Late last year, Mishaal Rahman reported that Google was going to merge ChromeOS and Android, and it seems Google itself has now confirmed that’s exactly what’s happening.
“I asked because we’re going to be combining ChromeOS and Android into a single platform, and I am very interested in how people are using their laptops these days and what they’re getting done,” Samat explained.
↫ Lance Ulanoff at TechRadar
I’m definitely interested to see what using Android across desktops, laptops, tablets, martphones, and smartwatches is going to be like. The same applications on all those form factors? So many have tried, and as many have failed. I just don’t think Google has what it takes.
It’s really funny that people try to pretend that they are merging anything. Android apps were supported on ChromeOS for years: https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/7021273
That was done with special altered version of Android run in the VM. It can run Android apps (which is the goal) but most system services (the ability to tune network settings, e.g.) are ripped out because ChromeOS does that.
And what is ACTUALLY merging is normal Android (with all the settings windows and other such stuff) with that special VM (that is made to run Android apps on desktop).
The ChromeOS itself… it’ll just be thrown away.
zde,
This would be a really bad thing, as both Chrome OS and Android have two distinct, and clean designs for very different use cases.
Chrome OS is essentially an immutable Linux distribution (the one that Fedora Silverblue and others forked form in the past) that is used for client devices with high security and a good layer for vm pass though.
Android is a mobile operating system designed for UI and customization in mind. It allows root (even though most devices don’t in practice) and much more tinkering:
https://gist.github.com/CrashenX/72cb5c25c374aa4dfb4e
Moving one way or the other will be problematic.
Yes, Chrome OS can Android apps, but as you mentioned they were in a VM. (It can also run full Linux distributions and even plays Steam games if you have the proper hardware)
Android as a base would be even worse, as it is not as safe, nor has a track record for running foreign operating systems or programs. It would be a massive undertaking.
Chrome also runs on Chrome devices (Chromecase, Nest speaker, …) but that was slowly being replaced by Fuchsia. So that might already been done.
Anyway, this would be a very bumpy ride.
Maybe, but you are looking on this from technical perspective… and for general-purpose OS to exist it needs to make business sense. And, for all virtues of ChromeOS it doesn’t make sense from the business side. When Darin Fisher destroyed any chance of ChromeOS ever getting any apps, 15 years ago, it was a death sentence which made ChromeOS superfluous: it apps that your OS may run are all Android apps… why not just use Android?
For a long time people who ignore money and only look on technical architecture kept ChromeOS alive, but it looks as if Google have, finally, started counting money – and that mean ChromeOS had to go. It’s as simple as that.
As “track record for running foreign operating systems or programs”… Android doesn’t need that. It has more than enough apps and app developers to survive with just natives apps… and if people would know it’s supported on laptops (and, eventually, desktops) – they would adjust their apps to work with mouse and keyboard.
So the only question here is not why Google does that, but why the heck it resisted and haven’t done that a decade ago… I have no answer to that question… maybe internal politics or maybe some people believe that technical superiority is enough to support you platform even it makes no business sense… IDK, honestly.
But the fact that ChromeOS needs to be replaced with Android was obvious 15 years ago and for the last 10 years it was just a funny, yet, ultimately, doomed experiment…
zde,
From a business point of view, it would be suicide.
ChromeOS is how they get the next generation of users. Kids do not choose the “uncool” Android for their phones, but all of them (and their schools) want Chromebooks.
The application issue is solved too. Between PWAs, Android support and entire Linux being available (vscode, Steam, intellij, …) they have become very capable devices.
What do you think will happen when the migration fails (they always do, no need to have a crystal ball)?
“Hey, Google Rep, our Chromebooks at school are not longer working properly”
“No worries, I see they have been upgraded to Android. You might look into getting new devices. And the feature you love and need for monitoring? No longer available”
Will they continue paying $75 per seat per year for the broken version?
Or at least some of those schools will start looking elsewhere?
You are describing the situation from the POV of a small part of the world: US.
Situation in other parts of the world is very-very different: Android may not be “cool”, but it’s used by the majority of users – while ChromeOS is curiosity used by very few people in schools and outside of schools.
And there are absolutely no need to migrate anyone to Android: new “ChromeOS” devices would come with new “ChromeOS”, based in Android while old devices can still be supported in, essentially, frozen form for 5 or 10 years, if needed.
Some could be migrated, but that’s pretty much optional.
That’s how Microsoft migrated people to Windows NT codebase, why should it fail for Google?
And if you think Google is after these $75 per year… think again. There are only 20 million of Chromebooks and not every Chromebook owner pays $75 per year, many pay nothing at all.
The *true* goal was always the market penetration to ensure people would continue to use Google Services… and ChromeOS failed SPECTACULARL:Y for that: it’s behind Windows, behind macOS and even padOS… it’s so far behind it’s not even funny.
Again: situation in US is a bit different, but US is no longer the only country that matters…
I’d say that basically ios and android are immutable OSes. And probably the first at that, They are a new generation of OSes more safe and secure than desktop OSes and those are still trying to catch up. Current linux immutable distros are strongly inspired by Android. They still lag behind as I think most don’t yet have something like A/B partitioning. But flatpak and its permissions are somewhat similar to android’s vm and its permissions, leaving the old idea of “user has permissions for read, write” to app has permission to network, read this sensor and so on. Now regarding the UI, there will be an adapted UI for laptops, clearly.
Wasnt this new like in 2016? What is taking so long?
I ended up getting a free 2022 era chromebook from a friend who ended up replacing it with a windows laptop. I wrongly assumed that one could install a proper linux distro onto all chromebooks. It turns out this isn’t generically true and only some models/manufacturers support that. I could only boot into the preexisting linux environment, but couldn’t install a full distro. Moreover the bootloader made a blaring noise for several seconds every bootup to warn that the system is modified. I couldn’t even boot up a stupid laptop without waking everyone else up, or imagine I wanted to use it on a plane…FUCK GOOGLE for pulling that shit!!!! Seriously no amount of expletives will do it justice. And all it takes is a “space bar, enter key” to wipe my whole system without even an admin password. I got a SuzyQ cable to try to reprogram it but it turns out this only works with some specific models too. Honestly I didn’t previously hate chromebooks so much but this was when I wrongly assumed all chromebooks could be reprogrammed. Maybe if I coincidentally ended up with an unrestricted model I’d have a different opinion of them, but after several hours trying to get another distro on it I wanted nothing to do with it. Needless to say I absolutely despise devices designed to lock owners out of their own hardware and I hate chromebooks for this reason.
I ended up giving it to my dad, assuming it’d be good enough for him, but he found it it doesn’t support the full version of thunderbird. It only runs the android version, which is extremely limited and lacking many features. He’s not a tech guy and even he told me it wasn’t good enough for him..
My uncle-in-law didn’t do any research and bought a chromebook only to learn that chromeos couldn’t run his applications or use his printer. This was his fault for not checking compatibility, but at the same time I wonder how many millions of chromebook owners are in the same boat.
Sorry for my long winded rant, it’s my roundabout way of saying good riddance to chromeos, you were more trouble than you were worth and I for one won’t be missing you.
Wow, I had no idea Chromebooks could be such a PITA. Good riddance indeed. Though I’m not very confident things will be less locked down with the Android iteration.
Moochman,
To be clear, my experience is limited to this one chromebook device. If the usb programming cable had happened to work with my model I’d probably be none-the-wiser about the procedure not working with all chromebooks. Maybe the startup noises and ridiculously insecure device reset would have been fixed too? Not sure how these are hardcoded in the firmware. I might have been able to hack out these antifeatures with an in circuit flash programmer but by this point I’m already upset that the hardware erects these obstacles. Not a fan.
ChromeOS devices not being locked down is the exception. I got lucky with the device I inherited. Removing a screw was easy, but it’s still way more work then a regular x86 device.
Moochman,
It’s a valid point, I can see them keeping the worst anti-features in place too. 🙁
You can be 100% sure Android would just as tightly locked up as ChromeOS, but there would be a big difference: developers would actually be willing to support Android apps on Android – but convincing them to support weird niche platform that could only be run on a special hardware designed just for it (and unknown in the majority of the world!) is really hard.
ChromeOS, for better or for worse, is an US phenomenon, while Android is global.
We’ll see. Android devs haven’t really supported the tablet form factor, so it remains to be seen if they’ll bother to adapt to this 3rd form factor.
Android desktops and laptops are probably going to run into the same problems, plus not running regular desktop apps. Switching to Android doesn’t really solve any problems ChromeOS had.
Google should really give up on desktops/laptops. They need to shore up their Android base because, at least in the US, Samsung is Android.
Android devs had no incentive to support tablets or desktop because even Google dropped the ball: the last Android tablet from Google was Pixel C, that was released almost 10 years ago, but even that one was, initially, designed to be ChromeOS device, it just got an Android when it become obvious that ChromeOS is way to heavy to be usable with it.
The biggest problem of ChromeOS was always the fact that after initial failure of creating non-hostile environment for app development it always had to rely on VM and nested OSes to get any apps.
Whether Android will succeed we couldn’t predict, but trying to push extremely resource-hungry and sluggish stack as a “lightweight OS” was doomed idea from the start.
If you remove the ChromeOS and put Android on real hardware you, at least, solve that issue.
Yeah, Chromebooks are finicky trash. They’re appealing if the person is hellbent on running 100% Google, but they’re not super useful otherwise.
Chrome apps dying really hurt ChromeOS.
People like to whine about MS locking down 3rd party laptops, but Google actually did it with their Coreboot supporting, Linux running Chrome devices.
I got lucky. I inherited a Chromebox, and it’s my OpenBSD box now. 🙂
The hardware is pretty low spec and narrow, for the most part. The older stuff was interesting for being Arm, but the majority of ChromeOS hardware was becoming expensive x86 equipment. It doesn’t make sense to buy the hardware since there is plenty of x86 hardware which will run Linux just fine for the same price.
Hardware wise, the original idea of being a netbook successor was cool. Who doesn’t want just enough hardware and lots of battery life? Google wasn’t able to optimize the software enough, because web dev is kind of garbage, and ChromeOS was hindered by not being being a full LInux. The backed themselves into a corner by going with a proprietary display server.
I will also content Flutter was too little, too late. A full Linux distro with Flutter as it’s desktop development kit would have been better.
Alfman,
The new Linux (Crostini) requires hardware VM support among other things.
But when it works, it worked great. I have used it for several years as my primary desktop, and had almost no complaints (was running a “pre-alpha” version of OS, so I ran into some bugs the public would not otherwise)
The issue is, as you have painfully found out, not all models do support it.
Here is a list btw:
https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chrome-os-systems-supporting-linux/
Some even support nested virtualization:
https://chromeos.dev/en/android-environment#supported-devices-for-the-android-emulator
Yes, I assumed this as well, as this became a standard feature. What was that 2022 Chromebook? It would be a wild exception…
sukru,
Fair point, I don’t know if VM would have worked or not, but I had zero desire to run linux in a VM that would share resources on a low spec chromebook. If don’t desire chromeos for anything, then it would objectively be better to dual boot, this is really how it should work. Not only that but I don’t really want the chromebook phoning home and tracking me behind the scenes.
Imagine telling a linux user not to install on bare metal and to run their favorite linux distros in a VM on a windows machine instead? It’s fine for owners who want to run both, but otherwise it makes a lot more sense to install on bare metal and get rid of the dead weight of the unwanted OS. Most linux users will at least want to be able to dual boot. The is true on chromebooks except that google doesn’t respect power users enough to offer it. I concede fault for assuming SuzyQ programming cables were able to unlock any chromebook, but google must concede fault for being a dick to power users.
There were a couple more paragraphs about the ever present risk of rising authoritarian governments usurping the control that corporations withhold from owners, but it was long winded and I’ve edited it out to spare you my philosophy 🙂
Re: most linux users will at least want to be able to dual boot.
I’m not so sure it’s true, these days. I know a lot of Linux “user” who only need it because they develop software for it and most are pretty happy with WSL.
They prefer Windows with WSL and not dual boot because there are lots of software available for Windows that’s not available for Linux (including, but not limited to MS Office and games).
The problem with ChromeOS is not the fact that it forces you to use Linux in a VM, but the fact that most apps that you want to run on it would run in said VM!
That situation doesn’t make any sense: why not make the OS that would run the most apps run on bare metal and make the one that runs some specialized things run in a VM… ChromeOS does the opposite…
zde,
That’s one possibility, but I’ll offer two more:
1) WSL used by windows users who dislike linux, but need to access linux in some capacity for work.
2) WSL used by linux users who dislike windows, but are forced to use windows for work.
When people are on their own machines, I suspect the ratio of users who want bare metal installs is much higher.
Not for nothing, but dual booting is the genuine solution for most linux users. Sometimes you really want netbook style hardware and chromebooks are perfect….except for google’s restrictions, which is a shame.
Don’t forget cars and TVs 🙂
This is a move by Alphabet to add value to “Android”.
If thy are forced to sell off parts of their organisation they want to ensure they are packaged up in nice little bundles well in advance. The last thing they want is for others to buy all the profitable parts and them be left with the Side-projects and loss-leaders.
Over the coming year or two I expect we will see much more of this kind of “reorg” happening.
I assume the next will be someone “gaining” Fitbit I’m thinking Waze, Waymo or Google Health
LOL If he doesn’t know the answers, it’s going to be a rough ride!
This is, of course, par of Google. They don’t know how people use computers.
“Google is the Internet”. LOL The world is full of bad networks, and Google wasn’t built to deal with those.