Google is working on getting the Pixelbook to run Windows 10 Officially

[Drak3]

21 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

Far from it.  People like to over estimate what they use a PC for and find out that most the time is browsing and watching videos. Besides not being able to use Java for 1 app, a pixel book would be perfect for work especially since we use so many google products and there are plenty of android apps that would fill the gap. 

That's a load of shit. ChromeOS does a few basic tasks, and doesn't do them well. Only reason Chromebooks sold in the first place was price, that's the only redeeming factor it.

 

It's to the point that Android on the same exact hardware does a significantly better job. Old budget Windows XP laptops do the job better. Phones and cheap tablets do the job better.

 

So much so that Google is admitting their OS is worse than Windows by a substancial margin and that they'll adopt to sell hardware. This is from a petty company that actively tried to deny usage of their products on Windows phones when those phones were dying.

[mynameisjuan]

1 minute ago, Drak3 said:

That's a load of shit. ChromeOS does a few basic tasks

Its a load of shit that people think they do more than basic task on PCs

 

Again most just browse and watch videos. Why the fuck would you need windows for that? How about you use the stuff instead of bitching about it?

[Drak3]

8 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

How about you use the stuff instead of bitching about it?

I have. ChromeOS on an i3. It was slower than running Windows CE on a $120 Sylvania "smart"book when internet browsing.

 

ChromeOS is slow. ChromeOS has excessively limited functionality. It is useless.

 

Any and every alternative I've touched has been better than even running it off of an 850Evo/5930K@4GHz/32GB DDR4-2133. From my MacBook Pro to a Anthlon 64 laptop running Vista, Nexus 7 first gen to Surface Pro 4.

[Sniperfox47]

1 hour ago, AluminiumTech said:

Most of what I do, I couldn't do well on a Chromebook. I couldn't do most of it on a Chromebook period.

You're also not the average user though. Nor are you their target audience.

 

53 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

All of those people using Chromebooks should probably just use straight up Linux IMHO.

I would love for this to be the case, but it's simply not. There no Linux Distros that have the same level of spit and polish as commercial OSes like Windows, MacOS, and ChromeOS.

 

Even Ubuntu, the distro that I would say is closest to that ideal still has issues from a mass consumer standpoint. If you want consumers to adopt your OS there needs to be no point in the boot process where the OS drops into text mode. Even if it doesn't display any text this is a visible hickup. There needs to be a stable kernel that doesn't have hickups where it doesn't like your graphics driver and crashes back to the last kernel, or worse crashes, reloads, and crashes again after an update. Windows gets away with some of this simply because of it's market share and legacy, but even it's starting to drive users away now.

 

ChromeOS is *magnitudes* simpler and more stable than the next closest Linux distro, so for the kinds of audience who are buying Chromebooks I'd strongly disagree that they should be touching a standard distro.

 

 

25 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

It's to the point that Android on the same exact hardware does a significantly better job. Old budget Windows XP laptops do the job better. Phones and cheap tablets do the job better.

I just want to point out that this is kinda a silly argument since ChromeOS *has* Android baked in, and at least on a Samsung Chromebook Plus it matches performance for Android apps nearly identically with a similarly specced Android tablet.

 

9 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

I have. ChromeOS on an i3. It was slower than running Windows CE on a $120 Sylvania "smart"book when internet browsing.

 

ChromeOS is slow. ChromeOS has excessively limited functionality. It is useless.

 

Any and every alternative I've touched has been better than even running it off of an 850Evo/5930K@4GHz/32GB DDR4-2133. From my MacBook Pro to a Anthlon 64 laptop running Vista, Nexus 7 first gen to Surface Pro 4.

Dude I don't know why you've had such a bad experience but I know tons of people who have had contrary experiences and the general consensus is the exact opposite of your opinion. Did you have a low-ram model with a ton of extensions or something? I use a Chromebook Pixel with ChromeOS as my daily driver, with Fedora installed in a container for the few things I need traditional Linux/Windows apps for.

[mynameisjuan]

11 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

I have. ChromeOS on an i3. It was slower than running Windows CE on a $120 Sylvania "smart"book when internet browsing.

 

ChromeOS is slow. ChromeOS has excessively limited functionality. It is useless.

 

Any and every alternative I've touched has been better than even running it off of an 850Evo/5930K@4GHz/32GB DDR4-2133. From my MacBook Pro to a Anthlon 64 laptop running Vista, Nexus 7 first gen to Surface Pro 4.

Never witnessed this "slowness", but again I used it on verified chrome OS hardware. 

 

Not sure whether you installed in in a VM or not but that is quite the amount of testing for someone who hates it. 

[Sniperfox47]

3 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

Never witnessed this "slowness", but again I used it on verified chrome OS hardware. 

 

Not sure whether you installed in in a VM or not but that is quite the amount of testing for someone who hates it. 

If it was installed on third party hardware I do also want to point out that you can't install ChromeOS on such hardware, and ChromiumOS *is not* ChromeOS. Even if you ignore all the proprietary parts that are included with ChromeOS, Chromium has branch specific optimizations for different hardware so you'd have to selective pick and choose and customize and adapt the image to your specific board/chipset to get the same kind of optimizations as ChromeOS hardware.

[Drak3]

2 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Did you have a low-ram model with a ton of extensions or something?

I wouldn't constitute using my desktop to remove hardware issues as a low ram model, nor do I really use many extentions, only in Firefox. Having tested it on metal, in VMs, on new and old hardware from AMD and Intel, except for Kaby+ or Ryzen, the only constant in setup was ChromeOS.

6 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

that is quite the amount of testing for someone who hates it. 

Call it curiosity on why exactly I hate it.

[mynameisjuan]

4 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

If it was installed on third party hardware I do also want to point out that you can't install ChromeOS on such hardware, and ChromiumOS *is not* ChromeOS. Even if you ignore all the proprietary parts that are included with ChromeOS, Chromium has branch specific optimizations for different hardware so you'd have to selective pick and choose and customize and adapt the image to your specific board/chipset to get the same kind of optimizations as ChromeOS hardware.

Oh I know its not official. Thats why I mentioned verified hardware, AKA shipped with it. All I know is Neverware which is the only way to install it to other hardware which who would of guess, misses specific drivers. Id like to see Drak3 compare a windows with no drivers installed to one with them. 

 

Here is a good comparison of Chrome OS to non-chrome OS hardware. Drak3's argument is moot.

 

[Sauron]

Who cares, it's 7th generation hardware (= dual cores) and for that price they can keep it. The keyboard looks terrible and its connectivity is lacking at best. It's a stupid product that proves Google doesn't understand its strengths and eventually this sort of bone headed decision making will leave an opening for a competitor.

[Sniperfox47]

Just now, Drak3 said:

I wouldn't constitute using my desktop to remove hardware issues as a low ram model, nor do I really use many extentions, only in Firefox. Having tested it on metal, in VMs, on new and old hardware from AMD and Intel, except for Kaby+ or Ryzen, the only constant in setup was ChromeOS.

Call it curiosity on why exactly I hate it.

*Facepalm* so you installed a generic branch ChromiumOS image on random desktop hardware and you expected it to behave like anything other than shit?

 

Go turn off all of the hardware optimizations and compile tweaks in Windows and it would behave like shit too. You can't because Microsoft doesn't let you, but ChromiumOS is not meant for consumer use, it's just a developer platform for ChromeOS.

 

I mean did you even enable Intel integrated graphics with it, or did you just let it draw everything in software on the CPU?

[potoooooooo]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

Who cares, it's 7th generation hardware (= dual cores) and for that price they can keep it. The keyboard looks terrible and its connectivity is lacking at best. It's a stupid product that proves Google doesn't understand its strengths and eventually this sort of bone headed decision making will leave an opening for a competitor.

This is a really ironic comment.

 

It's no different than any other pixel product, it's meant to be a showcase of a premium product. The Pixel phones sell like 1 million units per year, it's a pittance. But that's because they're not designed to sell a ton.

 

"proves Google doesn't understand its strengths" this is literally a product designed to showcase the strengths of Chromeos

[captain_to_fire]

49 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Old budget Windows XP laptops do the job better.

I'm pretty sure when it comes to security, a Chromebook is better than an old XP machine or better yet, Chrome OS is more secure than Windows. Windows 10 may have Windows Defender but it can't catch 'em all. Windows 10S is trying to be locked down as iOS but not quite [here]. Also, Chrome OS is easier to manage than Windows and Chromebooks are way cheaper than any Windows 10S computer so less strain on the school district's budget.

 

[Sauron]

21 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

I would love for this to be the case, but it's simply not. There no Linux Distros that have the same level of spit and polish as commercial OSes like Windows, MacOS, and ChromeOS.

 

Even Ubuntu, the distro that I would say is closest to that ideal still has issues from a mass consumer standpoint. If you want consumers to adopt your OS there needs to be no point in the boot process where the OS drops into text mode. Even if it doesn't display any text this is a visible hickup. There needs to be a stable kernel that doesn't have hickups where it doesn't like your graphics driver and crashes back to the last kernel, or worse crashes, reloads, and crashes again after an update. Windows gets away with some of this simply because of it's market share and legacy, but even it's starting to drive users away now.

I would argue these problems are also what make Linux great. Yes, streamlining the interface and polishing it would attract more customers but it would also mean the end of what many Linux users like about it in the first place.

7 minutes ago, potoooooooo said:

This is a really ironic comment.

 

It's no different than any other pixel product, it's meant to be a showcase of a premium product. The Pixel phones sell like 1 million units per year, it's a pittance. But that's because they're not designed to sell a ton.

Yeah, clearly they're designed to be overpriced garbage instead. The pixel phone at least isn't in such stark contrast with other flagship android devices (although compared to something like the s8 it was a shitshow).

7 minutes ago, potoooooooo said:

"proves Google doesn't understand its strengths" this is literally a product designed to showcase the strengths of Chromeos

And it failed spectacularly or they wouldn't be looking to put a different OS in it to make some of the money they sank in it back. This is a desperation move to salvage a failed product, make no mistake. The strengths of chromeOS are that it runs well on low end hardware (aka cheap and ultraportable hardware) while letting you do all the basics in a modern environment. Putting it on high end expensive hardware completely defeats the purpose. To add insult to injury that hardware was obsolete mere weeks after it launched and the design of the product is questionable at best.

[potoooooooo]

2 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Yeah, clearly they're designed to be overpriced garbage instead. The pixel phone at least isn't in such stark contrast with other flagship android devices (although compared to something like the s8 it was a shitshow).

And it failed spectacularly or they wouldn't be looking to put a different OS in it to make some of the money they sank in it back. This is a desperation move to salvage a failed product, make no mistake. The strengths of chromeOS are that it runs well on low end hardware (aka cheap and ultraportable hardware) while letting you do all the basics in a modern environment. Putting it on high end expensive hardware completely defeats the purpose. To add insult to injury that hardware was obsolete mere weeks after it launched and the design of the product is questionable at best.

I don't see how you can call it overpriced garbage. For 1000 dollars, the specs and build quality are all very competitive.

 

And seeing as this isn't the first 1000 dollar chromebook from google, in fact the third, it should be pretty obvious they're not putting windows on it as a cash grab. They've been losing money on these since 2013, when the first one came out. They're probably trying to strengthen it's position as a developers tool, making it so you can do native chromeos and windows would make it a great value.

 

Not to mention, the purpose of chromeos isn't just to run well on cheap hardware. It's to provide a bulletproof and idiotproof software experience. Running well on cheap hardware just makes it easier to sell, it's a bonus.

[Drak3]

10 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

so you installed a generic branch ChromiumOS image on random desktop hardware and you expected it to behave like anything other than shit?

Performed better than any Chromebook I can go out and buy, just going with the minimum setup. Tweaking it to my hardware did just about fuck all to help.

[Sniperfox47]

10 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Who cares, it's 7th generation hardware (= dual cores) and for that price they can keep it. The keyboard looks terrible and its connectivity is lacking at best. It's a stupid product that proves Google doesn't understand its strengths and eventually this sort of bone headed decision making will leave an opening for a competitor.

The keyboard isn't that terrible. I mean I don't enjoy long period typing sessions on it, but it's no worse than Apple's butterfly keyboards.

 

Connectivity is all type-C because it's a showcase product designed to push type-C. Plus as meager as the couple ports are, them being USB-C with DisplayPort and PowerDelivery is a nice boon.

 

And i'll bring it up again because it's literally the reason I chose the Pixelbook as my Linux laptop... dat trackpad is freaking amazeballs.

 

But you're totally right that the CPU is pretty mediocre. It's not even a full dual-core U series, it's an ultra low power Y series fanless CPU.

 

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

I would argue these problems are also what make Linux great. Yes, streamlining the interface and polishing it would attract more customers but it would also mean the end of what many Linux users like about it in the first place.

Yeah I don't disagree with that, I'm mearly pointing out that "what makes Linux great!" for you or I is not the same thing as "what makes an OS good" for the general populace. 

 

3 minutes ago, Sauron said:

And it failed spectacularly or they wouldn't be looking to put a different OS in it to make some of the money they sank in it back. This is a desperation move to salvage a failed product, make no mistake. The strengths of chromeOS are that it runs well on low end hardware (aka cheap and ultraportable hardware) while letting you do all the basics in a modern environment. Putting it on high end expensive hardware completely defeats the purpose.

You mean like how Apple failed spectacularly with the MacBook as evidenced by Bootcamp?

 

We don't even know that this is them planning specifically to open just the Pixelbook to Windows. This could be about a move to get Windows certified in general for container use in the same way they're setting up containers for quite a few OSes at the moment (Android, various Linux Distros, Fuschia)

 

And I mean you're not wrong about it not being really designed for high end hardware when the Pixelbook launched but we're already seeing roads to resolve this. First with Android apps, now with professional Linux apps and full containers. This is a first pass showcase and development platform and for one it's performed quite well.

[Sauron]

1 minute ago, potoooooooo said:

I don't see how you can call it overpriced garbage. For 1000 dollars, the specs and build quality are all very competitive.

7th gen dual cores when I could buy 8th gen quad cores at the same price - not competitive at all, not even close.

2 minutes ago, potoooooooo said:

And seeing as this isn't the first 1000 dollar chromebook from google, in fact the third, it should be pretty obvious they're not putting windows on it as a cash grab. They've been losing money on these since 2013, when the first one came out. They're probably trying to strengthen it's position as a developers tool, making it so you can do native chromeos and windows would make it a great value..

They're trying to be Apple, and now they realized that was a terrible mistake and are trying to cut their losses. The first iterations were meant to pave the way and establish their brand, so low sales were expected - but clearly it's not catching on and for very good reason. I guarantee you, NOBODY will buy this and use chromeOS on it when windows is supported.

[captain_to_fire]

1 hour ago, vorticalbox said:

and that fact they are cheaper and much easier to manage than windows, if you have ever set up a supervised account on chrome you will know.

 

I have a chrome book I used to use it in uni for writing documents, research and for reading documentation while coding.

I think for schools with a low budget, Chromebooks are a good alternative to Windows. School districts have to buy Windows licenses in volume and even though they get discounts for buying in bulk, it doesn’t include the hardware yet. So for a computer lab inside a library, Chromebooks can save them money. 

[Sauron]

5 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

The keyboard isn't that terrible. I mean I don't enjoy long period typing sessions on it, but it's no worse than Apple's butterfly keyboards.

Oh for sure, don't think for a moment I consider macbooks to be any better.

6 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

And i'll bring it up again because it's literally the reason I chose the Pixelbook as my Linux laptop... dat trackpad is freaking amazeballs.

Can't comment on that, personally I despise trackpad interaction in all its forms. It's a meager crutch for what can be done infinitely better with keyboard shortcuts.

7 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

You mean like how Apple failed spectacularly with the MacBook as evidenced by Bootcamp?

Apple already had a dedicated following and could sell their systems thanks to mac OS - an OS that has far fewer limitations than chromeOS, by the way. Bootcamp is a "if you really must" sort of approach, whereas this would seem to be fully supported as an alternative to running chromeOS.

10 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

We don't even know that this is them planning specifically to open just the Pixelbook to Windows. This could be about a move to get Windows certified in general for container use in the same way they're setting up containers for quite a few OSes at the moment (Android, various Linux Distros, Fuschia)

I'm pretty sure you can already run windows on this if you want to, the only reason I can see to get this sort of certification would be to start selling it with windows preinstalled.

11 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

And I mean you're not wrong about it not being really designed for high end hardware when the Pixelbook launched but we're already seeing roads to resolve this. First with Android apps, now with professional Linux apps and full containers. This is a first pass showcase and development platform and for one it's performed quite well.

It's not that it can't work on high end hardware, but rather that it makes no sense to do it. Everything that is good about chromeOS comes from its limitations, and those limitations mean you can't make good use of high end hardware. Strip them away and you have a Linux distribution with poor personalization despite having the same fragmented UI problems (android apps aren't really well adapted to laptop use and they will contrast with native Linux apps). Again, they are trying to be Apple but failing to see what is good about them.

[Guest savagepain]

2 hours ago, valdyrgramr said:

Ew MSI.  RIP QC

FIGHT ME (ง •̀_•́)ง  

[Guest savagepain]

18 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

fuck i cant battle that (◍•ᴗ•◍)

[Guest savagepain]

5 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

 

im not giving up 

[Guest savagepain]

1 minute ago, valdyrgramr said:

We should prolly stop before this derails further.

you admit defeat 

[Guest savagepain]

but you are probably right 

[Sniperfox47]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

I'm pretty sure you can already run windows on this if you want to, the only reason I can see to get this sort of certification would be to start selling it with windows preinstalled.

Not without some pretty sketchy fiddlework that can brick your pixelbook. There's no UEFI, just Coreboot so you have to set up an MBR/BIOS based Windows USB. You then have to set your pixelbook into developer mode and manually boot off the USB. Not too bad so far.

 

Then you need to go through the install using a USB keyboard/mouse since Windows doesn't support them (which is one potential reason to get certification). As you go through you need to manually format the SSD with diskpart because the Windows installer will just spaz out about it, reboot, finally install Windows. Then go through initial setup for Windows (still using the USB keyboard/mouse) and hope that wireless networking works properly since it usually does but sometimes doesn't, if it doesn't break out the USB wifi adapter.

 

Then once all that's done you need to go through and manually install hacky unofficial drivers for the keyboard, trackpad, and touchscreen and intel RST. And the audio will be buggy and overamped so it's recommended to get a USB DAC/Soundcard. And if you want keyboard backlight control you need to disable testsigning and install a hacky unsigned third party driver.

 

And even then the drivers may wind up not working due to a Coreboot bug if you had an older firmware and you may need to flash back to ChromeOS, reinstall your SeaBIOS, and then reinstall Windows and all the drivers to get it working.

 

EDIT: My bad. Coolstar didn't do drivers for it, only the older chromebook Pixels. So nope, apparently you'd have to operate it entirely off of a USB keyboard and Mouse, probably need an external DAC for any audio, and hope like hell that the networking driver works out of box. Not sure if the Pixelbook uses a janky controller or a normal one Windows would recognize. Not at all usable for day to day use.

 

This hardware certification process is specifically to make all of this non-issues so that you can just install BIOS based Windows and it'll work like installing Windows on an older PC.

 

P.S. Because Pixelbook has no intel firmware and just uses coreboot, that also means no firmware built in for Intel Management Engine 

 

P.P.S.The Purism Librem laptop also has a lot of the same issues due to using weird non-standard hardware/firmware, except in that case it's in the interest of being open source as much as possible. Many models of the Librem you simply cannot get some of the hardware to work. The fact that you can currently hack around it with the Pixelbook is mostly luck. Not all x86 platform PCs are made equal.