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Comment by sjs | Hacker News Reader

That explains a lot! I wondered how Chrome OS got the Linux build of Flash working without X11. I thought they might have a thin X11 lib in their window manager, but I guess they shoe-horned the Windows build into the Linux version of Chrome. Crafty.

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Chrome OS uses X11. The idea that Chrome is running Windows Flash Player under some kind of Wine wrapper is ridiculous IMO.

Even though this is not true in this case, this wouldn't be unheard of. Google did exactly the same with Picasa, that is, the Linux port of Picasa is a modified version of the original Windows Picasa running on Wine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picasa#Linux

But the name contains the string .exe! Clearly that means Windows is being emulated.

(Note to people that think this is true; install f-spot on Linux some time. It's a C# application, and ends in .exe. Even though it has nothing to do with Windows, except that Microsoft spec'd C# and Microsoft makes Windows...)

So does all mono compiled applications for unix/mac. It's just an extension. It might be what you have said, but unless verified. It isn't.

Picasa for example is emulated through wine on Linux/Mac, but that's because it was developed originally for Win32.

It's not correct to say that Picasa is emulated using wine. Instead, it's a native Linux app that has been ported using WineLib, which reimplements a lot of the Windows API, but compiled to Linux. Instead of replacing API calls with the Linux equivalents, there's just an additional layer that redirect calls or implements them.

Wine and WineLib are different things.

My mistake. I wrongly assumed Chrome OS did not include X11 when I read that they used a new window system.

ChromeOS is written on top of Clutter, which uses OpenGL via X11.

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