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Chrome OS is getting full-fledged Linux apps
Google Chrome is getting a big upgrade with the ability to run Linux apps, with a preview set to be released on the Google Pixelbook today before rolling out later to other models, according to a report from VentureBeat.
It's a major addition to Google's web-based operating system, which up until now has offered web-based Chrome applications and, more recently, the ability to run Android apps. But the option to run full-fledged Linux software marks the first time that real desktop applications have come to Chrome OS.
According to Chrome OS director of product management Kan Liu, users will be able to run Linux tools, editors, and integrated development environments directly on Chromebooks, installing them from their regular sources just like they would on a regular Linux machine. According to Liu, "We put the Linux app environment within a security sandbox, running inside a virtual machine," with the apps running seamlessly alongside Android and web applications on Chrome OS.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday May 10 2018, @08:17PM
Some of you might be wondering, why use Chrome OS?
For me, the reason is security. Security researchers don't bring Linux or Windows laptops to conferences; it's too risky (try searching for DEFCON and Chrome OS). They bring a Chrome OS laptop.
Chrome OS has a lot of security features, that make every other OS look like a bank vault door made of paper. The bootloader and OS are all signed and mounted read only. Anything suspicious and the hardware will kick the machine into recovery mode and reimage the machine using the protected factory image. All applications are sandboxed, all users are sandboxed, much more heavily than default *nix file permissions. Updates are signed and happen automatically in the background; it takes a few seconds to reboot the machine and run with the latest security fixes (and Chrome OS gets security patches really fast, much faster than Windows and faster than most Linux distros). The lack of persistent state is a bonus, since you can wipe the machine without losing anything important, and wiping the machine is a great way to get rid of any software intrusions, if they manage to get past the sandboxes. Coupled with 2FA, there's not much an attacker can do even if they compromise all of the security layers, since all of your data is protected by your Google account credentials
Of course, this does rely on you trusting Google. If you do trust Google however, there simply isn't a more secure machine than a Chrome OS device.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!