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Operating Systems Ubuntu Firefox Linux

'Ubuntu Web Remix' Distro Offers Firefox-Based Chrome OS Alternative (liliputing.com) 47

Posted by EditorDavid from the I'm-feeling-lucky dept.
Rudra Saraswat is the creator of the Ubuntu Unity distro (which uses the Unity interface in place of Ubuntu's GNOME shell).

But this week they released Ubuntu Web Remix, "a privacy-focused, open source alternative to Google Chrome OS/Chromium OS" using Firefox instead of Google Chrome/Chromium. Liliputing reports: If the name didn't give it away, this operating system is based on Ubuntu, but it's designed to offer a Chrome OS-like experience thanks to a simplified user interface and a set of pre-installed apps including the Firefox web browser, some web apps from /e/, and Anbox, a tool that allows you to run Android apps in Linux...

You don't get the long battery life, cloud backup, and many other features that make Chromebooks different from other laptops (especially other cheap laptops). But if you're looking for a simple, web-centric operating system that isn't made by a corporate giant? Then I guess it's nice to have the option.
Rudra Saraswat writes: An easy web-app (wapp) format has been created to package web-apps for the desktop. You can now create your own web apps using web technologies, package them for the desktop and install them easily.

An experimental wapp store can be found at store.ubuntuweb.co, for distributing web apps. Developers and packagers can do pull requests at gitlab.com/ubuntu-web/ubuntu-web.gitlab.io to contribute wapps.
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'Ubuntu Web Remix' Distro Offers Firefox-Based Chrome OS Alternative More

'Ubuntu Web Remix' Distro Offers Firefox-Based Chrome OS Alternative

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  • Should Go Over Like a Lead Fart (Score:5, Insightful)

    by boudie2 ( 1134233 ) on Sunday November 22, 2020 @03:51AM (#60753290)
    I predict it will be dead before the end of 2021. If you're going to the trouble just put full ubuntu (or whatever) on it.

    • Re:Should Go Over Like a Lead Fart (Score:5, Informative)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Sunday November 22, 2020 @05:45AM (#60753426) Homepage Journal

      Chrome OS has a few advantages over stock Ubuntu.

      It's basically maintenance free. It updates seamlessly, every app is sandboxed and heavily limited and 99% of stuff is just done in the browser anyway. It's great for people who don't need more than that, like my mum. Not had to do any tech support for her since I got her a Chromebook, except when here router died.

      Oh and that means that it needs to be paired with hardware too. No mucking about with compatibility problems.

      • Yea but does Ubuntu Web Remix have those same advantages? That's the real question.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Probably not on the update front. Google has done a very good job with Chrome OS updates and seems to test them out well for all supported hardware.

          Updates on more generic operating systems running on your own hardware are always a bit hit-and-miss. Drivers break, new kernels fail to boot, some unusual configuration causes problems.

          • Annoyingly, cbromeos doesn't (didn't?) support recent versions of chrome browser. Chrome was/is tied to the OS which is tied to the hardware, so you're screwed if they decide to drop support...eg Google Pixel.

          • Until they don't. One big problem with Chrome OS is the limited support lifetime. After that your system stops getting updates. It ranges from five to seven years from the original release; the company guarantees five, but some models have gotten extensions. Some of the older devices would still be useful, but the lack of updates means that using them is a security risk.

        • There's only two ways to fund the kind of QA necessary, by datamining your users ala Chromebook or by high margins on certified hardware ala Apple. They won't want to do the former and they don't have the marketing muscle for the latter.

          Ubuntu did try a hardware certification program for a bit, but they just didn't have the market power to charge a decent amount of money either. Maybe if Steam would go all in on a Steambox certification program with an OS like this they could pull it off.

      • Slavery is very convenient, yes.

        Literally relinquishing the right to be a person by yourself, even more so.

        I guess I'm angry you chose a massa that is harmful to you. But what do I know, maybe that is your (only) wish ...

        Just stop ruining it for the rest of us actual people.

      • Its great for school shit too. When the lockdowns started I got my kids a couple Acer 2-in-1 chromebooks for remote learning. The student logins push their entire desktop and apps for their classes. When my daughter goes to college next year I feel the long battery life will be ideal for taking notes during classes, and its 11in size makes it more suited for those desks with the chair-desk design where the desk attaches to the chair for the right 1/2 of the area for note taking.

        https://storage.googleapis.co [googleapis.com]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kriston ( 7886 )

        It's basically maintenance free, especially when it refuses to update itself on all my perfectly working older laptops even though they all run Neverware CloudReady perfectly.

      • It's maintenance free but it comes with an expiration date: https://support.google.com/chr... [google.com] I have a 3 years old ASUS Chromebook Flip in perfect working condition, but it stopped getting sofware and security updates this summer because Google decided the device was outdated. It was my first and last Chromebook.

    • If you're going to the trouble just put full ubuntu (or whatever) on it.

      If you're going to the trouble of looking at this then Ubuntu is definitely not the answer. There are plenty more lightweight distros out there.

  • Huh? (Score:4, Funny)

    by bmimatt ( 1021295 ) on Sunday November 22, 2020 @04:10AM (#60753316)
    WTF is 'Liliputing'? Did I miss something recently?

    • WTF is 'Liliputing'? Did I miss something recently?

      You've heard of Nyotaimori, the ?art? of eating off women? (Link [foodandwine.com]. There's even a movie about it. [imdb.com])

      Well this is "Liliputing", the art of computing with Lilly on her fingers and toes. Don't ask her where the overflow bit goes, she'll get mad.

    • The obvious metaphor is of dozens or hundreds of tiny attackers tying down a giant who doesn't want to smash them with raw power, from Gulliever's Travels. Other powerful metaphors include "yahoos", creatures with language and tools but too foolish and too fascinated with pretty trinkets to be allowed in civilized society. Another is "flappers", people who flap bladders about the heads of leaders to prevent them from hearing that which the flappers do not wish to sully their ears.

      The "flappers" metaphor esp

  • Sounds good (Score:4, Funny)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday November 22, 2020 @04:57AM (#60753390)

    I've always said - they're just aren't enough Linux distros.

    • Therr are more types of people than car models. Let alone usage cases. Customization is exactly the key feature here.

      If you cannot handle that, you are free to stay with macOS, while you still have that choice.

  • Any distro can do it (Score:5, Funny)

    by xack ( 5304745 ) on Sunday November 22, 2020 @05:19AM (#60753402)
    Just run firefox in a fullscreen window manager. Yet another distro. There's more distros than pokemon species.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by xack ( 5304745 )
      And yet people aren't fixing the GTK file picker or making a fully competitive Photoshop alternative. Linux will be 30 years old in August, and yet it is still struggling with single digit desktop market share. Yes it won on the phone, but only because of Google's proprietary secret sauce.

      • Says the guy, typing this from a Linux-based device, to submit it to Linux servers over Linux routers.

        Here's a hint for you: Even MS uses more Linux than Windows nowadays. You can barely find a phone not running a Linux kernel or a descendent of BSD. Linux is included with your copy of desktop Windows. Your CPU probably runs a Linux precursor on its IME.

        The game is over. Linux has won and you haven't even noticed your guts are spilling out.

        Here, have a towel. It's not that Linux never was good for the deskt

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nagora ( 177841 )

        making a fully competitive Photoshop alternative.

        That's mostly a marketing issue. No one uses anything more than a small fraction of PS but everyone thinks they might one day need any given feature; they won't. It's the same bullshit we saw with Word Vs WordStar - adverts that were just a long list of features, biggest list wins.

        I've done lots of for-print work with Inkscape and Gimp. There's stuff that's beyond that, yes, but most people, even professionals and semi-professionals, don't need it.

        And of course, you can't buy Photoshop anymore anyway. You c

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dargaud ( 518470 )
        It won the phone. It won supercomputers (100% market share !). It won servers. It won embedded industrial systems. It won desktop of pro developers. It won 3D and video designers workstations. It won desktops of ignorant family members supported by other family members... What else do you want ? So there may be some gamers and photoshops afficionados still on Win and Mac, good for them.

    • No need for a window manager then. (WMs exist to place and move windows.) Just Firefox directly on X.

  • Wrong signal (Score:3)

    by sg_oneill ( 159032 ) on Sunday November 22, 2020 @07:29AM (#60753562)

    Can we stop encouraging people to make these horrible "HTML5 desktop apps". Bloated, slow and poor compliance with OS style guidelines. Its a bad technology, and its driven by fad seeking idiots hell bent on pumping out more and more intolerable JS frameworks that make developing software a miserable experience.

    Just, draw a circle around the whole practice, declare it cancer and move on.

    • OTOH, the longest-running desktop app I ever wrote without having to change out the presentation layer is an HTML desktop app. The seamless integration of local and remote sources resolved on the fly is a huge reason why. Web technologies -- if your business logic lets to keep to the fundamentals -- are remarkably backwards compatible. Huge aspects of the web ecology Just Work.

      • And you changed out everything else.

        Look! I can code the most easy to maintain program too!

        #include "massive_platform/that_makes_up_almost_all_of_my_program-and_changes_versions_quicker_than_a_prostitute_changes_panties.h"

        doActualStuff();

        Genius!

        . . .

        You know my most stable program? POSIX shell script.
        Probably has more features an gets results faser than your "app. And can be used in automating something too, cause it doesn't need a mouse. You know ... that stuff, computer users do.

        --
        "Filter error: That's an

        • Im torn between shell scripting and python for utility. Python dictionary elements give me the ability to do some things that parsing a data grid never let me do with awk.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      An HTML5 desktop app has a larger potential audience than, say, an app made for the Cocoa API of macOS.

      • Whats the fucking point of a large audience of the app is trash?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tepples ( 727027 )

          fucking

          What's the point of sexualized language?

          I'm interested in your better suggestion to develop an app for distribution to the public without increasing costs fivefold to remake the app for Windows, macOS, X11/Linux, iOS, and Android, and while bypassing some operating system publishers' costly and/or censorious app approval regimes.

  • Preferably in a webVM: https://copy.sh/v86/ [copy.sh]

    Cause, you know: More layers means more betterer!

    Gotta get that sweet sweet Intel 8088 120kB RAM performance outta my Threadripper!

  • How deranged and utterly careless with your own privacy and the safety of your data are you, man?

    Like a medeival lord keeping his backup army *inside* the storsge halls of is biggest enemy and going "But they are concealed! And it's convenient! You are weird and stupid for not doing it! Get with the times, longpants!"

    • How deranged and utterly careless with your own privacy and the safety of your data are you, man?

      Like a medeival lord keeping his backup army *inside* the storsge halls of is biggest enemy and going "But they are concealed! And it's convenient! You are weird and stupid for not doing it! Get with the times, longpants!"

      I basically agree with this sentiment at a personal level.

      However, I acknowledge the reality that most people are stuck trusting "somebody". To the average person, how much more trustworthy is Carbonite than Google? How much more is Apple trustworthy than Google?

      Yes, you and I have preferred means to back up our data completely locally, but they come from a good amount of understanding about where data lives and how to manage it effectively. That simply isn't a mindset most people have. It certainly should

  • The Chromium Engine seems to support HTML rendering better than what Firefox has to offer. While Firefox interface (which is damn close to the chrome interface by the the way) does have a few additional niceties.

    So you took the worse part of each browser and made a new one to expect it to be successful?

    It did work for Microsoft making .NET. With the Speed of Java and the Platform independence of Compiling to only run on one platform

     

  • which is sort of ironic, really.

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