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Comment by Micand | Hacker News Reader

If ARM and x86 are targeted, this means no Flash (not surprising, given how poorly it runs on Linux), which presumably means YouTube will be operating in full-on HTML 5 video mode by the time these devices launch.

If netbooks continue their meteoric ascent, and if Chrome OS grabs a significant share of the market, we may finally see the realization of the mythical Year of Linux On the Desktop. The ironic aspect, of course, is that even though a large number of non-technical users will finally be running on a fully open-source platform, they will use it to run applications whose workings are even more opaque than traditional closed-source, client-side apps.

I wonder what role, if any, Native Client will play on these devices. I understand Native Client to target only x86, but I find it difficult to imagine Chrome OS -- Google's first direct challenge to Windows -- not being able to run Native Client applications.

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Adobe are working on full Flash 10 for ARM-based linux on netbooks and smartphone platforms, due for next year.

Whether Google wants or needs it is another question.

Too little, too late.

We will never forget.

Given the way that Flash performs on OSX I don't see any reason to think their ARM port will be at all acceptable.

Linux making it to the desktop by essentially ignoring the Desktop paradigm? Oh the irony.

I wonder if this has been part of the rise of Linux on the desktop for the last year or two.

OS 2008 (Maemo Linux on Nokia N8XX tablets) has a port of Flash 9 running on ARM. I doubt it'll take much to get a new version out for Google.

Flash has a few small problems on Linux, but generally is usable.

While it's not unusable, the performance issues are not trivial. At least on slower CPU:s.

Problems like crashing my browsers 10x a week, and using 50x the CPU that mplayer uses to play the same video.

Don't forget 20x the RAM.

Running it using nspluginwrapper seems to make it so that when Flash crashes, it doesn't take Firefox down with it.

I regularly killall npviewer.bin too, when Flash is hung or doing something weird. Reload the page and it restarts.

I enjoyed your narrative.

i agree with you. the comment with the large number of votes is a fearmongering comment, while the comment that you are referring to is actually a technical comment (the kind that i think is more relevant at HN).

I'll rather have some fearmongering (if you really want to call it that, there's another better term though "devil's advocate") from people to have a certain balance of opinion rather than just have people who go gaga over every google/apple announcement. I dislike MS as much as the next guy but those are genuine concerns. Note, his comment is not like "sky is falling" but more like "beware, the sky may fall if we're not careful". I'll rather be cautious then stick my head in sand with my behind exposed.

But Micand didn't go gaga over this Google announcement.

My above comment "I enjoyed your narrative." is meant in a sinceren and non-cynical, non-subtext-whatsoever, non-ironic way. I wrote it to express a bit of appreciation towards Micand for crafting his imho good summary on the topic.

Can anyone explain to me, what is worth downvoting about it? Thanks.

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