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[anthill]

Inspired by this post, I just installed Google Chrome on Teapot's Ubuntu distribution.  Wow.  Fast, responsive, and very promising.  But...

• Fonts are tiny.  Webpages can be zoomed with Ctrl-+, and this thread has some advice on setting minimum font sizes, but support is patchy.  No way to change the interface size either.
• Keyboard shortcuts are un-customizable.  That means that the 'game keys' are useless. Vote here to bump the bug fix up the priority list.

It's pretty good, almost good enough to replace Firefox.

[tor]

• Keyboard shortcuts are un-customizable.  That means that the 'game keys' are useless.
  

I've used Chrome on the XO for a while, and this issue has surprised me as well. I did some tests just now:

• The current Windows dev version of Chrome (4.0.237.0) can use the numpad navigation keys to scroll the current page
• The current Linux dev version of Chrome (also 4.0.237.0) can not use the numpad navigation keys to scroll the current page
• The numpad navigation keys can however be used to navigate in a text input field in both the Linux and Windows versions

I guess it might be possible to write a Chrome extension to work around this issue, but extension functionality is not yet enabled in the Linux version if I remember correctly. (Edit: Turns out I didn't )

Edit: After searching the Chromium issue tracker, i found this, which appears to match our issue exactly. It is apparently related to this WebKit issue.[/list]

[Nayantara]

How soon would someone be experimenting with compiling a build of Google's Chrome OS (unveiled today) for the XO?

I can see folders for ARM here http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/ among others.

Edit: Some more info.

• Every application in Chrome OS will be a web-based application — there won’t be any local apps installed
• You can pin shortcuts to apps in the browser
• Fast boot times (under 7 seconds) will be partially due to the light environment, but also due to the requirement for Solid State Disk storage
• No mention of smartbooks; Chrome OS looks targeted solely for netbooks
• Support for X86 and ARM, so the XO definitely can be hopeful
• All Google apps you see today will look and behave exactly the same in Chrome OS
• Android apps will not be compatible — remember, no local apps installed.
• Main use case for Chrome OS requires connectivity, such as Wi-Fi. Google is planning for 802.11n support
• Chrome OS devices aren’t intended to be your primary machine. Google assumes you have a second computer at home or work
• Local user data is simply stored in a cache (non unlike the Sugar Journal). The book of record for your data will be on Google’s servers
• You won’t need a Chrome OS machine to use it. Most all of the Chrome OS features will be baked into the Chrome browser.
• Interesting approach to security: “Chrome OS barely trusts itself. Every time you restart your computer the operating system verifies the integrity of its code. If your system has been compromised, it is designed to fix itself with a reboot.”

[Nayantara]

Preemptive apologies, Chrome and Chrome OS are different things and I have effectively thread-jacked.  Mod's could my above post be moved to a new Forum\Topic?

[mavrothal]

Not really... but there is the "YouTube HTML5-ifier" extension that replaces the standard YouTube flash player with an HTML5 video element and youtube video play really nice and smoothly on the XO!!! Is not working with all the youtube videos but is good enough for me 
Now if the browser supported the gamekeys too would be perfect for the XO.

[anthill]

There is a shortcut-modifying extension, but it does no good since WebKit won't even recognize the gamepad keys.

Now if the XO had a numlock key, the gamepad keys would change scancodes:  KP_UP would become NUM2, which WebKit can read.

[mavrothal]

There is a shortcut-modifying extension, but it does no good since WebKit won't even recognize the gamepad keys.

Apple's Safari can and is WebKit based also...

Now if the XO had a numlock key, the gamepad keys would change scancodes:  KP_UP would become NUM2, which WebKit can read.

you can brobably do that by editing the /usr/share/X11/xkb/compat/mouskeys. There is a long discussion about it in this thread. However you may not have gamekey functionality for all the other apps. I guess that someone could have a modifier button or command that will toggle the gamekey function.

[quickboot]

Well, I installed the Google Chrome web browser onto my Teapot Ubuntu install-- and I have to say I am disappointed with Chrome.

Somehow it consumes vastly more resources than Firefox and its performance is negligibly better (worse if you use Flashblock & Adblock+ pluggins in Firefox).

Edit: HOWEVER it does play YouTube videos "smoothly" with the HTML 5 Extension
"youTagger" by download333.

Yes, XFCE-Taskmanager shows that the Google-Chrome application itself is only using <18MB or so of memory, however the overall memory usage increases from approx. 50% to ~90%! On one test website I was using. So it appears Chrome activates many other memory dependancies in the background, resulting in much more resource usage than even Firefox. (depending upon which websites you visit).

In addition, even after deleting the install file, clearing cache, etc. It chews up about 100MB of my limited FlashDrive real estate.

On the plus side, as Mavrothal pointed out above, it does enable viewing of YouTube video better after some reconfiguring.

I wasn't able to successfully get the default Font sizes to change, So re-adjusting the zoom on each tab becomes very annoying.

[Wayan Vota]

Here's some great photos by Mike Lee of Google Chrome Browser on the XO:



Also, Google Chrome will be in the Xtra Ordinary 2010 release - see Xtra Ordinary 2010 is ready.

[metal.lunchbox]

Again the license for google chrome browser explicitly forbids copying and distributing the browser which is why Xtra Ordinary 2010 is the only linux distro to come with google chrome. Please correct me if I am wrong. I'd love for google to have a more permissive license, but read for yourself . I found that link on the Xtra Oridinary 2010 site, by the way.

As for keybindings. If you mapped the game keys to next, prior, home, end instead of their keypad equivalents, wouldn't that solve the issue for chrome and other programs that don't treat KP_Next as we would like them to? Is there any good reason not to do this?

Wayan, what window manager and/or desktop environment and/or distro are you running in the above picture

re: html 5 - opera 10.50 will be out soon enough and it should support html5 video like safari and chrome.

[Wayan Vota]

But do we care? I for one do not. And I don't really see Google caring either. So power to Todd!

Again the license for google chrome browser explicitly forbids copying and distributing the browser which is why Xtra Ordinary 2010 is the only linux distro to come with google chrome

Oh and ask Mike Lee about Chrome on XO - it's his photo

[metal.lunchbox]

RE: license

yeah I spend most of my bandwidth pirating stuff, in a way that is supposedly bringing the television, movie, publishing, and music industries to thier knees, starving artists, and stifling our culture. I don't buy it and think the very notion of intellectual property to be deeply flawed. So why I should care about the particularities of a license for something that is intended to be free anyways, i have no idea. I guess I just found it odd to make folks agreee to all those licenses before purchasing Xtraa ordinary with such a violation. I suppose I'm just very sensitive to such contradictions. Thanks for not caring.

[anthill]

The webkit bug is almost fixed!

[mahlness]

Been posting a bit on http://www.olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=4692.0 but Wayan asked about my flickr picture, so here's an update for this thread:


http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahlness/4278054804/

I took this yesterday on my XO, using a little screenshot app. that came with my Xtra Ordinary SD card: http://on-disk.com/product_info.php/products_id/978

For my third graders, this will make our XO's into something a lot more usable than the curiosity they have unfortunately become. The OS is very Windows-like and has apps my kids will use for sure. Flash still not great, but Chrome makes it a lot better than I've seen on an XO before.

[anthill]

At the risk of continuing the confusion between Chrome (the web browser) and Chrome OS (the operating system), has anyone got the time and free USB key to try out one of Hexxeh's Chrome OS builds?  No mention of the XO-1 on the hardware compatibility list, but who knows...

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