An enterprising young programmer who goes by Hexxeh has packaged up a pretty straightforward way to run the Chromium OS (The Open Source version of Chrome OS) on your own laptop. The site has packaged up a bootable USB image to allow you to try the OS on your laptop without having to mess around with your existing OS install.
It looks like Chrome OS development is starting to get interesting. Recently, this UI video and multiple UI concept pictures were released onto the Chromium dev site:
It looks like we're going to see a lot more of these types of features in Google's arsenal now that Google's relationship with Apple has gone sour, seeing them starting to compete directly in several categories, such as the Iphone versus the Droid and Nexus One. I am looking forward to the competition in the tablet category- it is a category that could use some user interface improvements.
Some geeks were expecting big news about the release of Google's Chrome OS today, and it turns out that they're partially correct. Google did have a big announcement, but it wasn't the actual release of Chrome OS. The announcement is that the Google Chrome OS have been released as an open source project: the Google Chromium OS. Oh, and it's based on Linux. Google is preparing Chrome OS for its eventual public release in late 2010. For those that aren't familiar with the Chrome OS project, here's a video explanation:
How, I hear you asking, "Chrome? Chromium? What's the difference?" Basically, Chrome is made by Google. Google then takes the source code that was used to make Chrome, and releases it under the name Chromium, with slightly different artwork, but the same underlying technology. This allows everyone who wishes to look at the underlying technology to look at it, and develop new uses for it, such as a Linux or OSX version of the Chromium browser, or wider hardware support for the Chromium OS. Chrome and Chromium are the web browsers, with Chrome OS and Chromium OS being the OS projects that utilize the web browser as the basis for the operating system.
How will Chrome/Chromium look? Well, here's a video showing the current concept for the UI:
THAT is a sweet UI. I can't wait to see it in person.
Here's a video that explains the open source development process and how it relates to the Chromium OS project.
Want to see more videos? Go to the YouTube Google Chrome Channel! If you're interested in helping develop this project, check out the Chromium Blog and sign up to receive updates from Google. If you're interested in how this news was announced, OMG! UBUNTU! has a minute-by-minute account of the Nov. 19th Google press conference, as well as a paraphrasing of the Q&A session that was held afterwards.
