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Comment by mindstab | Hacker News Reader

I guess "the year of the Linux desktop" may never come, but it also may be irrelevant :) Linux may still "win"

Mark Shuttleworth says Ubuntu is making inroads on desktops and is poised to take off:

http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/738

FWIIW, IMHO there never will be a "year of the linux desktop." Linux on the desktop is an infiltration, not a blitzkrieg. As such, it will only be recognizable in retrospect.

Even as a passionate Ubuntu follower, I don't see the possibility of Ubuntu going main-stream. The OS may match or even exceed the capabilities of Windows, but it is more important to have a diverse number of generally used apps. I feel Chrome OS has a very good chance of getting mainstream popularity. It does what it intends to do pretty well.

But... Chrome OS is little more than Chrome, running on a Linux base. You can run Chrome on Ubuntu, and still access all your files and such. There are even tools to let you mount your Gmail storage space locally so you can use it for a document store.

The apps are all moving onto the web these days anyway - Ubuntu can run anything Chrome OS can.

I've switched back to Windows from Ubuntu. I found one of the big reasons for me to use Linux was how much easier it was to move around / manage files between my desktop and other machines using the command-line.

With Dropbox, that has become less relevant for me. I just have a Linux server sitting somewhere that is kept automatically in sync with my Windows desktop and I can open an SSH session with a single click. With the pain of moving stuff back and forth in Windows gone, I no longer care for the pain of stuff like getting Flash or a Java plug-in to work in Linux.

I'm pretty interested in seeing where Chrome OS will lead us to. I heard a lot of talk lately about moving support and other browser-based jobs to a Chromebook. If Google could gain a foothold in the business world, we could see a shift there.

Chromebook is interesting but it needs to be cheaper than the Windows alternatives as it was predicted to be before launch, somewhere at $199.

Right now, for about the same money($450), more or less, you can buy a better equipped Windows laptop/netbook and then run Chrome browser on top of it. Add some free MSE antivirus and you've got a machine that's useful as a general purpose computer even without a constant tether to the cloud while working about the same with the cloud.

Have you tried a ChromeBook? The current hardware is a bit slow, the software is still very much a version 1, but in my experience it's like an iPad for "real computing": because it has a keyboard you can use it for emails etc, and in my opinion it has a similar "joy factor" to the iPad - it lets you do what you want without overloading you with superfluous junk.

As someone that has had to deal with far too many Windows machines in the past, a Windows laptop with bolt-ons simply isn't the same experience. Perhaps if you put it into "kiosk mode", set Chrome to boot as the desktop, disabled the task bar, disabled running all other apps etc. But what you've got there is no longer Windows as far as the user is concerned, and so why would the hardware manufacturer pay Microsoft their $15 for the OS license?

Just like with Apple, there's possibly a price premium at the moment, but the scary thing for Microsoft is that - unlike Apple - there's no inherent reason for a price premium with a ChromeBook. Google could actually subsidize the price.

I haven't tried a Chromebook yet, will try to get my hands on one.

>Just like with Apple, there's possibly a price premium at the moment, but the scary thing for Microsoft is that - unlike Apple - there's no inherent reason for a price premium with a ChromeBook. Google could actually subsidize the price.

That's what the speculation was before they set the price, that it will debut at around $150 to $200. But it didn't happen yet.

Also, did you take a look at Windows 8?

I definitely agree that it isn't an obvious choice at the current price point, but perhaps that's because Google knows that it isn't ready yet (needs better hardware, offline support in Google Apps, a more sensible approach to managing files). It's definitely worth borrowing one to try it out though - you do get a good sense of what a cloud-orientated machine will be like.

I suppose if you're going to try out a ChromeBook, it's only fair that I try out Windows 8. That prospect doesn't exactly fill me with joy though!

Since you were wondering about Microsoft's strategy for tablets/netbooks(especially ARM based ones), I was asking if you had seen the demo videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p92QfWOw88I&hd=1

http://allthingsd.com/20110601/microsofts-windows-8-demo-fro...

I've seen some of the previews. I don't put too much stock in them - Longhorn looked pretty awesome as well, until it shipped as Vista.

My concern is that once every faction at Microsoft has had their say, you end up with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k

That was an video made at Microsoft. It is an example of a personality trait called "taking a chill pill and being able to laugh at yourself". Source for this info : http://www.ipodobserver.com/ipo/article/Microsoft_Confirms_i...

BTW, Microsoft's packaging of its hardware products is very sleek and futuristic.

Disclaimer : I'm an MSFT intern (and in a week I won't have to type this anymore phew).

Chromebooks start at $350.

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