jolicloud, is also extremely popular. Jolicloud might gain market share simply by having loyal Ubuntu users switching to it on their machines to take advantage of cloud-centric features.
The graphical abilities of Jolicloud and its inherent hardware support of the graphics chips on many popular netbooks will also make the operating system a less painful, and possibly beneficial, transition for users accustomed to traditional Ubuntu distributions on their netbook devices.
7 Responses to “Campbell: Linux presents a competitor to Chrome OS”
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How can ChromeOS compete with Linux when ChromeOS IS Linux? The war is between Microsoft Windows XP/Windows 7 and Linux netbooks including ChromeOS, Moblin, Ubuntu, and even Android netbooks.
ChromeOS may reach those non geek users where the other Linux distros failed to make sustainable inroads. ChromeOS provides an easy to use, don’t care plattform for basic computing needs and access to Internet services. OEM’s, support and retail will love ChromeOS device because software can’t be screwed even by the dumbest users. I don’t know Google hardware spec’s, but if there is an option to writeprotect ChromeOS while booting into an external drive (e.g. USB Harddrive or SD-card) with an other Linux distro installed, new “Googlebooks” would be perfect for the whole Linux ecosystem. We’ll have to wait and see.
Well Jolicloud is nice but if Google wants to, it is out of the competition. For some it might be the better solution because it also supports a range of native application and .. of course offline storage!
But if you look at the technical level of both systems there is a huge difference. And one that matters. Chrome is a *real* Cloud OS so to speak, as it’s stores all it’s data in the cloud (besides maybe some caching or HTML5/Gear features). It does not support the normal approach of providing a home folder to store offline data. All data that will be stored offline will be directly attached to some web application.
So why is this good? Because it enables what Google intends to. A clean system that can not be messed with, and is protected against all kind of malware due to its readonly system and recovery if neccessary.
Believe me. There are a lot of (non technical) people out there who are frightended that they mess with their system in a way that they can’t recover from.
When AOL came out, people who knew nothing about computers or the internet signed up for AOL and used the AOL browser going to AOL sites and seeing AOL ads and they thought “Hey I’m on the internet”. AOL signed a bunch of NEW users up paying for dial up and all was good in AOL world. I think Chrome OS is going to do almost the same thing in the coming decade. People who never broke down and bought a computer or went ON LINE, may now get a cheap netbook with Chrome OS and use all Google services and they’ll say “hey, I got a PC and I’m on line”. I think they’ll also get some people who will want a Chrome OS netbook as a second computer to check email on the go and stuff like that (I’ll probably get one). The one difference I see is that Google doesn’t mind you going out using other services such as Facebook, Twitter, Etc. because Google is all over the net and the more you do on the net, the more you’ll hit their ads. They also offer some GREAT services ie Gmail where as AOL seemed to make it as difficult as possible for you to get outside of the AOL world where they couldn’t control what you were looking at. There were always rumors of AOL creating an OS back in the AOL hey day and competing against MS but they never did. Had they did what Google is doing now, creating an OS that won’t necessarily compete with current OS’s but will offer an alternative and/or complimentary experience, AOL may not have gone the way of the dinosaur.
Google’s whole thing is to get more people on line or to get you on line faster and more often so to have eyeballs on their ads. I think Chrome OS is brilliant on their part because I think it will do just that.
Chrome OS is actually build on linux kernel. The war is between WIndows and Linux and sure that linux will win the race.
Hi all. Dare I say that we at litl already have our cloud-based webbook on the market? And yes – we’re Linux-based, too. We started designing and developing ours more than two years ago.
We also have very different goals to ChromeOS or Jolicloud. We focus on uses at home: connecting with family/friends, viewing your photos (automatically merged from different online service if you like) , using your favorite social media. We’re releasing a SDK for our litl channels (apps) soon so the community can develop their own channels. Meanwhile we’re working with some interesting partners to add some exciting channels to our device. Since we have an automatic update system, new channels and features will appear on the device without any intervention on the user’s part. No maintenance. Our innovative UI creates a very different experience for using the web – we’re not just a browser. And we have an outstanding LCD with a huge viewing angle plus HDMI output for connecting to your big screen tv. Then there’s our easel mode, and much more.
Check us out at litl.com
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