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Comment by simonh | Hacker News Reader

To be honest, I always thought the IE issue was stupid, and surely from a modern perspective it even more bonkers. Google has an OS that is literally a browser engine, they're not the only one, and web technologies are commonly built into OSes nowadays at a low level.

The other anti-trust claims against MS were I think largely credible and reasonable, but that one really has not aged well.

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> Google has an OS that is literally a browser engine

It's not though. Chrome OS is literally Linux. You can install Firefox.

You may be able to install Firefox now, but originally it was literally a web-only affair. "Chrome OS is literally Linux" is about as accurate as "Android is literally Linux". Chrome OS is not just some rebadged Debian distro.

Do all chromebooks support linux apps now? AFAIK that's not true, and only a subset of them support it.

Linux != a distro though.

> "Chrome OS is literally Linux" is about as accurate as "Android is literally Linux". Chrome OS is not just some rebadged Debian distro.

It's not rebadged Debian. The default Linux in Chrome OS is literally Debian. It has apt, bash, Wayland, X11. And of course the Linux kernel is there. What more do you want before you call it Linux?

> Do all chromebooks support linux apps now?

According to this page all 2019+ Chromebooks support Linux apps: https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chrome-os-systems-suppo...

Chrome OS is Gentoo based and did not let you install arbitrary Linux apps until relatively recently. I think the comparison is apt.

It's a Debian container.

> "Chrome OS is literally Linux" is about as accurate as "Android is literally Linux".

I agree, but I don't think that you're making the point you wanted to.

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