ChromeOS Flex is now ready to scale to PCs and Macs | Hacker News Reader

ChromeOS Flex is now ready to scale to PCs and Macs

cloud.google.com

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Well this link is to a fluffy marketing piece that tells you exactly zero about what the product is, why I should care, or how it's different from ChromeOS. Must be nice to get paid to write lots of words without actually saying anything.

Some links that may be more helpful for the HN audience:

How to install it without handing over your personal info to a salescritter: https://support.google.com/chromeosflex/answer/11552529

Supported devices: https://support.google.com/chromeosflex/answer/11513094 (No information on whether it will refuse to install on other devices or whether it's more of a "it could work, but you'll be on your own" situation. Interestingly, there are Apple products listed.)

Differences between ChromeOS and ChromeOS Flex: https://support.google.com/chromeosflex/answer/11542901

Edit: One important difference that pretty much wipes out what a lot of us would be interested in: "Google Play and Android apps: Chrome OS Flex does not support Android apps or Google Play."

I’m pretty sure all the Apple devices listed support Bootcamp. So it wouldn’t be all that difficult to load another OS on it.

> One important difference that pretty much wipes out what a lot of us would be interested in: "Google Play and Android apps: Chrome OS Flex does not support Android apps or Google Play."

If they added that, it would kill Chrome OS’s main benefit: security.

Why would it kill security? Chrome OS already supports Play and Android apps: https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/7021273?hl=en

Many of ChromeOS's security guarantees evaporate as soon as you install or enable the android subsystem.

I beg to differ on this. Went to a presentation by the ChromeOS engineers who developed the Android support, at LinuxCon 2016(?) in Berlin. Everything shown there pointed to an explicit distrust of Android, their security posture was essentially 'sandbox the hell out of it'.

The Android sandbox on ChromeOS was pretty weak until recently, sharing a kernel with significant attack surface with the underlying chromeos.

Android 11 on ChromeOS is being deployed as a lightweight VM, called ARCVM: https://chromeunboxed.com/how-to-check-your-chromebook-new-a... It’s similar to how the Linux VMs on chromeos work.

Better link: https://chromeos.dev/en/posts/making-android-more-secure-wit...

I wonder if this is related to Flex’s “supported” devices not having verified boot, which is via a chip provided by Google. Some detail at https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform/ec/+/c....

>One important difference that pretty much wipes out what a lot of us would be interested in: "Google Play and Android apps: Chrome OS Flex does not support Android apps or Google Play."

Looking at the OS I think Flex isn't targeted at consumers but at enterprise who want an idiot proof Google docs/chrome workspace for employees.

From the page about the differences:

> While many non-certified devices might work, Google guarantees only those on the list.

I read it as a point-of-sale / service OS for business-level security. I don't think its audience is home consumer.

(edit: as others have stated)

Who in their right mind would buy Macs for their enterprise and then load Chrome OS on it? The fact that they even mention Macs makes me think this is for more than just enterprise usage. Or... Google doesn't even know who this is for or why they are doing it.

If you have an existing mac fleet but are interested in switching to less expensive hardware updating existing systems to this could greatly reduce the conversion costs without needing to support multiple OSes for an extended period of time.

I glanced at the list of certified devices. You know what's not on the list? Google's own Chromebook Pixel.[0] Which coincidentally stopped getting OS updates from Google around 2018. [1]

The specs are a little long in the tooth now (especially that battery life which was always crap), but I still love the form factor of it. I removed the write-protect screw from it a couple years back and threw Linux Mint onto it, but it would be real nice to have it as an up-to-date Chromebook again.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromebook_Pixel

[1] https://chromeunboxed.com/news/original-chromebook-pixel-upd...

Ironically, the best way to have a supported Chrome browser has always been to buy a Windows PC. Google will continue to support every single Windows 7 PC until January 15th, 2023, an operating system released 13 years ago, in 2009. Most Windows 7 PCs can also run Windows 10 for free, which punts that out probably at least another decade, but with no end of life officially yet set.

Meanwhile, Chromebooks have a three year lifecycle, and LOL if you spent real money on one.

Chromebooks are supported for six years (just be sure to get the latest model).

Chromebooks are starting to get eight years.

https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/02/07/chromebooks-will-no...

Same thing on Android, even after Treble, it is easier to just target plain Chrome instead.

With Google turning the Web into ChromeOS, with the complacency of Microsoft and other Chrome based forks, it is hardly any difference.

Despite my opinions on Google, ChromeOS is interesting to me. But the most interesting aspect of it is missing in Flex: Access to Android apps.

This is not ChromeOS, but a subset of it. ChromeOS Flex is not interesting to me.

Chrome OS‘s easy administration is great, but Google Accounts are just not an option in many environments. Are there any approaches with self-hosted auth/admin/control servers?

The only thing that this reminded me of is that my relatively expensive Chromebook (Pixelbook Go) just stopped receiving feature updates after a few years. This seems great, but there is no mention on how long they'll support the certified devices.

The pixel book go gets updated until 2026, am I missing something?

https://support.google.com/pixelbook/answer/9413900?hl=en

Huh, maybe the date on my laptop was wrong and a notification was triggered? I definitely got a notification and was sent to https://www.google.com/chromebook/older/

(Looking in settings, it has the 2026 date now.)

The one thing you can count of with google is that they will start something interesting and make sure to leave you up a creek without a paddle when they drop it without warning.

How is this different than Cloudready by Neverware?

Google bought Neverware.

Chrome OS Flex is the new name for Cloudready now that Google owns it. The Cloudready download page now directs to the installation instructions for Chrome OS Flex. More info about the acquisition is at https://cloudreadykb.neverware.com/s/article/Neverware-is-no...

I put it on a 2012 Macbook Air about a month ago. Things went pretty well. Having a reasonable amount of drive space for the Linux environment was nice for once. The keyboard backlight was non-functional, but otherwise hardware seemed to work.

If you want to install this: https://chromeenterprise.google/os/chromeosflex/

If only there is a ungoogled version of chrome OS. I really don't want another OS completely controlled by google.

But I realize that this is also impossible because the entire OS is basically google services.

It is amazing. It is my main driver right now. If you use VSCode, make sure to set Title Bar Style to custom so you get rid of ChromeOS's white title bar.

I just want to download the image and dd it to a flash drive. Nobody uses ChromeOS without a Google account, so why add extra hoops to jump through?

ChromeOS has gotten progressively worse over the years.

I have a Pixelbook and it used to be great, but now I get constant freezes and crashes with android apps, unresponsive windowing UI and launcher, etc. It's also constantly updating itself, which isn't inherently bad, but it's asking for restarts what feels like twice a week.

Linux containers is half-baked (takes >30 sec to launch), the stability of Android apps is questionable.

I have a cheap chromebook with much worse specs than a pixelbook and it has been extremely reliable.

The linux containers are slow to start but that only applies to the first time you run a linux app after restarting the computer or logging out/in. Otherwise they work great.

Android apps are more of a mixed bag.

The bigger problem is that PWAs don't quite seem ready and Chrome apps are deprecated so there's no good way to make apps that specifically target chrome os right now.

I know it's not a requirement, but running docker containers is a nontrivial headache. Additionally, running VSCode resulted in a number of frustrating bugs:

- copy+paste not working, or only working on small strings

- font size issues and anti-aliasing issues

- delays on keystrokes

Any type of advanced networking in Linux was also a huge headache (e.g. a wireguard interface) and didn't interop with the browser. So as needed, I was at one point running both the Chrome on ChromeOS and another Chrome in Linux.

Are you sure you didn't switch it to dev channel? The last five production ChromeOS releases were on June 23, May 26, April 28, March 31, and March 3, 4 weeks apart as usual.

Pretty sure im on stable - I guess I'll try a powerwash.

The biggest frustration is that all I use it as a glorifed PDF reader for sheet music- I use an Android PDF reader and the Scribd app and it's hit or miss it those work after waking sleep.

>"cloud-first"

Sorry, I do not want my personal OS install to be cloud first. I want it to be cloud last.

This is really not targeted at personal use

Basically, they want even more people to use a product that requires a Google account so they can track people everywhere the same way they do with Android.

Somebody should make this illegal.

They're giving it for free, so there's that. And you don't have to use it unless you bought a Chromebox / Chromebook, and even then some of them can be reconfigured with a different OS.

It still does not support dual boot, or does it?

they make a big show to say that macs are supported, but in reality only x86 macs are supported, M1/M2 are not.

They hide this in the required specs, 2 clicks after the main announcement. Pretty misleading given that Apple currently sells 2 non M1/M2 macs: an i5 Mac Mini and the Mac Pro (cheese grater).

This is a product to revive old devices that have aged badly or stopped getting updates.

Why would anyone run chromeOS on a recent MacBook? You'd make a good buck selling that Apple silicon device and getting an old 2010s device.

Whatever happened to Fuschia?

Under active development but still at an early stage, last I looked they were solving problems like standardising various configuration APIs file formats etc so a long way it seems from a daily driver let’s say.

However, maybe a year or so ago they started a strategy with Nest where they started rolling out updates which swapped the underlying OS with an early release of Fuchsia on some models and they seem to be expanding that into other models at the moment.

But still very much a thing with meaningful but not particularly public process.

I’m still confused on what problem Fuchsia is solving.

Better isolation and drivers that don't need to live in the Kernel.

Just a better security model really.

I like the idea that it's just a new operating system not from the Big 3 with new ideas.

Does it have new ideas? I have read up on it and honestly can’t tell.

it's not GPL

giant privacy concerns

was my immediate thought thinking this is an OS that is running inside google's servers?

Poor marketing. Doesn't show screenshots of the OS in use.

Doesn't go into detail about productivity applications.

Doesn't tell us about the apps available from the ecosystem. (Not even the main product page.)

Not much to get customers excited.

This is why Apple always wins. (Well... Steve Jobs era Apple)

They've always been better at conveying what their new hotness does.

I'll never forget the "app for that" campaign.

Pure genius.

Marketing on value died decades ago. Now we sell emotion and shiny.

Don't sell the steak. Sell the sizzle.

Chrome is the main app and I imagine you install apps from Chrome itself, so no need to advertise then

> Poor marketing. Doesn't show screenshots of the OS in use.

It's the same as Chrome OS on Chromebooks

> Doesn't go into detail about productivity applications.

Google Docs or anything you can use on the web

> Doesn't tell us about the apps available from the ecosystem. (Not even the main product page.)

There are none. Chrome Apps are deprecated so unless you use linux via crostini (on normal chrome os devices you can also use android apps but I don't think chrome os flex supports that currently) there aren't any apps except PWAs.

> Not much to get customers excited.

It's for companies that want an easy to manage OS that just provides a web browser, basically. They're not trying to market chrome os flex to consumers. If you wanted a chrome os device as a consumer you would buy a chromebook.

> This is why Apple always wins. (Well... Steve Jobs era Apple)

Chromebooks have been incredibly successful with elementary schools in the US. iPads and macbooks have obviously been successful too but they basically inhabit completely different niches so it's not necessarily possible to say that apple is "winning" against chrome os (apple would have to change their approach somewhat to try to make a cheap ipad laptop at the risk of cannibalizing the market for macbooks to try to compete with chrome os). Chrome OS flex has a good chance at being successful with companies that already have their own desktops and don't need any offline applications.

Chromebooks have been incredibly present in elementary schools in the US. I haven't seen any metrics for "successful" that go beyond "make sure every kid has a Google account."

Does "schools didn't switch back to iPads" count as success?

And pretty much absent everywhere else.

When I walk in European shopping malls, if they happen to be on sale on electronic stores, more often than not, they are on shop promotions trying to get rid of them.

This used to be a hot topic a few years ago. When will it be actually ready?

Unfortunately my first thought is to wonder if they’ll scrap it after I’ve invested some time into it.

Why would they? It's just another build target to them, most of the engineering on this is done elsewhere. Worst case new hardware will ship peripherals that aren't supported well.

Can't wait to run an operating system on my operating system on my operating system! Maybe I'll even run an operating system on it! Can it run Emacs?

Chrome OS Flex is intended to run directly on the host device, not on top of some other OS.

Chrome OS is basically a Chrome UI running on a customized Linux distribution, and most apps the target users would run are going to run directly in that environment - no "OS on your OS on your OS."

The exception is native Linux apps, which on Chrome OS run in an LXC container inside a Chrome OS VM, mainly for security reasons. However, any GUI for such apps is proxied to the host display, so the virtualization is purely a back end detail - similar to how most web back ends run in containers and VMs on the internet somewhere.

ChromeOS and all of its derivatives suck. End of story.

Every other general purpose OS, free or proprietary, is more capable.

Most other alternatives, I would argue, are better user experiences that are easier to use for the average person.

An iPad or tablet is more capable. A phone is more capable.

The sole value of ChromeOS is in the hardware: you get better laptop hardware for your money by buying a Chromebook. Why else would you choose ChromeOS?

Many organizations choose Chrome OS because the users can't break or degrade it. Of course that's mostly due to Chrome OS being less capable.

This is supposedly Desktop Linux's 'finest' example of being the 0.1% out of the 99.9% of other free and open-source Linux distros that have failed to become useful or mainstream enough at a large scale and to be used by everyday users to just get things done.

ChromeOS seems to be the only example close to this, but it sadly succeeds more in surveillance of its users with its mostly closed system, which goes against the point of choosing Linux in the first place. In a couple of years time, ChromeOS will be just replaced with Fuchsia underneath and the best part is the users won't care and will not even know it.

Which means Desktop Linux is once again, back to square one.

Open source isn't a competition or a race. This has no practical impact on the traditional Linux desktop stack.

Heck, ChromeOS Flex seems to be shipping Crostini. Similar to Windows, ChromeOS Flex is embedding a traditional Linux desktop stack inside of it's walled garden.

If it's shipping crostini, I'll probably give it a shot. I've got a stack of old laptops that will probably run it just fine. It'll work great for browsing or playing media, and then anything special can be run on crostini. Pretty convenient to keep old devices updated.

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