Cloud as Platform
The new form of personal computing sits in the cloud. As computer users rely more and more on Internet services, and spend most of their computing time working online, it makes sense that operating systems would begin to focus usability around the Internet browser. We see that this exactly the case with Chrome OS as they have built an entire operating system platform and corresponding hardware systems around the Google’s Chrome browser. The XPUD operating system is actually designed to run completely within the browser. The Peppermint distro is a sleek, streamlined system that relies completely on cloud based apps and web services while maintaining something of a traditional desktop look and feel.In this article, we will take a look at three of the major cloud based Linux operating systems that seem to point the way forward in new OS design.
XPUD
XPUD is a Linux distro based on the core of Ubuntu originally developed as PUD (Penk’s Underbred Distro). |
| xPUD boot menu |
The project started as part of the Damn Small Linux initiative with the goal of being extremely fast, efficient, and as small as possible.
The xPUD distro has a boot up time of around ten seconds and takes up under 35 MB of space. This makes all traditional operating system competitors seem like bulky mainframes in comparison. The user experience consists primarily of a web browser and a media player. Beyond this all other applications or data storage requirements are assumed to be accessed on the cloud, through the web browser or media player. Using web technology an xPUD computer can be turned into a nifty kiosk that allows you to watch movies and stream content just like your family home entertainment system.
Read more: review of xPUD 0.9.2
Peppermint OS
Peppermint OS is another Linux operating system that relies heavily on cloud services. It takes up about 512 MB of space and can be downloaded via Live CD or USB.
The small size and low resource requirements are designed to run on almost any hardware specs from the past ten years.
The user experience, like xPUD, is primarily a browser and media player. However, cloud based applications such as gmail and Google Docs are given their own icons. When a user clicks one of these icons it essentially loads up a new browser instance running that cloud service. This gives the user the familiar impression of a full desktop without all of the drawbacks like actually having to deal with application installations and maintenance. There are even icon shortcuts in the startup menu for social networking services such as Twitter and Facebook.
Read more: review of Peppermint OS Three
Chrome OS
Google’s famed Chrome OS in many ways started the cloud operating system revolution back in 2007 when it announced the new product concept for an operating system completely built around a browser. |
| Screenshot of Chrome OS |
Google Chrome OS is different from the other two Linux distros in this list because it is built not to defy hardware requirements, but in tandem with hardware requirements coupling both the software and hardware together in one packaged solution. This is similar to the proven method Apple has built a reputation on and which Google is also known by from a server perspective as all of their systems are built on their own hand rolled operating systems.
Google has partnered with Samsung to offer two versions of the Chrome OS computer: the Chromebook is the laptop version and the new Chromebox is the desktop version. While it may look like its competitors on the showroom floor, it is much different as all of its apps, as with xPUD and Peppermint, live in the cloud.
Author Bio: This is a guest post contributed by Jason Phillips. He is a professional tech writer specially writes on crm cloud and have many happy clients. Apart from that, he likes books about Vampires and a father of two cute babies.
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