More containers on Chrome OS | Hacker News Reader

More containers on Chrome OS

chromeunboxed.com

The assumption has to be that it is crosvm https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform/crosvm... the lightweight, Rust, qemu-less vmm they have been working on. I got this working with LinuxKit recently, which will be one way to build them. Crosvm has Wayland support for graphical apps.

Maybe I've misunderstood but referring to running local binaries in containers as "non native" compared to regular chrome "apps" which are web apps, just seems wrong to me.

Web apps are native on Chrome OS as was the case with its HTML5 cousin Firefox OS.

By definition then, solving the app gap by using a container to host Android or desktop Linux programs is non-native.

Disagree. They are all using the same kernel and nothing is being emulated. So they are as native as anything else. I think the confusion comes from people not understanding containers.

It is simply some extra properties in kernel data structures that allowing multiple views. But a container is just a process no different than any other.

Being able to run programs from OSes other than ChromeOS and Android certainly would be exciting but the author hasn't presented much more than speculation in support of it.

I went looking for evidence that supports my conclusion hardly makes for a compelling case.

The initial supposition was largely based on price and a larger SSD than normal without considering the obvious reasons.

The pixel Chromebooks have always been expensive, so no surprise there. Likewise, loads of people (myself included) refused to spend thousands if the most local storage was 64gb with a horribly slow USB 2.0 SD card reader for expansion. I remember reading (a Reddit IMA IIRC) that they wanted a larger drive, but couldn't because reasons.

I'm seriously considering getting one now that my biggest objections are gone and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

If you could run any application in a container, something like kubernetes looks rather compelling.

Kubernetes is a little heavyweight for just running a few apps on a consumer laptop. Not to mention the velocity at which it is evolving, and how that impacts APIs (i.e. some minor releases have removed some command line options for kubelet).

Good point regarding the consumer laptop. The point I'd like to make is that using consumer as a proving ground for a future enterprise / cloud play may be compelling.

I hear no compelling argument for containers on ChromeOS, nor for consumer apps on any device

as far as I've understood, Chrome OS already uses containers for running Android apps. This new feature would allow other applications too.

> consumer apps on any device

I love sandboxes, do not want to have random application X accessing my $HOME at its own pleasure.

ChromeOS is already running containers. I personally run GNU/Linux in a container on ChromeOS. Just install GNUroot or termux. I then use XSDL in a container for display. They are both Android apps.

The problem is they use a fake Chroot so somethings do not work. Here Google would use the KVM to soleve that issue.

BTW, Google does run all Android apps in a single container. Plus there is a weird issue where the IP is hardcoded in the container which if use the same IP elsewhere will cause issues.

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