I have think the same but maybe TODAY is not as hard as before:
1- We have 4/5 mainstream OSes today: Win/OSX/iOS/Android + Linux. In the case of iOS/android: Some users alread switch between the 2.
2- If it have apps is almost all people need. Drivers are not THAT significant IMHO.
3- Chromebook is a thing, despite it sound stupid: A OS that is just a browser.
Web is the 6 truly mainstream "OS".
4- What people need on drivers? USB (and with usb-c), hdmi, bluetooth (maybe?) + wifi. With this alone and you get even better than iPad: Monitors, wireless mouse, keyboards, external storage, and by extension you catch the rest.
5- Printers? By proxy of iOS it can work full wireless with no drivers on device.
So I think a true desktop OS could launch with less worry about legacy hardware.
Where IS the problem is the apps. It need to be better than chromebook, have very great first party apps that cover basics and hopefully, a VM layer so you could run linux and catch the rest.
> What people need on drivers? USB (and with usb-c), hdmi, bluetooth (maybe?)
Do you honestly think there is a single USB-C driver that covers literally everything that can connect over USB? And anything with an HDMI port uses the same driver!?
No, but I suspect the array of devices is more narrow than suspected?
I think that nail the software (app + dev experience) is a bigger challenge and priority than worry about the (external) hardware.
P.D: One thin I forget to articulate is the possibility to leverage linux as a bridge for drivers (possible)? so the new OS ship a smallish linux just for get compatibility.
Then you're just making a Linux distribution, or something like Android I suppose. You may as well say extending Chromium would solve the web monoculture issue. That isn't how it works.
> I think that nail the software (app + dev experience) is a bigger challenge and priority than worry about the (external) hardware.
Considering that the alternative to “OS in a browser” these days seems to be “every app is a (different) browser” (Electron), the Chromebook concept is not that stupid.
It’s sad that commercial realities are pushing people to throw away 30 years of progress on desktop UIs, but here we are.
1- We have 4/5 mainstream OSes today: Win/OSX/iOS/Android + Linux. In the case of iOS/android: Some users alread switch between the 2.
2- If it have apps is almost all people need. Drivers are not THAT significant IMHO.
3- Chromebook is a thing, despite it sound stupid: A OS that is just a browser.
Web is the 6 truly mainstream "OS".
4- What people need on drivers? USB (and with usb-c), hdmi, bluetooth (maybe?) + wifi. With this alone and you get even better than iPad: Monitors, wireless mouse, keyboards, external storage, and by extension you catch the rest.
5- Printers? By proxy of iOS it can work full wireless with no drivers on device.
So I think a true desktop OS could launch with less worry about legacy hardware.
Where IS the problem is the apps. It need to be better than chromebook, have very great first party apps that cover basics and hopefully, a VM layer so you could run linux and catch the rest.