-8
Please, FOSS world, we need something like ChromeOS
(www.theregister.com)
Do we? Who's we?
You're being downvoted, but you're right.
People want something simple. Something that just runs the basics and automatically backs up online and invisibly.
The vast majority of people don't need to have the choice of 17 different browsers, or 43 office suites, and they certainly don't need the terminal or Powershell, or anything else. They just need a browser and a way to maybe write a letter and view photos. Maybe a way for the kids to do their homework. If their laptop spontaneously combusts, they want to be able to sign into a new one and have everything put back as it was automatically.
ChromeOS is perfect for them, apart from being a Google product. It's something we tend to miss because we're technically minded, but most people don't care about computers, and don't want what we want. They want an appliance. If someone created that system with privacy built in, it could be great :)
You're absolutely right. We need to have many different options for many different people.
I think you're still missing the point though. People that see a computer as an appliance don't want or need many different options and can be overwhelmed by the choice. We need a Linux Basic of some sort that all of us coalesce around to recommend to non-technical users, that is designed to be absolutely bulletproof and unbreakable. I'd say it should be immutable to prevent any accidental fluffery, have flatpaks as the main software installation method (snaps can go to hell and appimages just suck for updating) and come with a productivity suite pre-installed as well as typical codecs so things like streaming services work OOTB. Mint could have been such a choice, but it's just still too niggly for users with no technical skills and no inkling to learn them. We need an "it just works" distro goshdarnit!!
No, we shouldn't be encouraging people to use tools they don't bother to understand how to use.
People have lives ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's awesome that us tech-minded nerds can get under the hood, mess with it and customise to our preferences. We can then make it simple and easy for the folks that just need a computer.
If we want Linux to succeed more broadly, than it needs to be accessible to everyone.
Is ChromeOS even that successful? Hasn't it been merged with Android already? Seems to me nobody wants "snackable" OSs...
I think at least part of the problem has been the built in expiry date, and the fact that so many off brand Chromebooks are absolute shit. They have tiny screens and low specs, and struggle with multiple web pages open.
I fancied one myself to take out and about, as I do most of my work on my PC, but they all seemed to have under 13 inch screens, and a five year shelf life. I like to research my family tree, so have a few tabs open, but the lack of memory would kill them and make it painful to do.
It's pre installed on so many student devices. I don't understand the people saying we need a simple linux alternative. It doesn't matter if we don't have vendors pre installing linux. Simple as.
Is ChromeOS even that successful?
I think this probably makes sense from within your "bubble", that of being the sort of technical user that's on a Linux forum on the internet. Chromebooks are incredibly popular in education, and ChromeOS has held a marketshare of 5-8% over the last few years, only dipping to 2.5% in the last six months.
Linux already will run on a literal brick, we just need an OS that is web-first and locked down for high school kids in a way where educational institutions will want to buy it in bulk. As for device, we really need something built to be a modern netbook. The Framework 12 could have been that, but it starts at $1244 in fully base spec with an i3-1315U, no Windows license and DIY. What we need is a Framework 10 without expansion cards, without a digitiser/touch, running the barebones Intel N100 4c/4t, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD. Make it as repairable but single SKU and pre-built. Partner with someone like Universal Blue for the OS, who they already have as an official partner for other devices with Bazzite. It also needs to be sub-$600 to compete.
By the way, ChromeOS being folded into Android isn't a negative reflection on it. Google are trying to mimic Samsung DeX with their Pixel devices and it just isn't a smart business decision to develop two parallel desktop experiences when ChromeOS already runs on the Android kernel anyway. Android also has more brand recognition, and overall it will probably encourage developers to make proper desktop kb+m versions of their apps (which can exist in the same apk). A way for Linux to compete there would be strong system integration of Waydroid but that's probably mostly a "bonus feature" if they manage to succeed with everything else.
Google is using the Microsoft Handbook by providing cheap laptops to students so that's all they get familiar with.
Second best selling consumer Linux platform on the planet, second only to Android.
It would need someone to set it up, but I have my non-techy family members on Silverblue and it suits the purpose as outlined. Also not sure why all the fear-mongering about btrfs, I would say it's ready and suitable for mainstream use now, or you don't have to use it.
BTRFS is fine for most people as long as they are using 1 drive.
What are the issues with multiple drives?
i also need to know for my setup 😅
I think there are a lot of people that confuse Btrfs with Bcachefs, which is definitely not ready for primetime.
"Please, world World, FOSS World Needs Funding for Something You Want"
Mint?
Bazzite and PopOs are also very good options
the existing immutables will do
Like Fedora Silverblue or OpenSuSE Aeon/Kalpa?
EXACTLY. But nobody's searching for it, and nobody's telling. So no one's knowing.
I read the article and it just sounds like they're praising ChromeOS for being web browser centric. Need office, open Google docs/drive. Pretty much a Linux distro but by default come with a bunch of progressive web apps installed for common applications?
Consumer expectations. On Linux you can just use the web browser just like most people already do on ChromeOS and I assume windows and mac's. But on regular Linux, Mac, and Windows people expect more. So I guess a distro that brands itself and markets to users to just use the web browser for everything and maybe a store of progressive web apps/preinstalled ones
Also out of the box support. ChromeOS is Google backed. Laptop makers sell mainstream ChromeOS boxes. Linux doesn't have major mainstream device support. It'd be far less fussy if hardware vendors were releasing plenty of Linux out the box hardware. Right now it's some workstation centric hardware from Lenovo and Dell and smaller companies like System76
On that note I'd place my hopes with System76 since they're currently focused on consumer experience. Cosmic DE is still not prime-time ready but maybe a couple more years. 26.04 release use as the default for their new hardware and it still effectively be early adopter phase for Cosmic DE. Then 28.04 ready for primetime. Keep trying to break into being a mainstream hardware brand. Other is what happens with KDE Plasma with Valve and SteamOS, Plasma Mobile, and maybe the TV interface. A bunch of consumer centric use cases driving development in KDE land. Maybe they'll come up with a way to get flatpak permissions work in a way that alerts users on need and makes it easy to do like on Android/iOS
You could probably make a small Arch install, add LibreOffice and something either like the GNOME browser or Firefox. What people using ChromeOS want is something light (for cheaping out on hardware to schools), and basically just a way to access a browser. Plus, something something permissions. ChromeOS is marketed towards enterprise, like education. Just need the bare minimum to get on the 'net, and no more.
Why the hell would you use arch for browser centric use? Literally any stable distro would work perfectly fine, and doesn't risk failing to boot because of an update...
Because arch btw 🙄
I think an immutable distro like Bazzite's cousins Aurora (KDE) and Bluefin (GNOME) would be far more appropriate. Combined with automatic rollback (if the system fails to boot, rollback to previous version) and it'd be practically bulletproof in education.
I honestly never tried them as they don't fit my use case, so I can't comment. The concept does sound good though.
I don't know too much about distros, but you want something quite light. Let's be real, enterprise like schools won't pony up everything for Debian, especially when they just use Chromium and maybe Libreoffice. Schools are cheap, and if you can hacksaw together an Arch-based thing, they WILL buy miserable hardware, that can just barely run it, and an 8 gig SSD is much more stomachable for them than a 32-gig for Debian. SteamOS doesn't completely crash, and that's infinitely more complicated. This is basic Arch, plus a WM, plus Firefox/Chromium/Whatever.
In reality, what Chromebooks provide is a reinvention of the good old mainframe and terminal principle. In theory (like my recent - half joking - 9front comment) this is something that would be really easy to set up with nearly all Linux systems and especially immutable ones.
My take would be:
Put an sign up / sign in form as a "first boot" message in a distribution of your choice where you can specify (or have pre-filled by an organisation) a central server (could be something fancy like Nextcloud or something simple rsync based) where your whole profile folder gets synced to. After that: If anything goes kaputt just roll back the sync. Or "powerwasch" (to keep the ChromeOS terminology) the system to a clean state and re-sync your home folder.
In theory something that could all be implemented with a little scripting in an afternoon.
We really should have a FirefoxOS equivalent. Frankly, there’s little reason not to do this. The only thing really missing is Firefox support for PWAs.
I’d imagine a Debian based OS, with cage first showing a first-time-setup thing, then going to simper web first DE. You still need a panel at the bottom for managing multiple windows and the system tray and wifi and a desktop and start menu for pinned apps. Storage doesn’t even need to be local, it could just point to something in the cloud that you have execute commands on your behalf.
This is the ideal for tons of simple, lightweight users and there are a LOT of them.
That actually sounds like a fun afternoon with Blue-Build.
I actually see a market for this the more I think about it. install the OS free, have the account hosted at the provider of your choice which will provide all the storage and cloud apps and email you want. You could have a cheap subscription that hosts a session elsewhere, or us selfhosters could host our own sessions for friends and family.
I don't know that very many people would understand the limitations of it just like they didn't with ChromeOS. Just need a major hardware manufacturer to start putting a Linux distro on their machines and make a more stable application installation system than KDE Discover or shore up Discover a bit and it would be great to consolidate rpm, deb, etc., rather than adding new systems like Snap and Flatpak.
I don't think that would work. The reason for things like flatpak and snaps to exist is because they don't interfere with the host package manager. Combining debs and rpms would be a disaster. Unless it would be possible to create a package manager that can track all of those different formats, but i don't know about that.
Windows isn't immutable either. And i had a lot of issues with Kinoite. Some flatpaks need workarounds, everything starts only after a second, can't really remove that one annoying software and too much rpm-ostree installs slows updates to a crawl, etc. Then you look into Universalblue's build-your-custom-image and see the bazillion steps and dependencies and walk away.
Now i look into plain old Fedora as a Windows 10 alternative for my mom.
Check out Blue Build for building custom Fedora Atomic images.
You create a GitHub repo using their helper website and use yaml. They even have some useful modules specific to desktops (that would have been a huge pain to do in Dockerfiles)
AnduinOS?
9front (with enough volunteers and a modern browser) could be exactly that.
The End of Windows 10 is looming. The world needs a simpler, easy, quick, snackable alternative
OpenBSD exists.
That said, this article remains true.
I don't know much about it, is OpenBSD suitable for non-technical users?
It is.
Could you elaborate a bit? Is it difficult to break, say compared to an immutable like Bazzite? Is it easy to install software? Does it include support for a variety of hardware OOTB?
Is it difficult to break
Well, it won't forbid you rm -rf /. But generally, it is very reliable.
Is it easy to install software?
Yes, and there is quite a huge selection available from the official repositories (and you can compile most software "missing" there yourself).
Does it include support for a variety of hardware OOTB?
It depends on the hardware, but generally speaking, OpenBSD supports a nice amount of platforms and tries to keep "old" hardware alive as long as possible (for example, VAX support was dropped in 2016, which was quite some time after they were en vogue). What isn't supported, however, is Bluetooth which was removed in OpenBSD 5.6 unless you use a dongle.
you can compile most software "missing" there yourself
That's already very inappropriate for non-technical users.
What isn't supported, however, is Bluetooth
Also not appropriate. Bluetooth has been sold for decades now as an "it just works" solution to ad-hoc wireless peripherals like headphones and computer mice. Non-technical users need something that works OOTB with their existing devices.
That’s already very inappropriate for non-technical users.
There is no operating system in existence that provides every single software you could imagine as a precompiled package for your platform right out of the box.
Also not appropriate.
You do have a point here. I, personally, don't have a Bluetooth device at home, so YMMV, I guess.
this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
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