What Chrome OS has on Windows that Linux doesn't

[Daniel ~]

Written by Daniel
Thursday, 09 July 2009

Google's Chrome OS isn't the first operating system to challenge Microsoft Windows' commanding lead. But it's got an advantage that other rivals such as Linux lacked: the Web.

July 9, 2009 4:00 AM PDT
by Stephen Shankland

Any new operating system must attract the developers who produce the applications to make it useful. The trouble Windows challengers have had is matching the wide spectrum of software available for Windows already.

[Front page....]

[dsio]

But, but, it IS linux.

Not that I mind google sinking cash into desktop linux development, but that's what it is.

[Áedán]

It's another Linux distribution, that happens to come with the Chrome browser, rather than another browser. Guess what - Google's application suite works in other browsers too!

Native Client technology isn't a new idea. ActiveX and Java are both examples of similar technologies. Admittedly ActiveX didn't consider the security ramifications, but Java tried.
.

[dsio]

Should add that I signed up to be notified when Chrome is actually released on Linux (It currently isn't, although chromium is available) and I still haven't heard back yet. I'm a bit of a browser browser and not loyal to any one so I've been looking forward to trying it, Chromium was a bit of a buggy resource intensive puddle (from memory it was a windows app pre-wrapped in Wine by codeweavers). At the moment Firefox 3.5 is my browser of choice as I've experienced some compatibility issues with the latest Opera browsers and certain websites (including AOA Files much to the frustration of our Gizmo).

Konqueror has never really captured my attention, and on the Windows front, while I find IE8 to be rather snappy and attentive, the user interface seams a bit unintuitive and haphazardly designed.

A Chrome for Linux that did behave itself, used less resources than Firefox (which is quite good at the moment) and with better compatibility than than Opera could sway me. If only they'd release it.

[danrok]

The Linux distro on my netbook is very Internet orientated.