Web Warp Blog has been retired. For new posts please head to dmather.com.
Showing posts with label Chromium OS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chromium OS. Show all posts

Saturday, 14 May 2011

Chromebook

Google announced Chromium OS, an open source operating system, based on the idea that the internet (via Google Chrome) was all you needed. Then Google ran the CR-48 beta project where Google Chromium OS was the only installed operating system loaded onto a dedicated laptop given to participants in the trial. The information collected and extensive research conducted by Google has lead to their recent announcement of fully fledged Chromium OS laptops called Chromebooks.

The new Chromebooks from Acer and Samsung will be available in the US on the 15th June 2011. To explain the difference between a regular PC and a Chromebook check out this video from Google.

Wednesday, 8 December 2010

Testing Chromium OS

Google's Operating System is highly anticipated by the computing industry. The integration with your Google Account, 'instant on' internet access and 'no-fuss' computing promises a new age for netbooks. The OS is actually a product of the Chromium Project, the open source project behind Google's web browser Google Chrome. Once complete Google reckon boot time will be around 7 seconds. Chromium OS is completely different to the existing main stream operating systems, it stores no information locally and is entirely based on a webbrowser (Google Chrome to be precise).

Although it isn't officially out yet as a completed operating system it's source code is available (for free) to download. To then create a working distribution requires skill, time and effort. Fortunately there are several ways to download distributions of Chrome in it's current state of development. The easiest (and the method I used) is to run Parallels on an Intel powered Mac. From the File menu choose 'Download Chome OS' and your ready to start using it! I was very impressed with the automatic download and installation.

You can also download a build of Chrome OS called Flow from Hexxeh. You can install it using Parallels or VM Ware Fusion 3 on a Mac or with VirtualBox on Windows, Mac or Linux. I would imagine that you could also install this using Microsoft Virtual PC, but I've not tried it out.

Let me know your experiences testing Chromium OS using virtual machines on Twitter: @webwarpblog.