LO for Chrome OS - i.e. Samsung Chrome Book

users
#21

Tom Davies wrote:

Hi :slight_smile:
From the "Portable Apps"
http://portableapps.com/
http://portableapps.com/about/what_is_a_portable_app

As far as I'm aware, the Portable Apps builds only run on Windows. From the above link (http://portableapps.com/about/what_is_a_portable_app):
"A portable app is a computer program that you can carry around with you on a portable device and use on any Windows computer."

http://portableapps.com/download mentions:
"Also Works With: Linux, Unix, BSD, etc via Wine & Mac OS X via CrossOver, Wineskin, WineBottler, PlayOnMac"
i.e. a Windows emulator or compatibility layer is needed for other platforms.

"A portable app works from any device (..., cloud drive, ..., etc)" but
i've never heard from anyone who has tried installing their portable apps
to a Cloud. Each Chromebook links to it's own Cloud space doesn't it?

I think that's referring to the fact they don't have to be installed on the local PC's hard disk. You can "install" them on a flash drive, cloud storage, etc. and then run them from there on any Windows PC.

Note there are a few caveats
http://portableapps.com/support/libreoffice_portable#additional_options

Also i suspect that the WinPenPack probably offers a similar option but
they don't go on about it as much. The advantage with WinPenPack is that
they tend to get each release of LibreOffice out there quickly and they
don't skip any releases.

I'm not so familiar with that one, but the name suggests it may also be Windows-only. The installation instructions are certainly focussed on Windows, and http://www.winpenpack.com/en/e107_plugins/faq/faq.php?0.cat.5.24 again suggests the need for Wine to run under Linux.

Wrt Chromium, my understand was that Chrome was the OS and Chromium was the
web-browser but apparently it's not quite as simple as that;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_(web_browser)

It is rather confusing that they use the same name for the OS and web browser! I guess they want people to forget about the distinction between locally installed and web applications, and between files stored on their own computer and files stored on the cloud. Chromium web browser and Chromium OS are the parts they released as open source, and use as the basis for the Google Chrome web browser and Chrome OS.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Mark.

#22

Hi :frowning:
Dohhhh!!! Yes, being for Windows-only is a bit of a blocker!! Sorry
Tim@KrackedPress!! :(( I thought it was an easy answer and ended up being
quite rude. Many apologies for those posts!

Wine can be really annoying and their mailing-lists and help system tends
to be extremely rude to people. I get the impression there is some prize
for "rudest answer to a legit question". To be fair they do get swamped
with really badly written questions and there is such a huge difference
between each release that they really need to know which version, which
hardly anyone realises when they first post.

The only other way that i could see would be a huge amount of work
http://www.ubuntu.com/cloud
Has anyone here tried this yet? Is it as horribly complicated as it
sounds?

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#23

I looked at Wine about 8 years ago in order to run the very few proprietary apps I needed on Linux. I haven't looked at it lately, but back then, it seemed that the wine devs were focused on getting proprietary games working, not apps such as ms Access. I gave up on wine when the equivalent Linux native apps that I needed became available. 'Tis better to go native than to emulate. I never did use their mailing list, if they even had one back then. So I can't vouch for their "rudeness factor".
Girvin Herr

#24

back then, it seemed that the wine devs were focused on getting proprietary games working, not apps such as ms Access.

In defence of the Wine developers, the focus onproprietary games was due to two factors:
* That is what people were wanting to use WINE for;
* For various reasons, making Wine compatible with those games, made Wine compatibe with more non-targetted software, than focussing specifically on MSO, or other business-orientated software would make it.

In the last four or so years, the WINE developers have tried to keep WINE compatible with the current version of MSO, as well as all the old versions, and all of the proprietary games. This task has not been easy, and compatibility has broken in both targetted and non-targetted software programs.

'Tis better to go native than to emulate.

Whilst that is true, in too many instances, not only are there are no viable FLOSS substitutes, but the odds of a viable substitute appearing are on a par with the Chicago Cubs winning the Stanley Cup.

rudeness factor

The closer the software is to being an abstraction that end users may not touch, the ruder the developer list, and user-support list is.

jonathon