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Comment by esperkin39 | Hacker News Reader

Author here.

App distribution is a major issue for the platform that I ran out of space to really talk about. Those driver-like things are largely extension APIs, but they were once the domain of the now deprecated "Chrome Apps." Both the Apps and Extensions are delivered via the Web Store, but I feel like there's a steady move to deprecate all system-customization on the platform.

If you want to use some non-optimized apps in a VM though, you can use the Gnome Software store or the Google Play Store.

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To clarify, you can run standard linux apps in a linux VM with seamless file, wayland and X11 passtrough ("crostini"). Even nested virtualization works.

And you can run android apps in a android VM.

I installed Chrome OS Flex on my old laptop and I couldn't be happier, honestly. It has a really light and snappy shell, I can run all these PWA apps at once without so much as a hiccup, and I can use crostini to run Signal and VS Code. The only thing it doesn't handle is Steam, but I couldn't really play anything natively on that machine even on Windows.

And despite Linux being in a virtual machine the general experience is very seamless - I can install .deb packages by simply double clicking them in the file explorer!

Oh and most importantly, GeForce NOW works and I can still use it to play BG3 :D

(it goes without saying that the experience is much better if you're already tied to Google ecosystem, as the file explorer integrates, optionally, with Google Drive)

Also worth noting that there is Chromium OS https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/

Wait, you can run crostini on ChromeOS Flex? I thought only real Chromebooks could do that.

You can run Linux VM on Flex. You cannot use the Play store and Android apps.

Could you get the Play Store working if installed on a generic ARM laptop?

> I feel like there's a steady move to deprecate all system-customization on the platform.

To avoid the android type mess Chromeos is and was always in the iron grip of Google. That is the way to keep things secure. And I am glad it is so. Once you expose important APIs to the main google account - there will be tons of crap ChromeAPPS (not android but the chrome apps) that will be difficult to supervise (i.e) repeat of playstore.

Though painful and slow the aim is to move everything non-google to PlayStore. That way all crap is isolated into android.

For the commandline or linux person, the VM is always there.

Unfortunately, Android runs in a VM now, too. In many tasks, I've gotten better performance from Linux apps than Android counterparts.

There's also the fact that the Android VM can't do certain things that Android phones and tablets can. As an example, files management in the Android VM is so bad that I lost access to standard access for months due to a bug...

Also, the Android environment is all the way back on version 11. If your theory is correct, that Google wants to move third-party developers to Android, then they're doing a terrible job of it. Android devs haven't and won't target all these outdated devices.

I believe Chromeos is becoming an enterprise/edu only platform. That would explain the (new) lack of interest in development and focus on security at the cost of all functionality. This is a new development and wasn't "always" the case as you claim, because many of these apis are as old as Chromeos itself (10-ish years).

I would assume google uses Android to just help get onboard chromeos (example: netflix app etc). You want android devs to handle the outside chrome. No thanks. Whether it is A11 or not a large majority does not care. It is only power enthusiasts that need latest A13 in chromebook. For the rest, not at all.

See they are learning a lesson from iOS. Keep tight control - at whatever cost. The same complaints about file management is there in iPad but devs have no option.

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