HP Chromebook 11

Re:HP Chromebook 11 by Mikeb85 on Tuesday October 08, 2013 @09:31PM (#6518958)

While most of Google's services (and most SaaS providers) are closed, the web does enable freedom, and is still generally more open than the proprietary binary blobs people install onto their computers. Chromium is open source, Firefox is open source, and as long as the web itself is being advanced, we are more 'free', not locked into MS Windows, OSX, or even Linux or BSD.

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Re:HP Chromebook 11 by dman on Tuesday October 08, 2013 @09:40PM (#6518981)

Lets give up our freedoms to install programs, modify operating systems, write native code, use a programming language of choice, freely deploy native apps to users to get the freedom to consume media inside a browser sandbox.

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Re:HP Chromebook 11 by Mikeb85 on Tuesday October 08, 2013 @09:49PM (#6519007)

You can do all that with Chrome OS. It's called developer mode...

Advancing the web still makes sense.

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Re:HP Chromebook 11 by dman on Wednesday October 09, 2013 @12:07AM (#6519337)

Does developer mode come with a c/c++ compiler ? can you change the boot loader ? how about install a new shell ? replace the browser ? lets say you come up with a cool hack while in developer mode do you have to convince your friends to run in developer mode too ?

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Re:HP Chromebook 11 by Mikeb85 on Wednesday October 09, 2013 @12:22AM (#6519373)

Chrome OS uses Gentoo's Portage package manager. So to install say, emacs, you simply do # emerge emacs, or whatever you want to install.

Anyhow, there's also plenty of online instructions on how to use Crouton to install Ubuntu onto Chrome OS, the point is that Chrome OS is a full, real Linux distro.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v031udlfY5E

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Re:HP Chromebook 11 by pjmlp on Wednesday October 09, 2013 @01:16AM (#6519557)

Those are hacks and not fully endorsed by Google.

Besides what is the point to pay $279 for a web browser?

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Re:HP Chromebook 11 by Mikeb85 on Wednesday October 09, 2013 @02:10AM (#6519670)

If they aren't endorsed by Google, why did Google add developer mode and Portage? They could have locked it down like Windows RT

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Re:HP Chromebook 11 by pjmlp on Wednesday October 09, 2013 @03:21AM (#6519838)

If it was endorsed by Google, you would have a user friendly way of doing that with full documentation, instead of hacks having to be explained by users via YouTube videos.

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Re:HP Chromebook 11 by Mikeb85 on Wednesday October 09, 2013 @11:59AM (#6522071)

https://sites.google.com/site/chromeoswikisite/home/what-s-n...

Google could have locked it down as much as iOS if they wanted to. They didn't. Who do you think created developer mode?

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Re:HP Chromebook 11 by pjmlp on Wednesday October 09, 2013 @12:45PM (#6522317)

You have to manually install a proper operating system following dozens of steps.

The automated scripts that ease the task were created by individuals that don't work for Google.

This is hardly proper support.

If this was a desired way of using Chromebooks, options would be available to select it in a user friendly way.

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Re:HP Chromebook 11 by pjmlp on Wednesday October 09, 2013 @01:14AM (#6519553)

On my dictionary, giving up my rights to use an hypertext document system is not freedom.

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Re:HP Chromebook 11 by Mikeb85 on Wednesday October 09, 2013 @12:02PM (#6522084)

What rights do you give up by using an OS that is almost entirely open source? (keep in mind Linux has closed source parts too, some drivers for example)

If you dislike the paradigm that's fine, but don't claim it's hurting your freedom when

a) it's open source and

b) you can modify it the way you see fit.

Heck, you can change the Chromium OS source, recompile it and throw it on a Chromebook if you want...

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Re:HP Chromebook 11 by pjmlp on Wednesday October 09, 2013 @01:58PM (#6522729)

It is not an OS, it is a browser.

All applications are behind SaaS walls.

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Re:HP Chromebook 11 by Mikeb85 on Wednesday October 09, 2013 @02:59PM (#6523110)

Please, there's web caching, app manifests, and all sorts of other ways and standards to create web apps which run 100% on the user's machine. Applications need not be behind an SaaS wall anymore than video games need online DRM....

And Chrome OS absolutely IS an OS. The fact that it's centred conceptually around the Chromium browser and Google's proprietary bits doesn't make this less true.

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