(here's another article with simple overview of what the Google Chrome OS will be about, so far. http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/kit-eaton/technomix/google-drops-bomb-its-own-operating-system)
There's no real new news on the state of the Google Chrome os (from here on referred to as the chrome os). But glossing over the last night's post on the chrome os told me that I didn't really write anything that contains useful information as well, so here's an update (don't blame me, I really needed to go to sleep).
The chrome os will apparently be running on top of (albeit heavily modified) linux kernel. I can only begin to envy the guys who are working on this stuff as part of their paying job... For now from whatever the scant information I can gather on the architecture of the future os points to the Chrome browser acting as a sort of front-end for the minimalistic operating system, though Google's description of that arrangement was more like running an operating system inside a browser, not the other way around.
We should do well to remember that the Chrome browser is a different beast from most other browsers on the market out there with such elaborate processes like... Well, process separation for all the individual tabs within a session, with very likely support for multi-core processor rendering in the near future (an interesting tidbit: apparently someone in FireFox community suggested building separate processes mechanism into the FF browser way before the Chrome ever came out. He/she was more or less ignored of course. And as they say, the rest is history). I guess they are thinking of making every event within the os happen within the browser with each tab of the browser working as separate applications within the os? I can certainly visualize the idea in my head, but I don't know how to make it run well in practice... But then I'm not an operating systems engineer at Google.
The emphasis of the chrome os will be on four things. Simplicity, agility, security, and cloud. The first three seem to be the golden standard for operating systems these days. And they should be. People had been domesticated for overly large clunky operating systems that gets two times slower every year for a while now. And it's not even because of new functions. It's because of the legacy codes. The official Google blog post on the chrome os puts it best as 'not wanting to wait for the operating system to come up so they can use the browser.' Well in my case it's not just the browser, but I certainly sympathize. I have work to do, things to read and write. And I need to sit in front of my computer staring at a logon-splash-loading screen cycle every single day, and then wait for the operating system to calm itself down after the os finishes loading. After all that ritual is over I can finally begin to get some work done, though sometimes I need to wait for the antivirus/firewall program to stop acting up as well if I want a quiet, stutter free computing experience. Sure, the whole thing I just described takes about half to a full minute, and then another minute for operating system stabilization on most modern laptops. At most it takes about two minutes on a bad day, and less than a minute on a good day. Yet, most people don't have 'modern laptops.' Any operating system that performs 'ok' on moder hardware will probably slow any older hardware to a crawl. Since most people these days use their computer at least once every day they get used to such slowdown to the point that they don't even notice something's wrong with it. Only after running into a newer hardware or a different version of operating system do they realize how painfully slow their own systems are (which might have been one of the many factors that contributed to Apple's rise to stardom in the os arena).
Google is stating that they will get rid of the useless middleman, or at least squash him into size of an invisible midget, with the new chrome os. They are promising instant-on functionality with smaller memory footprint and processor usage. They are promising a fully pledged operating system fit for a netbook. Granted, there are a lot of smaller linux flavors out there that measures in the megabytes with full GUI and applications suite, but Google is also promising the Google level of engineering, architectural innovation, and technical support. From what I read, they are shooting for an os that takes 'only a few seconds' from booting to getting work done, which would be unprecedented even among smaller linux distributions out there. The whole of the operating system will run in web browser with no need for things like desktops and docks. All the applications for the os will run within the browser windows (with, as stated before, each of the browser window being separate sessions) and those applications can range from wordprocessor, movie player, and mmorpgs, to a whole sale emulation of another operating system running off the cloud without requiring too much processing power from the client side computer. For someone who lives with the net all day such an os is a dream come true, especially when one of the primary ethos of the os is being secure and lightweight.
Yet the cloud technology (writing about it makes me feel like I'm talking about the luminous ether) which is being considered as the enabler of the philosophy behind the google os might prove to be one of its biggest weaknesses... Or rather, I'm fine with it being a weakness of the os, but there are some people out there who fear that the cloud computing would actually do harm to the computing culture in general. Like Richard Stallman, and Cory Doctorow (to certain extent), both huge proponents of the liberal software movement most people refer to as opensource. I do think they hace a point there. Exclusively cloud based computing culture is not longer a technological movement, it's a consumer movement. As computer technology becomes more and more pervasive in human society (think MIT's oxygen project) they can't help but to become consumer oriented, ruled by the laws of economy rather than creativity... Unlike some other radical proponents of the freemarket (who views the principles as some sort of universal panacea) I view the possibility of consumer oriented computing culture as something with significant potential for harm, especially when it gives the tools for separating the consumers from their own machines to larger scale corporations capable of building and maintaining large scale server complexes required to support cloud computing on any significant level. Of course, the cloud computing scenario isn't all doom and gloom and portents of doom. It's fully possible that the server technology of the post cloud future would advance to such a point that any interested individual can run a 'cloud computing service' out of his or her garage, a private property where he can dictate his own terms.
One thing chrome os can do to, or rather, must do to remedy such possible weakness of cloud based operating system would be including a development/scripting environment with the os. Since the chrome os is based in large part on the chrome web browser I'm guessing the browser+address bar interface can provide some type of shell access to the user. The command line-shell application can run in the browser windows itself when called through the address bar. I don't know about compiled languages but it should be relatively simple for the os to provide a scripting language support like python/ruby and lua... Android OS's recent inclusion of scripting environment that supports lua and python certainly is a good sign of things to come, even though both operating systems are said to be different from each other... The important thing for the chrome os would be to have great support and tools for letting users develop their own applications within the chrome os, instead of making them rely on other systems/pay-to-purchase tools/high end hardware dedicated to software development.
The chrome os isn't set for release until the second half of 2010 on netbook platforms, although the official platformless release will come much before that. I'm guessing it's a move to optimize the os before it gets released to the wider audience. Surely we'll get to catch more glimpses of the os in development or perhaps in action soon.
I'm sick and tired of oses that fail me all the time. I just can't wait for the chrome os to be released and bring something unique to the dull and constricted os marketplace.
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