Google Release Chrome OS Flex | Hacker News Reader

Google Release Chrome OS Flex

chromeenterprise.google

218 pointsBoumTAC156 comments

Creating the installation media via a Chrome Extension sure is a wonky process.

First try: can't actually do it from Linux Chrome, has to be Windows/Mac/Chromebook.

Second try, on Windows: Extension downloads the image. Windows asks if I want to allow Chrome to make system changes. Then Chrome crashes.

Third try, on the same machine: The exact same image is downloaded again. The progress bar for unpacking the image goes to 250%, and -15 seconds remaining. Writing the USB stick finally works.

The extension is able to write raw data to a USB device, which seems like rather privileged hardware access. But there is nothing in the permissions section of the extension suggesting there is anything special about it. That seems really strange.

(It was just creating the image that was odd. Once that was done, everything was smooth on a Windows 8-era Samsung laptop.)

Perhaps WebUSB? I recall that flashing Google Android images was possible directly from the browser

I wonder if you could have just written the image with Etcher.

I didn't see a direct download link for the image anywhere, the only documented method is the extension.

The extension just downloads a .bin file from Google and writes it onto the USB stick. There's a separate recovery tool Google provides for Linux users. I imagine it will be available via that script shortly.

Edit: The manifest URL is https://dl.google.com/dl/edgedl/chromeos/recovery/cloudready...

> Creating the installation media via a Chrome Extension sure is a wonky process.

I disagree, it actually is very smart, it is easy to do, you do it from your browser, simple, no weird .msi or .exe to run

For me it worked on first try

If you don't have Chrome, you need to install it first. You need to install a web browser to flash a USB drive. That's wonky.

You also need the extension.

If you are installing a Google OS, you probably already have Chrome. You're already past the "I'm not using Google products" stage.

Is having to install some USB flash tool also wonky? Why can't you just drag it onto the drive? Yes, I know, but to a general user, having to install another app to "just put something onto a USB stick" would seem weird.

Well, it's "early access".

Trying this on an HP Stream 7 resulted in infinite loop of showing the Chrome logo for a second then black screen.

This sounds like the continuation of Neverware, which they acquired at the end of 2020.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/12/google-acquired-neve...

Googler, opinions are my own.

I believe this is exactly what it is.

Sure is. On the top of the installation guide page you are directed to if you sign up for the beta:

"Chrome OS Flex is currently released for early access testing and is not suitable for production use. CloudReady is available for immediate stable deployment. Google will automatically update CloudReady devices to Chrome OS Flex, when Chrome OS Flex is stable. We welcome your feedback as we work to improve the product. Send feedback."

Have been using CloudReady for a couple of years on a Lenovo X201s used by the kids. Performance is excellent.

Glad to see that this is pure web: will not include support for android apps.

Kind of ironic that Microsoft is going to the step of taking googles android and hacking it onto windows, while Google is not adding android to (this version of) their OS. Not exactly sure what the irony is actually, but it’s in there somewhere.

I think this is gonna be used for school lab computers, like my high school's hand-me-down OptiPlexes from the local state university. Students will only need access to e-learning sites. Android app support would open up a lot of malware or viddy gaming during prescribed pretending-to-watch-course-videos time.

Doesn't Android-enabled Chrome OS require containers to run properly?

I seem to remember there being a pretty high bar (for Chromebooks anyway) of hardware requirements to be able to run android on Chrome OS machines. Even my shitty burner chromebook struggled to run the beta in dev mode.

Given that this is targeted at repurposing even older hardware, including Android would probably be creating performance issues.

Yes it does, here is the Google IO talk

https://youtu.be/pRlh8LX4kQI

Microsoft adding Android to Windows seems almost like a reaction to Apple adding support for iOS apps on macOS ARM. That way if iOS apps end up becoming a smash hit on Mac, Windows can keep pace.

WSL was born of Project Astoria ashes, Microsof is only doing the second go at it, most likely due to Windows 10X failure and Surface Duo being Android based.

The annoying thing is that they can do this, but they won't offer some sort of extended support for old chromebooks. It seems like they could at least keep the user layer up to date and ship patches for critical vulnerabilities.

that’s how google does things, I won’t be surprised.

Blame intel for not updating older devices...

What updates could they need from Intel to keep the OS/userspace up to date?

"up to date" implies that fixes are being identified, developed, and distributed. If your wifi card has some flaw, and intel fixes it, and google distributes the fix then your device is "up to date". If you don't care about this property then you also don't care that a Chromebook only gets updates for 7 years. It is, after all, not going to just switch itself off at the end of the support term.

1. Intel spectre/CVE? 2. Note that these old devices have no support from Wayland as intel does not provide drivers 3. These were introductory chromebooks and I am sure OEMs will be annoyed if they are unlimited updates. (or they may be have contracts) 4. Even if google kepps them away from Wayland, users will then expect same performance/features like the new ones - and blame Google.

For bonus points: I'm trying to figure out if this will work on Chromebooks. So you flash a coreboot+tianocore build (mrchromebox is a popular prebuilt option) to convert your EOL chromebook to a normal UEFI laptop... and then install Chrome OS Flex, and get a supported Chrome OS device again? I can't see any reason it wouldn't work...

If you try it and it's good this would be worth doing a Show HN post for.

What CPUs does Flex support though? This would be great to recover EOL Chromebooks. There are literally millions of them out there that are dead now, but would perform perfectly with Flex.

seems like they would be doing this with Flex if they could support the old CPUs.

I think the chances are pretty good, I have an old Toshiba Chromebook 2 running Cloudready, several years past the end of official support.

You can already do this with Neverware CloudReady, which Chrome OS Flex is basically a rebrand of.

https://www.ifixit.com/News/30282/how-to-get-updates-on-your...

That was my first thought too.

They charge in like heroes to extend the life of laptops with other company's operating systems and yet the four year old Chromebook that perfectly suits my parents' limited performance needs is being abandoned even though it's still fully functional.

I have installed it onto an Asus CN60 which is not supported by ChromeOS since Sep 2019:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30354398

Finally! I remember installing Chromium OS on my netbook back in 2011 and I always felt like a supported build from Google has so much opportunity to renovate old computers

I have a previous generation Chromebox that I use for video conferencing. It is absolutely infuriating that a modern ChromeOS does not work on it not because the specs are out of date but because Google just does not allow it.

It has a supported CPU, a supported wifi, a supported USB and a supported bluetooth a supported disk and a supported amount of memory. But it is out of ChromeOS support window.

Disable write protect on the firmware and install Flex or a Linux distro. Wish they'd automatically unlock the firmware on devices that fall out of the support window.

I'm going to try Flex. I don't want Linux on it. It is just a video conferencing box. I want it to be a total appliance.

P.S. I just checked - not a single Chromebook/Chromebox are listed on a supported devices list.

10 to 1 it works well anyway.

Have there been any howtos for installing Flex? It does seem like that'd be a possibility, and it'd be a great way to extend the update window if it worked.

It worked - I'm running it on end of line Asus CN60 Chromebox - the following are the details.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30354398

Good timing given Windows 11 dropping support for all sorts of hardware

Linux distros like Xubuntu and Linux Mint have been doing this for years. Simple install process, simple GUI, excellent performance, malware almost non-existent, and it doesn't lock you into running everything in a browser.

Yeah but this is backed by Google(TM) so grandmas will be okay with you installing it.

Is this /s

No it isn’t, more people are likely to adopt a Google backed OS than arch or even Ubuntu

Will this version, like regular ChromeOS support a Linux Subsystem (Crostini)?

I've recently played a bit with a Chromebook I have for work, best I can describe it is as "ok". It's kind of fun to be able to write emails, or journal/blog in Google Docs. I really can't see how I would recommend it to anybody really with just that ability. Even non-tech people like to download the occasional program, and not everything is on the web. The Chromebook is able to run Android apps which makes it slightly more useable (Looks like ChromeOS Flex cannot?).

The ability to run Crostini makes it more developer friendly. I was able to set up Android Studio, Python, Gcc, and it's a fairly decent on-the-go dev machine... I don't live such a nomadic lifestyle, but I can see it being pretty fun if you do.

The answer to that is "maybe" ( https://support.google.com/chromeosflex/answer/11542901?hl=e... ):

> Support for Linux development environment on Chrome OS Flex varies, depending on the specific model. Review the Certified models list to check if your models support Linux on Chrome OS Flex.

The link on that page to the list of supported hardware doesn't actually show which machines support Linux.

I was wondering the same thing. So I tried it out with a Thinkpad T430s from 2013, Ivy Bridge. In preparation I've also updated the BIOS to the latest version from 2019 (2.76).

Right out of the box Crostini will not run. However adding kvm-intel.vmentry_l1d_flush=always to the kernel boot options enables Crostini.

This is a much more interesting technical summary:

https://support.google.com/chromeosflex/answer/11547280?hl=e...

Very helpful—thanks—goes into a lot of detail regarding Flex versus CloudReady for those who are interested.

Seriously considering trying this with some of my family members. Windows 10 is such a user hostile OS especially to non-techie people that every time I look at their PC their documents have moved to some new OneDrive location or Edge has reinstalled itself.

I tried chromebooks a while back and while the cost factor was significantly in favor of them, they fall down in a lot of areas.

With Apple Silicon 2020 MBAs they seem to support everything, are significantly faster/quieter/long battery and with discounts are reasonably priced - I'm recommending those for family and so far everyone has loved theirs.

I expect the hardware to last a long time - much like the 2010 MBA which lasted my dad 7+ years.

The target market for Chromebooks is as far as it can get for the privileged who can buy their kids and close ones latest macbooks, it's like suggesting some sort of sportscar instead of wolkswagen saying with good financing they are not that expensive to keep up.

My dad picked one (edit: a Chromebook, that is) up a couple years ago, which I thought was great because most of their market is kids and old people (isn't it?) so it'd surely have great accessibility features, and as you note Windows has been getting more and more hostile since at least Win10 (which tricked one of my uncles into paying for OneDrive without even knowing what it was ["something I need to use the computer, I think?"], leaving him confused about where files were going).

Nope. Dunno if ChromeOS is subpar, or if Apple's just so far ahead that it's spoiled me, but Chrome OS' accessibility settings seemed pretty poor, and some of what they did have didn't work very well.

> Windows 10 is such a user hostile OS

That's a bit ironic. Microsoft is only trying desperately to do what Google has already succeeded at with ChromeOS - an OS with no browser choice designed solely to funnel user data to them for data mining and to promote their own services. At least Google are up front about it while Microsoft is trying to dark-pattern their way to the same position.

I think the problem here is expectations—with Windows, you know you’re getting a heavyweight legacy OS with backwards compatibility for everything. With Chrome OS, you have few expectations and assume it’s largely “just for browsing the web.”

I mean, exactly. Google are pretty up front about it, and actually for family members the last thing I want is browser choice. I just want to install an OS for them and forget about it, no nagware, no "it's been a while since you've used your device, do you want to refresh your settings" (I'm looking at you Firefox), no "we've just installed an update, here's 500 new settings to choose from", just turn it on and it works.

I hope they've spun up a support organization to back this. Their list of "supported" hardware is pretty thin right now. Are they really planning to scale this to all models?

https://support.google.com/chromeosflex/answer/11513094#zipp...

Yeah I don't see "MacBookPro18,2" there despite the landing page claiming this OS will work on devices I already own.

Because that's an ARM MacBook and this is an x86 OS.

Don't take the mickey [UK] / don't come the raw prawn [AU] (I don't know a US version).

If anyone has a Mac new enough to run the current macOS, whatever that is, then this is not for them.

But, as an example, I own a Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro and a 2011 Core i5 Mac Mini, both of which aren't supported any more. They both run MacOS 10.13 and they're perfectly fine, but they can't be updated any more. That makes some people very nervous.

I also had a 2008 MacBook that's stuck on Lion.

This is perfect for such old kit.

> Reduce e-waste and extend the life of your existing devices by transforming them with a modern OS.

Flies in the face of many functional Chromebooks/Chromeboxens losing support (https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366). Extend the support lifetimes of your first-party hardware and I'll believe you, Google. Unfortunately, you have definitely burnt many bridges over this.

> Today, the OS is in early access and you may experience some instability.

Tomorrow the OS is EOL and you may experience déjà vu: https://killedbygoogle.com/

Jk, they won't surely?

Lately with the G Suite announcement it has felt more like a massacre. Who cares about Google Currents shutting down, when we have already learned not to touch new Google products like Duo, Hangouts, Meet or whatever they are named.

What G Suite announcement? That they changed the name?

The one where the free GSuite accounts, that they discontinued 10 years ago, were now going to be converted and you'd have to pay for them. They didn't "massacre" anything, it was already done a decade ago.

https://support.google.com/a/answer/60217?product_name=UnuFl...

Translation: lots of cheap 2nd hand Chromebooks/boxes to unlock and flash with an open OS.

https://mrchromebox.tech/

Google is a business - they are neither a kindly old wizard doing things for the good of the people, nor are they a game show wheel, randomly picking a product to kill today.

You can pretty accurately model what they will and won't do with this one unusual insight that they're a business.

For instance: are they going to kill Chrome? No, Chrome has given them market dominance as well as a seat at the table to define web standards, improving and shaping the web platform both to be a more appealing product to developers and users, so that they can make more money when they stick ads on it, and to more easily support sticking ads on it. Or, briefly, Chrome - though it's not a paid product per se - makes them huge amounts of money.

What about (from that website) Google Currents? It's the rebranded, corporate-only version of Google+. Its biggest user was almost certainly Google itself, and it was a venue for employee activism and therefore was a threat to corporate profit. Briefly, though it was a paid product, they had few paying users and it cost them money.

A sibling comment mentions the end of legacy free G Suite (formerly GAFYD) accounts for very small users. This was, by definition, a thing that didn't make them money and a thing that was hardly an on-ramp for subscriptions that did make them money. Again, you could predict this.

So what abut Chrome OS Flex? It remains to be seen - it's not as clearly worthwhile as Chrome or even Chrome OS itself. But Google does absolutely make money on Chrome OS Enterprise, which this product is clearly linked with. It's nowhere in the same boat as things they provided out of the kindness of their corporate-personhood heart like legacy free G Suite or Google Reader.

It might end up being a failed experiment, certainly. But "It's a Google product" is a weak signal about whether it's going to get killed, and there are many stronger signals. Let me know when they kill Ads and Cloud.

if you don't try, you don't exist

they should be proud to have such a page

do you have yours? oh sorry, you don't even try

If you keep killing products quickly after launch, people will hesitate to invest in your products. This is also a problem with startups. I need a problem solved, not be part your incredible journey.

Undoubtedly there remain issues with Eric Schmidt style 'let a thousand flowers bloom' approach to product development, though, there is some upside to it, too (gmail, for ex). That said, I doubt the list on killedbygoogle.com parroted around as a badge of honour of having tried even if failed, is one of them... cognitive dissonance be damned.

most chromebooks got up to 6 years support. BTW, one can still use these old ones, they will get LaCros (where only browser gets updated).

> Flies in the face of many functional Chromebooks/Chromeboxens losing support

On these old hardware you can install Linux or even cloudready. Are you expecting support forever?

No, of course not! Let’s throw away perfectly good computers. Yes I know that you can use Linux but I expect that if I’m buying a chromebook, I like the OS as well?

The whole premise of the Chromebook and reason for its market share is the simplicity to average users. Most of what we do is web browser-focused. So cut out the fat and have a computer that's all about the web browser.

The proposition of installing Linux on these machines once they're EOL flies in the face of the reasons most users buy them, and won't at all address the core issue.

I'd like support until I decide to be done with it.

With a Linux base, it seems like releasing the drivers to mainline and supplying browser updates ought to take care of that. I don't really understand what else would need to go into that so maybe I'm missing something but especially for x86 boxes it should be pretty simple.

I used my last laptop for 10 years. If you actually want to "Reduce e-waste and extend the life of your existing devices", install a Linux distro with a light DE (e.g i3 or xfce).

The problem is regular user does NOT want i3. Google cannot build a i3 and provide it as an update to old chromebook.

BTW even latest Lubuntu needs 4GB RAM... Sure you can use minimal window manager like awesome, but not the average joe!

I mentioned xfce for that exact reason. It is still pretty light, while being a more familiar to the average user.

That being said, most average users aren't gonna care about e-waste anyways, and are gonna buy a new computer ever couple of years, so for them this is a non-issue.

I use Linux on 10 year old laptops, though typically with minimum 4GB RAM installed. The desktop environment being bloated has been a solved problem for years. Gnome Shell is crisply responsive and Mate (my choice) even more so. Want to watch videos in 1080p fullscreen? No problem.

It's the browser, or rather the stuff that runs in it, that bogs down old laptops. The >1 second delay to switch folders in Gmail, for example, or the sluggish loading of video thumbnails in Youtube.

True. Browsing on that laptop was not a great experience. But the rest of the experience was much better than windows 10 would have been. Instead of 1-2GB RAM usage at idle I was at <500MB with i3.

> Are you expecting support forever?

I mean... maybe? Why not? At worst, drop to a second tier of support where firmware might not get updated and new features that actually need new hardware don't work, but why should chromebook hardware stop working any more than any other PC? Most of my machines are 5-10 year old machines that Linux happily supports; why should Chrome OS - built on top of Linux - support any less?

> Are you expecting support forever?

How about as long as Microsoft? Or Red Hat? Why the hell not?

Does Redhat provide OS for 2GB RAM, celeron devices? Poor comparison. And BTW, are you willing to pay > $200 per year for chromeOS (like RHEL)? Note that RHEL is also frozen, but average Joe wants all latest features in chromebook. Also even youtube/facebook needs so much RAM. Only you can survive browsing with w3m or wget - then chromeos is not for you.

> Does Redhat provide OS for 2GB RAM?

Actually yes. The standard is ten years from when the version is released, compared to Google's six. RHEL 7 (for example) was released in 2014 requiring 2GB, so people could indeed still have RHEL on such a system with two years of support left to go.

> RHEL is also frozen

Untrue. It doesn't move fast, to be sure, but it does get updated. Source: I used to be in the RHEL team.

> And BTW, are you willing to pay > $200 per year for chromeOS

I paid Google $1600 for the machine itself. The OS was bundled with the machine. It worked out to more than $200 per year. Please do some more research before cross-examining others - or, since the guidelines preclude that, just don't.

That is what I'm expecting because that is what the competition they're trying to protect from ewaste with this weird product is already basically offering. My last laptop I've used for 10 years. A good gaming desktop will stay relevant for at least 10 years. Microsoft will support it for longer than that

Yes, I'm expecting support for as long as the hardware runs. Disposing hardware that is perfectly functional is ludicrous and insane.

Further, if your hardware product requires never-ending software updates just to keep it working, perhaps you should invest in writing less crappy software to begin with.

??????

I have a Windows laptop from 2010 still working fine, and a lot of Linux enthusiasts also say the same thing. Six years is pathethic for laptop support. Fortunately Google has realised this, but their insistence on not applying this on existing machines is hypocritical.

Couldn't agree more. My 2015 Chromebook Pixel was EOLed not too long ago. Microsoft will still support Windows on older machines than that. If Google wants to go all white-knight about preventing e-waste then supporting their own older machines is the first thing to do. Otherwise it looks like just greenwashing as a tactic to convert Windows/MacOS hardware to their own OS.

It worked on CN60 - here are the instructions https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30354398

It worked on CN60.

And, what's your point? Why this isn't an automatic update - I thought that the premise of ChromeOS is escape from Windows' update nightmare.

Because it has not been supported by Google for 2.5 years.

And, again, what's your point? Why this isn't an automatic update - why does Google not put the effort of upgrading their old systems while Microsoft just do it? Apart from the ill-fated Surface RT, Microsoft's old devices still receive periodic updates with minimal intervention. Why Google can't do the same thing?

Edit: actually, Microsoft is even kind enough to support clusterf***s that are not even their fault - https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/07/clover-trail-systems.... As another comment pointed out, just give security updates if it's too onerous to upgrade to the next OS - which in CN60 is demonstrated to be a pure business decision.

Because it went out of support. 5 years is their term for Chromebooks/Chromeboxes. I paid $220 for it. Was it infuriating that they did not support it longer? Yes. But $220/5 = $44/year. I gave info to people who were curious if this worked. It did.

Want to write something ragey about it? Publish it on your blog.

I'm actually surprised by how many comments here are supportive of this knowing the route google is heading with tracking and market domination tactics.

The problem is the common user wants thing to just work.

I work at a major university. At our science department we tried using 'https://www.horde.org/apps/groupware' for calendar. But fails randomly, refresh issues. The computing centre claims they have everything fine. Groupware has so many bugs. The IT department cannot fix these.

Note that every self-hosted nerd will claim they do everything with nextcloud with RPi and all is perfect but it does not work for 100 people.

At the end we moved to Google calendar. Everything just works.

For us, contributing to science is important than being 100 % open.

Before you say iCloud it is much worse at losing mails/calendar sync - BTW, try it with > 20 users... Microsoft is kinda OK but works painfully when using linux or mac devices.

It is unfortunate people complain about FAANG without providing replacements.

The concept of auto-sharing calendars with each other is fundamentally wrong anyway. Why enable all this snooping? Especially with know third party offenders.

Edit: I use a paper calendar. Works flawlessly.

To plan meetings with colleagues and such? Remind you when meetings are about to start, have links to online meetings?

Bizarrely reminds of a decade ago when HP's Open webOS was intended to ship on PCs:

- https://www.engadget.com/2011-03-09-webos-will-on-every-hp-p...

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sS3Vk821w8

Am I the only person who's vaguely interested but won't try this until it supports dual boot?

Or running it in a VM?

You already can.

https://www.makeuseof.com/how-to-install-chrome-os-virtual-m...

I doubt it will.

ChromeOS has a really complex multi-partition setup, with duplicate root partitions that update each other. This is not going to sit well alongside anything else.

Secondly, it's intended for old kit.

So why bother?

For those who asked direct links on images: https://ahohnmyc.github.io/chromeosflex/ But there is a pitfall: images are not ISO, but GPT.

I can't find anymore information about the VDI plug in the workplace section, anyone have a link? Is Google getting into the cloud VDI business, or is it "Chrome os can use VDI tools" handwaving?

I've successfully have installed ChromeOS Flex onto Asus CN60 Chromebox. This Chromebox has been end of support by Google in SEPTEMBER 2019. It worked. I'm using this box strictly as the video conferencing system for my home office - it is connected to a 42" 1080p TV with a Logitech USB camera and wired for the ethernet.

The following are the steps.

1. Opened the CN60 and removed the write protect screw

2. Used the same time to upgrade from 2x 2GB ram modules to 1x 8GB

3. Validated old ChromeOS booted.

4. Powered off.

5. Pushed recovery pin in and while holding it in turned the system on to enter a recovery mode.

6. Control-D to enter developer mode and remove request write protect off

7. Press recovery button again to turn write protect off.

8. ChromeOS clears the local data by itself.

9. ChromeOS says "preparing developer mode" and says not to turn off the system until it has restarted by itself.

10. The system reboots into a developer mode by itself.

11. Ctrl-Alt-F2 on a keyboard to switch to a text based console

12. Enter "chronos" as the login.

13. Ensure that the IP address is assigned - i'm using wired port.

14. Download and run mrchromebox.tech Chromebook/chromebox openfirmware de-googler:

  curl -LO mrchromebox.tech/firmware-util.sh
  sudo install -Dt /usr/local/bin -m 755 firmware-util.sh
  sudo firmware-util.sh

Installer recognized the CN60.

Select 2 to install a full uefi firmware.

system rebooted itself and said there was nothing to boot.

15. Create a ChromeOS Flex USB image on at least 8G USB stick - I used 16G - you cannot use Linux. You MUST use Windows. To do this in Chrome, got o Chrome Web store and install "Chromebook Recovery Utilities" by Google. Run them. Select Google as the Vendor and Chrome OS Flex as the USB. This process is long. During one of the stages the USB creator says that it did over 100% of work and there is a negative number of seconds remaining. Writes to the USB take a LONG time.

16. Plugin the USB into the CN60. Go to the boot menu.

17. Boot off the USB.

18. See the Chrome logo on a white screen

19. Eventually see CloudRun 2.0 installation screen

20. Select install to disk.

21. Wait for the install. The system will turn itself off when it is done.

22. Pull out your USB.

23. Boot off the disk.

24. Setup your main account - i connected it to the a Business Workspace account. It worked.

Can one use Firefox on ChromeOS?

Yes but it runs through a linux VM so it won't get quite native speed and reduce your battery life. It seamlessly installs as an app you can just open though which is a slick feature of crostini.

I can see this being a good use case for some enterprises. For a more personal solution not using the latest and greatest from Google, I have been playing around with a FOSS implementation of Android for any PC/tablet called https://blissos.org/. So far it works well on my hardware.

The only computer I might need to use this on is my 2017 Chromebook that's now out of support and can't be updated :(

Ok but it doesn’t let me download anything

This is how to get it:

https://support.google.com/chromeosflex/answer/11541904?hl=e...

I see Google still has not realized that they should list the devices it supports in the announcement...

it boots from a usb stick and seems web only so it should run anywhere you can run chrome browser; I suppose?

Well, drivers are still important since it is an OS and not a layer on top of the installed OS.

STEP 2

When you’re ready, install Chrome OS Flex on your PC or Mac to replace your operating system.

Here's the list: https://support.google.com/chromeosflex/answer/11513094?hl=e...

Let's wait and watch. If Google makes this as feature-full as the ChromeOS on chrome devices then it will be a nice thing to have but then wouldn't that hamper the sales of chromeos devices?

If this won't support Android apps, it won't get mass adoption.

They could add that in later. Honestly stuff like this is a great solution for older parents or young kids who really do just need internet browsing.

I am struggling to think of a reason why I would want to run Chrome OS instead of macOS, Windows, or Linux. Then again, I've never understood the appeal of Chromebooks to begin with.

Versus Mac and Windows, it's free.

On all platforms, it's presumably lower maintenance.

These advantages probably mostly add up if you have a lot of "dumb" kiosk type systems, like in a classroom setting, where children are already often given Chromium appliances rather than general purpose computers.

It’s a way to consume the web — an ever larger and growing share of where you do or can do your work, consume entertainment and socialize — with a modern and up-to-date browser on computers that may no longer be supported by Microsoft or Apple.

There have been zero reported ransomware attacks on Chrome OS. If you're in a hospital, for example, and all you do is interact with a backend running on an intranet site, that might be a big advantage to you.

macOS/windows are outdated

the world is running Android/iOS/Chrome, chromeOS makes sense since it removes the OS from the equation, you are accessing the web directly, local or public

For developers, it doesn't make much sense, but for the rest of the world, it is perfect

> For developers, it doesn't make much sense, but for the rest of the world, it is perfect

Developer chiming in - ChromeOS makes a lot of sense since the launch of Linux VMs (aka Crostini)[0]. I get full access to Linux tools & VSCode on a light & cheap[1] Chromebook I can take everywhere without worrying about it being damaged or stolen; I take it to places I wouldn't dare bring a Macbook Pro. Very few workloads require remoting to my heavy-hitter desktop/cloud VM instance via ssh (or Jupyter notebooks) - far fewer than I initially thought. It's perfectly capable of handling Javascript/CSS/HTML and Go/Python projects

0. Sadly, Crostini only runs on Intel Chromebooks

1. I'm talking about than $200-$250 new, full HD screen, Intel Atom that can eke out 8+ hours on battery. I also bought a 2nd hand backup Chromebook for $53 on Goodwill

My Asus 1215B price was around 300 euros with a Linux distribution pre-installed, I really don't get Chromebooks.

Don't forget the another rest of the world, a.k.a. Enterprise.

They want all your documents on the cloud. Soon you will own none of your own digital stuff.

no fiddling. Just works. Do not waste time OS upgrades. Browser is the only thing to use. No wasting time saving or lost data; linux commandline rsync or time machine transfers to new computers etc.

We deployed this for home office all secretaries as it is cheap and just works.

There isn't a single Samsung Device on the supported devices list. That seems odd to me, given how many Samsung devices I believe are out there.

When's it scheduled for EOLing?

How is this different than the old thin client craze from 20-something years ago?

Well it's 50000% less shit than Citrix for a start.

Ha ha ha. https://cloud.google.com/citrix

Kill me now

Thin client was not "a craze" it was industry bread and butter for decades. It was and maybe still can be considered IBM's core business. Sun sold hundreds of thousands of seats of the Sun Ray.

In case your question was serious, a device with ChromeOS is just a Linux box with as powerful a processor, as much memory, and as much storage as you care to supply. There's nothing "thin" about it.

You know, except for the fact that none of that is on your machine.

Is this available for personal use?

Yes.

https://www.neverware.com/freedownload#intro-text

Super, thanks!

They need to get Chrome OS running under Enscripen under a real web browser on a real operating system.

Microsoft used to bundle a browser with their OS, now Google is bundling an OS with their browser. Time is a flat circle.

chrome os is much nicer and easier to use than windows/macos

too bad they focused on the web, it could have been the perfect alternative to windows, they missed a huge opportunity

Chrome OS Flex sounds like the right approach, at least you don't need to buy a new HW.. the name on the other hand.. it's a pretty bad name

How long till it's cancelled? 6 months?

Why would someone use this crap?

Reminds me of https://www.mightyapp.com/ which streams Chrome to your desktop.

No thanks. I like having control over my machine. I don't want it turned into a glorified thin client.

Might as well be honest about the fact that we're moving back to the timesharing systems of the eighties.

Chrome is notable for being a memory hog; older devices, almost by definition, do not come with modern amounts of memory. I wonder what the performance is going to be like.

Also, I question how well optimized Chrome OS can be for PC substrates. It's one thing to run Chrome OS on a device built around what Chrome OS supports; Chromebooks are essentially the Mac hardware model: limited hardware that is known to be compatible with the software running on it.

In the wild, though, PCs have a mind-boggling array of different hardware; I wonder how well Chrome OS is going to adapt to that Wild West.

Don't they just use the linux kernel for hardware?

I wonder how this will help get drivers mainlined.

And if OEMs will start offering Chrome OS Flex devices off the shelf.

Chromebooks often come with ~4GB and run pretty well. I think they are just relying on Linux having relatively broad hardware support along with proprietary drivers for the most common video chipsets. I doubt it will be exceptionally hard, given that Chrome OS tends to have relatively limited support for peripherals anyway. Its not like they have to support high performance 3d gaming.

>Chrome is notable for being a memory hog

This meme comes from a misunderstanding of how desktop memory works. Chrome will use as much available RAM as you can give it in order to improve web performance, but it doesn't actually require that much to run.

And...modern web cruft is a memory hog. Chrome's built in task manager shows the tab I'm writing this comment in as using a reasonable 50MB of memory. Meanwhile, I have a couple of YouTube tabs that are over 200MB each.

The problem is the world doesn't hold web developers responsible for being wasteful.

The entirety of the HN Add Comment page is 82 lines of HTML (that's after pretty-printing it!) - two tables, and a form with a text area. The only image is the logo. Granted, there's also 175 lines of CSS linked from that, and 150 lines of JS (which does not use any libraries or frameworks).

How did we get to the point where 50 Mb to maintain this document structured in memory and ready to render is considered reasonable?

I mean, the answer is pretty obvious. HN itself isn't a business, it's an organization's forum for a different type of revenue stream.

You could argue that the entire internet (or all media, for that matter) should be run that way, but then we'd still lose a lot of functionality and creativity, even if it were generated for-profit.

I'm not holding HN up as a stellar example. I'm asking why we need 50 Mb of RAM to render a webpage that is this simple. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that browsers could handle back when the average size of the entire RAM was less than that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com