[Tfug] Browser based UI's

[Bexley Hall]

Hi Matthew,

> I understand the concept of employing
> different layers for ease of use:

Hmmm... I would have said "ease of development/deployment"
(hard for me to think of how this makes something easier
to *use*)

> Windows XP is, of all the
> insane things in this world, a good deal easier to install
> in VirtualBox on top of Linux, than natively on the
> hardware. I tried to install XP first, a while back, before
> installing Ubuntu 9.04 (I usually always do a fresh install
> instead of following an upgrade path), and I forgot just how
> many drivers I needed in order to make XP work. I should
> have first downloaded all my drivers, and put them onto a CD
> before installing. However, I hadn't thought of that
> before I installed, and lo and behold! I didn't even
> have internet through my LAN connection, much less through
> wireless! I needed to download drivers for my LAN hardware
> and all sorts of other things before I could get it going
> right.

But that's just a MSscewup (?)
 
> What I was trying to do, was make a dual-boot set up,
> because I have a iPod Touch, and wanted to be able to
> upgrade the silly thing through ITunes.
> 
> However, as soon as that happened to me, I said
> "forget it, I really don't want the hassle
> anyway", and just wiped it clean and went back to my
> backed-up virtual machine image once I had Jaunty and
> VirtualBox installed. Much easier way to do things. :) I

I use legacy windows applications on a SunPCi -- run *genuine*
windows in an X window under Slowaris (talk about a wonky
work environment!  :> ).  But, it has the advantage that
I can just do:
   cp /SunPCi/Windows2K /Repository/W2Ksnapshot
to safely (and completely) grab a snapshot of the entire
windows environment prior, for example, to installing some
annoying piece of software that will mess other things up.
Then, restore that environment with:
   cp /Repository/W2Ksnapshot /SunPCi/Windows2K

> borrowed a friends computer and upgraded the Touch to 3.0,
> and other than that, I have no reason to connect it to my
> computer apart from the apps that use a wifi connection to
> sync or transfer files.
> 
> I am all for technological advancement, and finding new and
> better ways to do things... I like the screen shots of Gnome
> 3, for instance (ducking the shoes thrown by the KDE guys :)
> :) )
> 
> However, I don't think running all one's programs
> through localhost is the way to do that, IMHO. It just seems
> that running code directly would be more effecient and
> stable, given the right programing languages and APIs, of
> course.

Well, its one less "dependancy"... one less set of things
that can go wrong, can get changed, etc.  (e.g., who knows
what Oracle will do with Java, now...)
 
> I do understand the idea of rapid deployment of certain
> apps over a large number of computers, however, you're
> not going to ever want or need to do that with ALL the apps
> any particular individual is going to want on his computer,
> surely!

Agreed.  E.g., I use Limbo for "trivial" applications as it
has all of the hooks a developer usually needs without all
of the bloat of Java (e.g., a 10-20KB limbo application can
do a *lot*)

> I also noticed an article on Chrome OS that mentioned users
> might even want both Chrome AND another linux on their
> system, to quickly load a basic Internet OS for times when
> they want to fire off an email or check Facebook or
> whatever, without running a full OS. It seemed the main
> focus there was time involved, with a slight gain in battery
> life as well. 

I suspect you will see systems exploiting bastardized types of
"suspend-mode" to improve start up times in the future.  E.g.,
just  push all of the machine state onto nonvolatile media
(disk?) and shutdown.  Then, restore the state from that media
when it is time to power back up, again.

> I just think with the improvements other OSes are making in
> boot times and energy effiency, that I am going to want to
> pull out my netbook and boot up Chrome rather than say
> Ubuntu NBR or Moblin, you know? Just how much difference is
> it going to make? I can't see it making much, when other
> systems get their boot times down below 20 seconds to a full
> desktop. If you have that little time, then you
> probably just don't need to be sending an email, you
> know? I can't presently imagine dual booting Chrome
> along with my other Linux-of-choice.