GalliumOS Linux beta released for Chromebooks and Chromeboxes

GalliumOS beta released for Chrome OS devices

Chromebooks have long been big sellers on Amazon, and so have their desktop counterparts Chromeboxes. But now there’s a new Linux distribution called GalliumOS that promises to provide high performance and compatibility with these Chrome OS devices.

Beta 1 of GalliumOS is now available to download. The GalliumOS wiki has install instructions and a hardware compatibility list.

The GalliumOS wiki also has some information about why you might want to choose to use it instead of ChromeOS:

Linux can run many different types of applicatons. No matter what you’re trying to do, an application exists for Linux. ChromeOS is very limited. Sure, NaCl (Native Client) brings the ability to run native code to ChromeOS, but that’s a hack at best, and there’s still no good software to take advantage of it. With Linux you can install any Linux compatible software, totally natively. Firefox, Transmission (BitTorrent), LibreOffice, Steam, VLC Media Player, Kodi Media Center, the GIMP, VirtualBox, and many more are available on Linux to do things that simply aren’t possible on ChromeOS.

GalliumOS includes optimizations that eliminate system stalls and improve overall responsiveness.

Alternative kernel schedulers to prevent system stalls BFS for process scheduling BFQ for I/O scheduling Removed some services to improve the boot time and reduce memory usage Zram for swap, which is a much faster swap than to disk Removed unnecessary kernel features/modules Compton as the compositor for tear free compositing Performs better than enabling Tear Free in the Intel graphics driver Improved Powersaving The kernel watchdog timer has been disabled. Disabled HDMI polling (that doesn’t prevent HDMI connections from working) Reduced the minimum GPU frequency Improved Touchpad Integrated ChromeOS mouse driver provides a touchpad experience similar to ChromeOS Faster boot up Boot up time is faster than other Linux distros. Built on Xubuntu A fast, lightweight, beautiful, and fully functional desktop

More at GalliumOS Wiki

The GalliumOS beta announcement spawned a long thread on the Linux subreddit:

Snowdenofyesteryear: ”This is brilliant, you just sold me a Chromebook. Sidenote, are you looking for any kernel help? I’m a kernel dev and wouldn’t mind pitching in. A list of TODOs would get me motivated.”

Lokothodida: ”It sounds promising, but I’d like some more information before trying it out. Flashing the BIOS to get the distro running has me a little on edge if I don’t know the full gains. Are there any plans for screenshots and/or videos of use cases? Also, is it a distro that can be tried out in a virtual machine?”

LeekLaNerd: ”I did not have to flash my bios to get this working. Google recently updated some CB’s with the Seabios payload already included to be able to boot from USB, while other require use of a script to first enable Seabios.

So all I did was properly “Burn” the iso to a USB stick by changing it to a .img and using win32diskimager (free software). Then I put the stick in, booted, and at the warning screen (with dev mode enabled) I press ctrl – L to boot into the USB live environment. From there you can just follow the installer if you want to replace ChromeOS, or just play around with the Live environment and make no changes!”

ColtonDRG: ”Depending on your Chromebook you might not have to flash the BIOS. You can install it in a VM if you really want to, but we never tested this, and you should not expect it to work at all. Our distro is for Chromebooks, not VMs. VMs are not a good thing to base your impressions of an OS on anyway because their performance is simply not very good. The goal of our distro is to make a Linux distro that just works on Chromebooks with very little hastle. You don’t have to worry about drivers or any of that business.”

Dzeek: ”I’m interested in trying this on my Dell Chromebook 13. If I want to go back to ChromeOS how would I do that?”

LeekLaNerd: ”You can create a ChromeOS recovery stick by following Google’s directions here.”

MystJake: ”This looks very neat, but I’m not sure if I want to completely abandon ChromeOS on my Acer C720.”

Reynhout: ”Fair enough. You can install with chrx if dual-booting would be an acceptable compromise.”

Formerstreetjunkie: ”How does this compare with Chromixium?”

Reynhout: ”As I understand Chromixium, it’s about turning Linux into a ChromeOS workalike on standard hardware. GalliumOS is an optimized Linux distro for ChromeOS device hardware.”

More at Reddit

Steam Machine launch means big discounts on Linux games

The official launch of Valve’s Steam Machines has brought with it a big sale and large discounts on various Linux games.

Marius Nestor reports for Softpedia:

As a thank you to all of you who have believed in Valve’s hardware initiative, the company has put together a game sale where you’ll find huge discounts for some of the greatest titles supported on SteamOS and Linux operating systems, but also on Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.

Alien: Isolation, ARK: Survival Evolved, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, Borderlands 2, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Metro Redux Bundle (it includes Metro 2033 Redux and Metro: Last Light Redux), Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, and BioShock Infinite are among the discounted titles.

Additionally, you can also buy The Talos Principle, Portal 2, Dying Light, DiRT Showdown, The Stanley Parable, SOMA, Serious Sam 3 BFE Gold, Audiosurf 2, Braid, Super Meat Boy, Axiom Verge, Dust: An Elysian Tail, Octodad: Dadliest Catch, The Long Dark, BattleBlock Theater, Shovel Knight, and GALAK-Z at discounted prices.

More at Softpedia

Why people love dark themes in Android

Have you ever wondered why so many people really like dark themes in Android? A writer at XDA Developers has an interesting exploration of why dark themes are so popular.

Fiaz Malkani reports for XDA Developers:

Dark interfaces, for the most part, sport white text and icons on dark gray or black surfaces, and the subsequent contrast ratio proves to be easy on the eyes, especially on AMOLED displays with black pixels being turned off, allowing for “infinite contrast”. As a result, the readability of interfaces becomes vastly easier, reducing the amount of strain that the retinas are subjected to, proving especially beneficial in dark environments and at night, since unnecessary dilation of the pupils can prove strenuous over longer periods of time when constantly switching between a dark room and the bright screen, and is also one of the factors behind the belief that using screens just before heading to bed may interfere with your sleep cycles.

When questioned regarding their staunch support of all things Dark UI, numerous users also cited aesthetics as one of the deciding factors behind their preference. From adjectives like “sleek” and “cool” to “serious” and “pleasing”, the general consensus was that dark interfaces are miles ahead in the aesthetics department, at least among power users. When pressed for more details pertaining to what held the aesthetic appeal, a few users also went on to associate it with fictional digital and sci-fi interfaces, pointing out the scores of homescreen themes that derived inspiration from them.

Coming as no surprise in the age of battery saving, from users with devices sporting AMOLED displays, one of the major reasons why power users lean towards Dark interfaces, especially completely black ones like TRDS, is the advantages they hold in terms of battery consumption. These displays can turn off individual pixels, as opposed to whole backlight powering the pixel matrix in LCD displays, thereby significantly reducing power consumption with most of the screen being off, a technique infamously used by Active Display.

More at XDA Developers

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