ChromeOS, The Mouth And The Trousers

There’s an old Northern English saying “All mouth and trousers”. Which means “Superficial, engaging in empty, boastful talk, but not of real substance.”

So The Guge have announced ChromeOS and they keep yacking on about the “operating system”. Spin! It’s not an operating system. It’s Yet Another Linux Distro (YALD). Linux is an operating system. A distro is a collection of packages making a platform on which you can do stuff. BTW: Android is also YALD.

They say it’s a “lightweight operating system”. They mean it’s a lightweight distro. As if there is not enough of those already.

They say “completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS” Hmm. Sandbox?

This bit “new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel” is interesting and I wish there was more info.

I think it’s great they’re making and releasing new stuff. I just wish it wasn’t drenched in marketing spittle. They could have said: “We’re developing a minimal Linux distro with a cool new windowing system designed for web browsing.” and we’d have all got it. But those marketing wheels must spin. Please!

See also, Fake Steve Jobs good ChromeOS coverage.