Remix OS: China's take on an Android operating system – but for PCs Jide’s Remix OS is Android for a desktop or tablet OS: with multitasking, overlapping windows and the shortcut conveniences you need for productivity-style work. And the firmware tweaks to make it run well on x86 processors. I’ve seen what the next billion internet users will be running. Jide was founded by three Google …
> "True, maybe because its more secure than a MS Windows OS and its Open Source and it works :)"
I think @Buzzword's point isn't that it's better than Windows. It's just that it's not new.
I agree. All the major operating system kernels have been around for ages now. It'd be nice to see something genuinely new spring up and gain traction, just for a bit of variety.
@jzl
I assume it's the cost, you get estimates of anything from 1bn to 3bn USD and up to develop the 2.6 Linux kernel, it would take a lot of balls to start from scratch and try to leap frog iOS, Android or even Windows, better off with a new wallpaper job and a big marketing budget.
Well, a new non-Linux, non-Windows, non-BSD OS is a tall order. Look at Kolibri for an example -- after years and years of work on what appears to be a helluva concept, it runs. it runs very fast, apparently, having been written in assembly. But it doesn't run much; the ecosystem of applications is quite sparse.
Haiku, based on BeOS, is still in alpha release after 14 or 15 years. But it runs some BeOS R5 applications.
It's tough to make something genuinely new, and even tougher to get an application ecosystem built.
>Well, a new non-Linux, non-Windows, non-BSD OS is a tall order.
Nor is QNX new (indeed, it is long battle-hardened in safety-critical systems), and it underpins BB10 which can run some Android apps (with some voodoo).
QNX's small size and real-time nature actually make it a better fit for most IoT applications than Linux. However, it is not open source, so organisations will build their wares on the potentially sub-optimal* but cheaper and more convenient starting point of Linux.
*sub-optimal in the horses-for-courses sense. I'm not knocking Linux per se.
While I'm happy to see Jide's Remix OS doing well, and undoubtedly PC compatibility is huge, I feel rather salty that their support of the ultra-tablet (Which was their first devide) was so short lived. It was released last year as a kickstarter campaign and has not recieved an update to Remix OS 2 (the one in this article). You can kludge that OS onto the ultratablet, but you have to wipe the device to do it. Can't be a**ed doing that as I bought it as a productivity device. Jide have a lot to learn about the 'real world' of productivity where devices need supporting for more than 8 months, and not everyone buys new devices yearly.
If successful, it would achieve what MS wanted with Windows 8 all together.
I keep finding the lethargy of google on this area quite amazing, there is an enormous opportunity for an unified android for phones tablets and desktops. Also with phones which can be used as PC.
Combined with google apps, google could offer an alternative for Windows PC's which would be hard to ignore by CFO's.
Maybe they have some kind of agreement with MS not to do this.
Android N goes further than Marshmallow with side by side and freeform windows. they just need to add the "start button and tool bar" and a windows 10 competitor is ready to roll.
;-) and it has the Google Play store or other alternatives as well. which actually have apps unlike the Microsoft one.
If it can run a "desktop" browser and MS office for Android thats all a lot of people will need.
Motorola Bring Back an Updated Axrix running Modern Android on some Powerful CPU.
>Combined with google apps, google could offer an alternative for Windows PC's which would be hard to ignore by CFO's.
Android is a bugger to keep up to date and patched. Some technical reasons dating back to Android 1.0 mean that keeping Android promptly updated and patched is a mess. Hence Google's ChromeOS, which can be kept up to date very easily.
>I keep finding the lethargy of google on this area quite amazing, there is an enormous opportunity for an unified android for phones tablets and desktops.
Android apps are largely geared towards a touchscreen interface. ChromeOS apps are more geared towards mouse and keyboard. ChromeOS is more modern than Android, and was no doubt designed with knowledge earned from the development of Android. i.e pitfalls were avoided.
>Also with phones which can be used as PC.
Meh. So say MS and Ubuntu. I can't be arsed. Much better user experience from buying discrete SoC-on-a-HDMI-stick - the bill of materials is pretty low. Software should be used instead to manage syncing active documents etc between phone and stick. More akin to Apple's (actually existing and used) 'Continuity' feature twixt iOS and OSX machines. It's the better idea - so steal it.
"Android is a bugger to keep up to date and patched. Some technical reasons dating back to Android 1.0 mean that keeping Android promptly updated and patched is a mess. Hence Google's ChromeOS, which can be kept up to date very easily."
That's wrong. Native Android devices (Nexus) for example get security patches on a regular basis. Only the screwed up Carrier controlled forked versions of Android are like you are saying, That's not Google, that's the carriers fault.
>"Android is a bugger to keep up to date and patched...
>>That's wrong. Native Android devices (Nexus) for example get security patches on a regular basis
Sorry, I mean that Android is a bugger for the *vendors* to keep patched and up to date.
Google release the new code, Platform Development Kit, to the chipset vendors (eg Qualcom) who then release a Board Support Package to the ODM (in the case of Nexus, that might mean LG or HTC or whoever). Test, and repeat if needed. With Nexus devices is no carrier involved to slow things down further, but the update might still have to be tested by regulatory authorities. Repeat if needed.
So updates for Nexus devices will be quicker than for others, but it still requires more effort on the part of the involved parties than it would if Google were to create a mobile OS from scratch today.
Or course this is transparent (not a bugger!) for the end-user, so you're correct in that way.
if you are reading around, you will have observed reports of "converged kernels" are now available.
In other words, you can boot linux as normal and could run this "remix" or android apps, as a normal app.
Of course this has been available for a while (libhybris? chrome apps), but it is nice to finished product arise...
P.
"if only MS allowed them to modify "telemetry" to be redirected to China's own "support teams".
wont be long: on customer data protection grounds or national security or probably both. China will say that if MS want to sell Windows 10 in china they will have to install a "support team" and data centre in China.
then they will move on to Android which being more fragmented will be a lot harder to control.
Then they will hit Apple. But by then Apple will say fine BUT even with support and data centres on Foreign soil with the updated security we have introduced in 2016 due to the FBI attempted to force us to hack one of our devices and end to end encryption there is NO way for us to access the data or re-engineer the firmware on a device to hack it. we will happily give you full access to the encrypted data have fun decrypting it yourself.
The US government does all the stuff we were told when I was a kid that totalitarian regimes like the USSR and East Germany did that made them bad and their citizens not free, and us good and free because we didn't do them. If it quacks like a duck...
Spying on everything, check: PRISM (and whatever code name has replaced it doing the same thing)
Informing on your neighbors, check: "If you see something, say something" - US Homeland Security
Forcing companies to support government spying, in progress: See Apple/FBI case.
Because most of the cost of a laptop or PC isn't in the CPU; if you want to match the features of current x86 laptops (comparable screens, SSDs, construction etc), there wouldn't be as much cost savings as you might think from using ARM instead of x86, even before you get into economies of scale. It seems like they are working on ARM hardware, but I'll be surprised if they're much cheaper than equivalent x86 machines.
And of course, the x86 laptops and PCs already exist in vast quantities, so why not take advantage of them?
How do you install the 32 Bit version to a netbook HDD without an OS, being as the installer needs to run from within Windows...
"NOTE: Currently, installation tool only supports Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 10, with a minimum capacity of 8GB. Users of other operating systems, please install on USB flash drive."
As the netbook is USB 2.0 it runs like a dog off the key...
Fix that and I might revisit.
Ended up using Android-x86 5.1.1.-rc1 instead.
If you have a look on the many forums, Google groups, XDA there is an answer to most questions.
to install on a HDD as the only OS:
boot the ISO file
Select RESIDENT on the boot menu
Hit TAB
Add: INSTALL=1 to the last line and hit enter
Havent managed to get it to work on my eeepc yet but looking forward to see how this progresses,
I want to keep it as far away from Google or other slurping as possible without play store and only side loading the apps i want im hopeful but will need network monitoring to be sure,
@AC I got it installed on an old eeepc last week. I created the RemixOS USB then booted into a live Xubuntu drive on another port and DDd the image onto the HDD. Worked a treat. Only problem is I can't think of anything I need to use it for - it doesn't load or run as quickly as a lightweight Linux distro.
Yes, I agree regarding AMD, competition is good as they say. But Intel was not mentioned in the article even once. Android is Linux, I agree there too, but then again the "name" Linux has never, I think, been used in marketing and was it not rather similar with Unix, was it not more like HP-UX, Aix, Solaris and so forth.
Around 2000 I started to follow how Linux started to take over the top500 supercomputer list. I asked the guys why they did not mention the OS used and they kindly responded that they just didn't. Eventually they changed their mind. By then I think one in two run Linux.
In this article:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/15/serious_unboxing_dell_unpacks_230_node_cluster_at_csiro/
Linux is not mentioned because it has become the default.
Some of you might remember the huge excitement when Apple got one into the list (for a while).
The reason Linux is not mentioned is simply that there is no marketing behind Linux, it's not necessary.
As for HPC it's not only Linux but but a hell of a lot of software developed for the task by many companies.
>there is AMD as well as Intel in the x86 sphere
There is AMD, but they have been struggling to match Intel's performance/Watt for a while now, making them sub-optimal for mobile applications.
The trend over the last few years had been for laptops et al to be sold on the duration of their battery, as opposed to how fast they are outright. Since the tasks that most consumers put laptops to are already fast enough with existing CPUs, it seems a sensible choice.
- http://www.anandtech.com/show/10000/who-controls-user-experience-amd-carrizo-thoroughly-tested
>If you want fast graphics with low power requirements, an AMD APU craps all over the Intel + separate graphics card equivalent.
That's as maybe, but are you going to be using your fast graphics 100% of the time? Probably not.
If you use high-performance graphics for most of the time (you're a gamer, or run engineering simulations etc) then you'd do well not to stray too far from a wall socket, regardless of your CPU vendor.
Trade treaty area? You mean like a country covered under the TPP?
Not specifically, basically anywhere the USA have a trade treaty that recognises US IP and provides for the means for US companies to shakedown users and enforce US patents... So that includes Europe, NAFTA, TPP etc.
Woo hoo - finally someone's really committed to making a usable linux for the desktop aimed at non-techie users.
Now stick it in the pile with all the others and wake me up in 5 years if there's any more than a few techies using it ("0.2 probability" as Gartner would say)
There is a lot of rubbish spoken about Chromebooks, and the notion that they're useless without a constant Internet connection must be the most popular. I'd expected a Register writer would know better though...
Having happily used Linux as my only desktop OS for coming up 20 years the thought of Android on my desktop makes me shudder for many reasons.
If it is just Android, that will make it hard to sue since OEMs are already paying Microsoft something. Well maybe not ones from China, but that doesn't get any easier just because it is on a desktop now.
Besides, the people using this in China will be people who were pirating Windows previously, so it isn't exactly going to cost Microsoft anything (other than future revenue they hoped would materialize, someday)
You need to create a Linux 64-bit Ubuntu VM, give it 8GB of HD and 2GB of RAM, load a Linux Live-CD (like Ubuntu), install the Live-CD to the VHD formatting the VHD but leave when Ubuntu asks for the Timezone. Restart the VM from the RemixOS ISO and add "INSTALL=1 DEBUG= " option to Resident Mode. Don't let it format the disk, but allow it to install Grub. Remove the RemixOS ISO and restart the VM.
Unfortunately, it runs like molasses...
unfortunately, it has that disappointing "flat look" like "Ape" and Win-10-nic . What MENSA CANDIDATE decided *THAT* was the right choice? Obviously NOT looking at user preferences and the market, which favor 3D skeumorphic over 2D "FLUGLY" (flat/ugly) by (often more than) 2:1 in just about every survey I've seen, INCLUDING the comparison of pre-"Ape" and post-"Ape" windows version popularity via statcounter.
Now, if they'd given me a desktop that has the 3D skeumorphic look of Mate [or at LEAST the choice of one, which Mate gives you], then I'd be a LOT more interested.
Also I wouldn't want to pay for a Win-10-nic license. They should offer "unencumbered" versions for those of us who won't want Win-10-nic.
Just a shame that i can't get it to fire up a proper UK keyboard and so far I've not found how to get my wacom pen working (the x200t is the non touchscreen wacom tablet version). But otherwise as something to mess around on it's working fine. I admit it i'm only doing it to see if I can get some games working on this for the little ones and when I'm bored (the win 10 display drivers pretty much mean any kind of graphics work is right out).
If you don't want to be stuck with the 8GB user data area - my partition is formated with ext4, and in the root (where system.sfs resides) simply create a "data" folder and as long as the boot command reads DATA= then RemixOS will simply use the data folder instead of creating a data.img file - and thus the entire size of the partition will be available for user data.
Sounds like a lot of rebooting and hacking required to get it working.
Sort that out and include play store from day one and I might install it somewhere for a peek.
Still, I wonder just how secure it is. Kitkat is already pre-historic and no doubt full of bugs. Add that to the fact that they run out of China...
Correction: Jide's first product was not the Mini, but the Ultra Tablet, which physically was a rather shameless knockoff of Microsoft's Surface, but running Remix OS. It's a pretty decent convertible, but the irony is that nearly a year after being shipped, there is still no OTA release of Remix OS 2.0 for the Ultra Tablet.
*I* would have engineered the system from the ground up - beginning with researching new and hitherto unconsidered polymers to make the little rubber nubbins that stop computers skittering across tables like puppies on speed all the way to creating a new user interface paradigm that leverages the innate human capacity to lactate under extreme emotional stress.
Once harnessed into my 12 volt sealed-lead-acid electro-mammary system, the user will experience functionality, productivity, and involuntary sensations that have, until now, been the reserve of science fiction.
Under the hood, an operating system based upon a literal interpretation of the lyrics to Hotel California will not only anticipate user needs, it will pre-emptively reject them - leading to intent-to-disappointment benchmark scores well in excess of conventional operating systems. Just wasted 30 minutes trying to work out why your word processor cannot copy and paste a row from one table into another table without reformatting it as a landscape oriented section using an obscure Roma dictionary? Pre-emptive Dysfunction will have your poorly formatted jumble of words out to the printer while your colleagues are still trying to jury rig something with the format painter. In the office by 9, inconsolable by 10, resigned to failure by 11, and to the pub by 12!
In short, the system described in this article is a cop-out. An acceptance of mediocrity in all its forms. A rehashing of every single conventional operating concept and a monument to the continued neglect of the human nipple as an input AND output device. Next contestant, please.
"Every 'new' OS these days still uses Linux for most underlying functions. That's fine, and I'm sure it speeds up development immeasurably, but it's not really new."
Well, here's the thing... drivers. If you write up a new kernel, you then need driver support for everything you want to be able to use. So you've got the choice of having to write all that code to handle USB, disk/SSD access, networking, video support, and so on, or start with a *BSD, Linux, or some other open source kernel and work on it.
Besides plenty of tuneables, Linux does have replaceable CPU scheduler (both for scheduling between cores, and scheduling within a core), disk I/O scheduling, network scheduling (at several points in the network stack), and I think memory handling, so if you have some particular improvements in mind it makes it relatively easy to try it out. (Well.. "relatively" easy still being pretty difficult, but easier than writing an entire OS and drivers from scratch.)
Anything above that level, the kernel gets it's root filesystem and runs /sbin/init. This usually starts up a UNIX-like system but you can actually do whatever you want here.
I think this sounds pretty cool.
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