Chrome OS’s Linux app support is leaving beta

[Tensimeter]

Summary

Google is bringing Chrome OS’s Linux app support to stable. Linux app support lets many apps, especially developer tools and IDEs be easily available in Chrome OS. 

 

Quotes

Quote

Chrome OS as an operating system has always been based on Linux, but since 2018 its Linux development environment has offered access to a Linux terminal, which developers can use to run command line tools. The feature also allows full-fledged Linux apps to be installed and launched alongside your other apps. In addition to Linux apps, Chrome OS also supports Android apps

 

My thoughts

It’s fun to see non-Linux desktop operating systems bring support for running Linux GUI apps. Microsoft is doing this with WSLg, and Chrome OS is now doing this officially too. There’s even been work by Valve and others to bring Linux Steam to Chrome OS, using this existing Linux on Chrome OS layer.

 

Sources

https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/20/22445382/chromeos-linux-release-beta-version-91

[jaslion]

2 minutes ago, Tensimeter said:

Summary

Google is bringing Chrome OS’s Linux app support to stable. Linux app support lets many apps, especially developer tools and IDEs be easily available in Chrome OS. 

 

Quotes

 

My thoughts

It’s fun to see non-Linux desktop operating systems bring support for running Linux GUI apps. Microsoft is doing this with WSLg, and Chrome OS is now doing this officially too. There’s even been work by Valve and others to bring Linux Steam to Chrome OS, using this existing Linux on Chrome OS layer.

 

Sources

https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/20/22445382/chromeos-linux-release-beta-version-91

Techinically chrome is a form of linux. So it's nice that they are embracing it more.

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

you could also just... you know... buy a proper computer if you wanna run full desktop apps... 

[Giganthrax]

8 minutes ago, Ashley MLP Fangirl said:

you could also just... you know... buy a proper computer if you wanna run full desktop apps... 

Eh there are quite a few useful and lightweight apps that you dont really need a whole desktop computer for and could really benefit from on something like a chromebook

 

I doubt anyone plans to use a chromebook as their main blender machine.

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

Just now, Giganthrax said:

Eh there are quite a few useful and lightweight apps that you dont really need a whole desktop computer for and could really benefit from on something like a chromebook

 

I doubt anyone plans to use a chromebook as their main blender machine.

i'm not talking about blender. i mean the kinds of apps you'd want to run on a linux VM on a chromebook. if you want to run those programs why not just get a proper computer with native support for them?

[Giganthrax]

Just now, Ashley MLP Fangirl said:

i'm not talking about blender. i mean the kinds of apps you'd want to run on a linux VM on a chromebook. if you want to run those programs why not just get a proper computer with native support for them?

Linux VM? I thought they were just going to enable you to natively run VLC or Firefox or something.

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

6 minutes ago, Giganthrax said:

Linux VM? I thought they were just going to enable you to natively run VLC or Firefox or something.

no, the "linux app support" in chromeOS is in fact a Debian virtual machine. 

[jagdtigger]

1 hour ago, Ashley MLP Fangirl said:

no, the "linux app support" in chromeOS is in fact a Debian virtual machine. 

WTF? Arent chrome os a glorified linux distro? If so chroot would be way more efficient....

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

4 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

WTF? Arent chrome os a glorified linux distro? If so chroot would be way more efficient....

yeah but google likes doing stupid stuff, and the 3 people who actually try to use a chromebook as their main computer somehow put up with it... 

[WolframaticAlpha]

1 hour ago, Ashley MLP Fangirl said:

no, the "linux app support" in chromeOS is in fact a Debian virtual machine. 

Yet, Chrome OS itself is a modified Gentoo distro.

 

Chrome OS - Wikipedia

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

23 minutes ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

Yet, Chrome OS itself is a modified Gentoo distro.

 

Chrome OS - Wikipedia

i know, but that's not what they use for linux compatibility 

[LAwLz]

2 hours ago, Ashley MLP Fangirl said:

no, the "linux app support" in chromeOS is in fact a Debian virtual machine. 

2 hours ago, Giganthrax said:

Linux VM? I thought they were just going to enable you to natively run VLC or Firefox or something.

1 hour ago, jagdtigger said:

WTF? Arent chrome os a glorified linux distro? If so chroot would be way more efficient....

It's a bit more complicated than that.

The Linux environment runs in a container, not a full VM (using LXC to be more precise). So it is not as taxing as running a full Debian VM.

 

So it doesn't have anywhere near the performance penalty of a VM, but you still get a lot of the benefits (such as being able to limit both hardware and software usage and permissions).

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

2 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

It's a bit more complicated than that.

The Linux environment runs in a container, not a full VM (using LXC to be more precise). So it is not as taxing as running a full Debian VM.

interesting. it's still a weird approach though. 

[igormp]

Crostini is pretty cool, before the pandemic I was using my crappy chromebook way more than my regular desktop due do its size, battery life and weight. Doing regular programming (mostly jupyter notebooks or python web APIs) and deploying stuff. Didn't use much "native linux apps" other than a terminal and telegram-desktop, but performance was a non-issue, and whenever I needed to do something that required more horsepower, I could just ssh into my desktop or another server.

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

It's a bit more complicated than that.

The Linux environment runs in a container, not a full VM (using LXC to be more precise). So it is not as taxing as running a full Debian VM.

 

So it doesn't have anywhere near the performance penalty of a VM, but you still get a lot of the benefits (such as being able to limit both hardware and software usage and permissions).

It does run under a VM. Crostini's arch is basically a really lightweight ChromeOS KVM VM called Termina, managed by crosvm, which runs LXC and then you can have your containers, with many other tools making the integration between the actual ChromeOS and the container itself. The official docs explain it nicely.

 

2 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

WTF? Arent chrome os a glorified linux distro? If so chroot would be way more efficient....

They wanted proper sandboxing due to security.

[AndreiArgeanu]

2 hours ago, Ashley MLP Fangirl said:

yeah but google likes doing stupid stuff, and the 3 people who actually try to use a chromebook as their main computer somehow put up with it... 

What do you mean, Chrome OS has nearly 11% OS market share overtaking both Linux and MacOS, I highly doubt that most of the 11% of people who do use one also happen to have a different machine around. I have tried ChromeOS myself for about a week and it's decent. I can do all my python programming in VS Code with no issues, write documents, browse the web and even some light video/photo editing and I can definitely see where it falters and why it's not suitable for everyone including myself. A chromebook is definitely not suitable for professional video/photo editing, 3D design, app development and what not, but at that point you probably have more than 200-300$ for a proper PC, and most people out there aren't engineers, creators or developers and what not.

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

1 hour ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

What do you mean, Chrome OS has nearly 11% OS market share overtaking both Linux and MacOS, I highly doubt that most of the 11% of people who do use one also happen to have a different machine around. 

most of that is in schools and stuff, as student laptops. those people almost always have a better computer around, whether it's their parents's computer or whatever. 

 

1 hour ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

I have tried ChromeOS myself for about a week and it's decent. I can do all my python programming in VS Code with no issues, write documents, browse the web and even some light video/photo editing

i tried it too and hated it. even though my MacBook spends 90% of it's time running Google Chrome and basically nothing else, it's that 10% of the time where i really need it that matters. 

 

1 hour ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

A chromebook is definitely not suitable for professional video/photo editing, 3D design, app development and what not, but at that point you probably have more than 200-300$ for a proper PC, and most people out there aren't engineers, creators or developers and what not.

i'd argue it's not suitable for amateur editing. just the level of work it would take to get a decently featured editor like kdenlive running smoothly on it would put me off. 

 

also let's keep in mind there are more people than just noobs and pro's. i don't do professional editing or whatever but i use iMovie at least once a month cutting some clips i took of pretty nature stuff together etc. i also don't do professional art but i do my share of editing of pictures just for myself as a hobby. 

 

like, i get it, 90% of the stuff you'd do on a computer, a chromebook can do. but that 10% of the time... when i need to image a flash drive, cut a few clips together, do some coding, that's when i need a "real computer". until Google figures out an easy way (so easier than the current linux app compatibility which requires you to install stuff via terminal still) to get linux software easily running to do some of these tasks, like Kdenlive for editing video, a chromebook is out of the question. which is funny because i'm technically the target audience. 90% of my macbook's time is spent in either chrome, spotify or discord which all work on a chromebook. but a chromebook can't do everything i need...