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Google is designing a new operating system (also at Github) based on its own new kernel (Magenta), which may be intended to unify/replace Android and ChromeOS. It is also expected to run on a wide range of ARM and x64 devices, such as Chromecast, Raspberry Pi 3, smartphones, laptops, and desktops.
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Google's New Non-Linux OS: Fuchsia
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If the thunder don't get you, then the lightning will.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Hyperturtle on Sunday August 14 2016, @09:23PM
looks like windows 10 with universal apps to me. I'll pass, but I am sure it will make for as valuable of a free OS as the last windows 10 giveaway with universal apps downloadable only from a company controlled store was. Windows 10 never quite made the splash with their phone tie-in, but the OS has phoned home and we can see what it has had to say. It looks quite a bit like what this google product is speculated to look like--considering the phone tie-in was supposed to work.
On the other side of the looking glass, I guess google needed a desktop space so they could show personalized ads in their start menu too, having missed out on that revenue? it isn't often they are behind the curve. Now that they can see what is tolerated, they can put this up for free and people will willingly download it and embrace their required login to google rather than resist having it forced on them by microsoft and logged into microsoft all the same. Google never really let you do much locally without that tether, though; MS couldn't break that chain of legacy expectations, but they are doing a good job of making the cloud chains just as strong of a tether as legacy support has been.
A strange lot us IT geeks can be, when choosing our masters. They at least used to look differently; now they both are trying to do much of the same things.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Sunday August 14 2016, @11:15PM
This OS, and Android is quite different in that it's actually frikkin' open source. Phone home? Show ads? Fork it. Android does neither of those. It's hard enough for Android (and Linux) to compete against the monopoly Microsoft has and all the free drooling advertising Apple gets without people spreading bullshit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @10:14PM
Android does indeed show ads and phones home. Or maybe you were referring to the completely unusable anywhere but virtual machines OSS version of Android which has nearly zero support for any device because all important drivers are closed source.
Regarding Fuchsia, being Open Source is not enough to make the product trustworthy; the OS must also not rely on closed source modules (device drivers, binary blobs etc) to work. Just look at how disgraceful Android has become: they keep telling it's open but all the important parts are closed, so that the number of phones/tablets where you can install a native Linux distro in 2016 is essentially zero.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 15 2016, @10:21PM
Yeah, good luck loading your fork on your device when the bootloader only loads signed images. You think they're going to make it easy to load alternative firmware on their devices?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Monday August 15 2016, @11:35PM
Well, they do now. In fact, they actually make it easier than anyone else I know of.
If you want to pick on Google, pick on them for something real, like supporting the TPP.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday August 16 2016, @12:57AM
Google is not "they", there's something like a dozen Android phone makers, and then you also need to count all the other device manufacturers too (TFS says that this new OS is not just for phones, but for all kinds of other devices including desktops).
(Score: 2) by everdred on Wednesday August 17 2016, @08:09PM
Sure they are. Google is effectively the manufacturer of Nexus devices, where bootloader unlocking is a standard feature.
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Thursday August 18 2016, @02:56PM
All of my android tablets seem to make connection attempts to 8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4 despite manual IP address configuration for DNS; or DHCP assignment of numerous other DNS addresses. Note that none of these are 'new' tablets. All are on 4.x something or other.
Do you know why android devices report to google in this regard? I had to block 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 on the network firewall; for some of my local-only tablets, I had to enter an invalid gateway prior to taking the drop packet actions at the network edge. (like for the pipboy app that needed wifi but not internet access; even without going to the internet via my direction, the tablet sure tried to. the application was installed via an SD card and running the apk)
These connection attempts are most easily observable with a packet capture; even t-shark right on the tablet can demonstrate this, if you don't have a means of monitoring the traffic on the wire prior to hitting a firewall (or checking on the firewall itself).
The Google DNS is really convenient to remember, its free to use and many people tell their friends to use it, but I don't feel like it seems necessary for my devices to go there anyway. My local DNS seems to be much faster since it's already cached the results of most of what I go to...
I am not sure what lengths I would need to do to ensure an actual android phone didn't continue to make those 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 connections on a cell network. Recall that Windows firewall ignores various blocks to MS IPs and domains, and that for that traffic to get blocked, host files and windows firewalls are not going to work; you need to do it externally.
That isn't possible on the phone network; once it leaves the phone via the cell service it's gone, and my firewalls can't really do anything about that.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Thursday August 18 2016, @04:58PM
Thanks, I'll have to check this out. I've never noticed before. What names were being looked up? My guess would be that this would be something related to being logged into a Google account rather than being in raw Android, but I could be wrong. Still wrong ignoring DNS settings in pretty much all cases regardless.