Linus Torvalds on new Chromebook Aura UI

I think a lot of people are missing the point of what Linus is saying somewhat.<p>He's really just addressing the elephant in the room by saying that as of yet the whole open source desktop mess has failed to produce anything that looks like a compelling , easy to use desktop.<p>If Google can produce a Linux based operating system that addresses the needs of casual users and power users/technophiles (like Linus) and get it on enough hardware (i.e not just netbooks but "serious" desktops as well) then they can (combined with android) simply eat everyone elses lunch.<p>What is not so important necessarily is whether or not local storage or local apps will "go away" but that Google understands that a modern OS needs to treat "the cloud", i.e webapps , online storage , social networks as first class citizens inside the OS. This is a metaphor that is missing (in a really intuitive form) mostly from even new OSes like Windows 8.<p>Hard disks are not dead, but I think the idea of having C:\Program Files\.. is. Even as a technical user myself the directory hierarchy is mostly just an abstraction that gets in my way. My work (i.e source code) is in git, my games are in Steam, my email is at google , my music on Spotify and all the "other stuff" is in dropbox.<p>What I need is an OS that ties all of these things together seamless regardless of whether the bytes themselves reside on the disk inside my computer or on some website somewhere but can provide sufficient tools when needed to fix leaky abstractions.<p>Let's suppose you could buy a new workstation soon that ran a nice clean Chrome OS desktop but had sufficient memory and hardware level virtualization that simply clipping in a "proper" Linux or all the MS libraries such as DirectX that you needed to run Windows apps was a trivial activity that could be abstracted away from the end user if required. Would you not be curious to buy one?

The most interesting thing to me about each of these little episodes is how Linus, by creating the brilliant Linux kernel, is lauded as a sort-of-oracle when giving his opinion about very non-kernel things. I quite like the simple, opinionated approach to Gnome and Unity but my opinion (and others who may agree with me) matters somehow less because I didn't create this great thing that has nothing to do with UI design philosophy.<p>I guess that's the true value of geek cred.

I think all the comments about the benefits/detriments of Chrome OS as a whole are a little off topic. I think the most important element of this piece is Torvalds' recognition that "simple" UI doesn't need to limit a user's ability to visually organize.<p>I completely agree with his comparison to GTK3 (and I think the same applies to Unity). Forcing users into a singular workflow with limited options will always seem somewhat inhibiting, regardless of how "easy to use" the UI may seem. This crucial element is lacking from these modern Linux window managers.

The understated comment in his post that really caught my eye was this:<p><i>"Today it decided to update itself to the new chrome version with the Aura window manager."</i><p>This will be a boon to the average user, as they'll have constantly up-to-date software, and security holes can get patched as quickly as they're found. That said, I would be concerned with things changing like that without my control, but I expect I'm in the minority.

This is one of my heroes, he never has let me down in his opinions. No BS, straight talk, one of the very few relevant people still not sold out in this business.<p>Turning the desktop into a retarded terminal for some company's javascript apps is a bad idea, but some can't seem to grasp that.

Anyone have a link to screenshots of the Aura UI?

Apparently it <i>does</i> have a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T).

It saddens me that Chrome OS is switching from full-screen windows to a stacking metaphor. The opportunity to move to a tiling (even just two columns like Metro) paradigm was there and would be a natural extension of the tab metaphor.<p>Disappointing, although I'm happy to see progress towards an OS that treats web apps as first-class.

I like the cloud, but I really hate giving out control of my data. It makes a lot of sense for public data (tweets, blogposts), which you want to share anyways.<p>I see a lot of potential in a "drop": a personal cloud server installed at home, with the same user friendliness as e.g. google docs. Public data/services in the cloud, personal stuff at home. There still is enough opportunity to integrate mmoc? (massively multiple online collaboration?) into those apps. An example of this might be diaspora.<p>Many drops make a cloud, too.

While reading the post, I was not sure if the tone was sarcastic or genuine! On a second read, it does feel like a genuine comment. Some folks should use 'Not Sarcasm' tag!

I agree, especially about the Atom processor This computer is mid priced. Other laptops in that price range use real CPUs.

I don't think a new UI is enough to make Chromebooks suddenly matter. I got one at a conference and ended up giving it to a friend because the build quality and specs were terrible - it looked and felt and ran crap without even taking into consideration how different they are to <i>use</i>.

I've never had the chance to try Chromebook yet, so does anyone know whether Chromebook has a native terminal &#38; a good text editor? I would love to turn it into a web development environment.

i've been using the first gen chromebooks since they came out and have to say that the UI is a lot better than before. it felt like you could not escape the browser unless you closed all your tabs or shut it off, but with aura you feel at home with a "desktop" experience that just seems right.<p>the hardware is another story...they're great for light browsing and netflix...kinda.

UIs that have worked for people for years should never be replaced.

Time to boot back into Chrome OS on my Cr-48!

The "All-Web" paradigm is coming, folks. And it really doesn't matter how much you love your iPhone, or your Android, or Windows phone. Native apps are toast, in the long run. Your data is moving to the cloud -- your pictures, your music, your movies, and every document you write. It's all going up there, and local hard drives will be history within 3 years. And what that means is ALL software is heading there too. Native apps running locally on your computer are going to be thing of the past, and it simply blows my mind that even people here on HackerNews completely fail to understand this fact.<p>The computing landscape is changing right now, and any company that revolves around servicing Windows desktop software is going to be in for a real hard time.<p>Whether or not Google's Chrome OS is the eventual successor is not clear (I don't think it is), but their general idea is correct. The all-network, all-cloud world is coming whether you like it or not.

I didn't know Aura was making such progress until my buddy got it on his CR48. I'm tempted to remove Ubuntu and reinstall crOS to use it longer, but I also still really appreciate my full Ubuntu environment.<p>If I recall correctly, Aura also serves as a real proper full window manager and already has support for Wayland too!

Love Linus but I think he is excited that someone is taking on Windows (cough cough :)). Files on cloud are great, until you get locked out and lose everything so...

Chrysis (cough cough)

Nobody else thinks it's an odd coincidence that this post by Linus and a post by Douglas Crockford both on Google Plus were submitted two hours apart?<p>To clarify, I don't think it's a coincidence and I think Google employees probably submitted these.