Google OS already here, with hardware?! Well, sort of.

[icekin]

Does anyone else actually like the fact that linux has so many distros? To me, its one of the things that made me initially attracted towards linux - choice. Tweakability at its extreme, there is bound to be a distro to run on any hardware from a calculator to a mainframe. There are versions to suit the old school coders, ones to please the Apple fanboys and even ones for artists and multimedia production.

If the entire Linux community focused on improving a few major Linux distros, it would attract Joe User, but make the power users unhappy. Besides, Redhat, Ubuntu and OpenSuse are already doing this anyway with their mainstream focused approach.

If Google made an OS, it would be something aimed towards Joe User, not power users. For a preview, try one of their desktop apps like Google Desktop. Its extendable with widgets, but hogs resources and probably allows Google to collect user habit data. And there's no source code, so its improvements and changes have to only come from Google.

My ideal OS would be secure, stable and fast. It doesn't have to pack many features, there software for that.

[Darwin]

Sort of agree with you, icekin. When you're dealing with linux you really ARE spoiled for choice.

Have to agree with iphigenie as well - another monolithic software company is not really desireable. However, I'm still watching this with interest - I expect that google WILL roll out their own OS in the future and I'm curious to see what they come up with. I'm guessing that they'll try to come up with something with as much interoperability with apps for Windows (and Apple?) as possible while making the result as easy to use and as minimalist as possible. If done right, this might be very compelling...

Anyway, to return to what iphigenie said, Google scares me too and I feel much the same way about MS as she does - as monopolistic and technologically imperialistic and colonial as they are, they've decades of experience in OS development and I trust them. For now... I hope they can re-direct their energies away from DRM and focus on the user experience again. Well, that and security...

[f0dder]

All the various linux distros is one of the things that I don't like about the linux community. It would be better if all those man-hours of work were concentrated into a bunch of fewer distros, and really get the ball running. Including more standards. For a distro like slackware, what happens when Pat. Volk. dies? Remember when he got seriously ill?

Don't have to sacrifice tweakability for fewer distros with more talented people working on them.

[Lashiec]

Has anyone ever sullied their eyes to see what kind of HTML code Google serves us all (beware, only for the strong of stomach!). It is the ugliest, most hack-ridden inefficient mess you'll likely see outside of Myspace.

-nontroppo (November 07, 2007, 05:30 AM)

WHOA!

[f0dder]

Ever tried running MSOffice-produced HTML through a validator? ^_^

[nontroppo]

Lashiec: yup - I suspect there are even more than 215 errors once a DOCTYPE was used.

f0dder: In Microsoft's defence, their websites at least partly try to use web standards, and they have almost 4X less errors than Google, only 65 errors ;-)

http://validator.w3....e=Inline&group=0

[icekin]

Whenever I came across a new Web 2.0 service or better yet, the site of a web design company, the first thing I used to do was run the validator. Its amazing how many companies claim to be able to design and develop quality websites and yet their own site fails validation.

[zridling]

Here's a few screenshots of the Enlightenment desktop environment on which this PC runs. A friend of mine had 0.9.2 running similar to this shot:

[Carol Haynes]

Is it just me lacking taste or is that ugly with a capital UG (sorry Zaine - no personal insult intended)!

[Darwin]

I have mixed feelings about it, Carol. Sort of looks like one giant command console. Actually, I always *think* that I'll love white on black but it never lasts long for me because I find that it bothers my eyes. I used to set up Windows 3.11 with this scheme (High Contrast I think they called it) and marvel at how futuristic and clean it looked, but I could never leave it that way for very long. The Aero interface in Vista has the same effect on me... Anyway, I think it looks cool but I know I'd be looking to change it within 30 minutes.

[zridling]

Carol, you never lack taste or class! Like Darwin, I didn't know how to respond, except to say it looks like something a 14-year old would be impressed with. There are other incarnations, and the one I like better keeps all windows rolled up until you scroll over them. That gets to be convenient very quickly because your desktop is always in view and you have access to any part of it at any time (notice the lack of a taskbar on the screenshot above).

[Darwin]

Heh, heh, 14 was a distant memory for me when I was playing with 3.11...  Anyway, the feature that "keeps all windows rolled up until you scroll over them" that you describe sounds fantastic.