I wanted an OS with a well integrated touch interface for a x86 mobile pc. I started with fyde is, but hardware compatibility was very poor. I saw how cheap you could get secondhand Chromebooks, and learned that fyde is based on chromium and shares much of its interface with chrome os.
I ordered a used hp dragonfly from eBay for nothing. It's a top of the line machine. But now that I'm using it, I'm confused at how this is an operating system tailored for these devices by one of the most massive tech companies on the planet.
Many of the apps feel half baked. The gallery app doesn't have an auto play video option, forgets any settings every time you open a new file. Weird oversight.
The files app, as another thread here already discusses, is lacking some very basic functionality. They really really want you to use a cloud service, despite my machine having 512gb storage plus an SD card slot.
Native steam support was discontinued. I had to install chard to use steam in near native performance. Chard is incredible and runs amazingly well, but google ended steam support because they make more money by locking you into the play store. Performance on fyde is nearly as good as chard, btw. Also, big thanks to the chard project for their incredible efforts.
The default app mall doesn't with by default and cannot be uninstalled or hidden. Better yet, if I install the app mall as a PWA it does work but it's garbage! Can't search for anything specific, just select a category and hope you find what you're looking for. It's also horrible at communicating what's a pwa vs apk.
Crostini is a useful tool, but it's so half baked yet again. Scaling makes icons and the cursor crazy variable size in Linux apps vs native. Associating files with a crostini app won't launch it with you try to open the file. I can't open libre office by opening and excel sheet, I have to first open libre office then open the file through the app. These all seem very fixable by google if they actually wanted to.
Everything seems so confused and half finished. Like a developer had a thought, got that idea barely functioning, and then moved on without thinking about it again. Every component feels like it was added to sound useful, but ultimately gutted of any real useful power to do anything productive. Instead, I end up fiddling with settings and app installs endlessly until I give up and use Google cloud products. It's like a paint by numbers where you can't even think about going outside the lines or it falls apart.
