ChromeOS is splitting the browser from the OS, getting more Linux-y

Re:ChromeOS is splitting the browser from the OS, getting mo... by jauntywundrkind on Wednesday August 02, 2023 @06:31PM (#36978685)

The really stunningly good ecosystem ripple effect of switching to Wayland is that anyone who wants to make hardware for Chromebooks now needs driver support for the one clear obvious huge target they should have had been targeting anyways, Wayland.

More directly obviously useful to most people though is just the fact that the shelf life of these units should hopefully be a lot longer. The OS might not longer get updates, but Chrome can keep upgrading & just run on whatever Wayland compositor is there.

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Re:ChromeOS is splitting the browser from the OS, getting mo... by solarkraft on Thursday August 03, 2023 @04:13AM (#36982827)

Well, Wayland doesn't really depend on any drivers, but most Wayland compositors (as well as modern X11, as far as I know) depend on the Direct Rendering Manager/Infrastructure and related features. I suspect that Chrome OS already uses these, so there may not be a bit ecosystem difference from that side.

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Re:ChromeOS is splitting the browser from the OS, getting mo... by jauntywundrkind on Friday August 04, 2023 @01:26AM (#36995801)

The Forrest you are missing in calling out these trees is that Chrome already supports a good variety of options on Wayland & can be nicely accelerated there.

Where-as the old Skia based ChromeOS rendering made having actual hardware compositing support much more optional.

The bar is just clearly much higher for what drivers will be expected to do now. Passing off stunted barely working custom low level drivers will no longer be enough. I can't see how anyone could rush to defend other views, at this point.

[ Parent | on HN ]