Considering dual boot and the BOS

One of the weirder things that happened for me years ago was reading through harsh critiques of the concept of Chromebooks, which I consider to be using a Browser Operating System or BOS in that the focus is on getting you to the browser quickly. So you build around it.

However when I first talked about a BOS in a post on this blog May 2008, I also brought up dual boot:

The BOS could even start Windows or Linux or whatever else operating system you wanted--if you needed.

One of those fun things is to go back to your own writing years later. But my motivation here is in considering recent reports speculating on the Android operating system and the Chrome operating system of Chromebooks as if they might be combined.

It dawned on me that if someone wanted to follow the roadmap I gave, they might instead consider putting out hybrid dual-boot systems, like with Android and Chrome OS.

Of course Linux already has dual boot capability, so some people run Linux and Chrome OS anyway. But if that were something official? And some top notch reporters didn't have the tech expertise to understand it?

Might they not think it meant something else?

And I'm just speculating myself but gives me an opportunity to expand on something that means a lot to me. And I wish there were more BOS computers out there! Talk Chromebooks as best example of which I know. And I think hybrid dual boots may be the computers of the future.

Some might wonder what's the point of two? But then you can keep unnecessary junk for it out of the BOS, which is a lot of the point in the first place, remember? It can also be more secure, as well as faster.

Then it's with the needs of the user, not limited by their equipment.

After all, the user matters most, right? And if a system can boot quick so you can get on the web and do everything from your browser, and then switch to something else if you found you needed it? Who wouldn't want that?

I know I would.


James Harris