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27 Nov 2009

Dell has just released a customized version of Chromium OS, the open source code behind Google’s new operating system called Chrome, in a build designed specifically for Dell Mini computers. According to a blog post on the Dell Community site, several company employees were inspired create this custom version after seeing Engadget’s video showing Chrome OS running on a Vostro A860 netbook. After tinkering around with the code, they were able to create their own version of Chromium OS, complete with functional Wi-Fi drivers, and have made the build available for download as a USB key image file from the Direct2Dell blog.

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About Google Chrome

After last week’s sneak peek at Google’s upcoming operating system dubbed Google Chrome OS, tech enthusiasts everywhere have been playing with the open source code which Google released to the community on the day of the press conference. This code, called Chromium OS, lets anyone take the basic building blocks of Google’s operating system and customize it for their own purposes. Going the open source route isn’t just an example of Google’s desire to “not be evil,” but protects the company from anti-trust, anti-competitive claims surrounding the new project – a project which is basically an OS that runs only one web browser: Google Chrome. In fact, Google’s browser is the operating system in its entirety. No desktop applications will be supported on this web-based, Wi-Fi only machine. As Google’s VP of Product Management, Sundar Pichai, said during the press event, if any other browser maker wants to build their own version of the OS using their own browser, they can.

Since the launch of the Chromium OS source code, there have been a number of articles explaining how to run the operating system in a virtual machine on your own computer as well as how to boot the operating system from a USB flash drive. But up until now, these efforts have been steered by enthusiastic technology users and not those associated with any large computer manufacturer such as Dell.

And while the Dell Chromium build isn’t exactly an “official” company product, it’s noteworthy for the fact that it was designed by company employees, posted publicly on a Dell website, and is customized to run specifically on Dell Mini computers.

Dell’s Chromium OS Build

According to the Dell blog post, the USB key image file (available here: http://linux.dell.com/files/cto) only works on Dell Mini 10v computers. Most importantly, the build makes the built-in Broadcom Wi-Fi adapter on these machines functional, a feature needed when running a web-based OS. After all, what good is a cloud operating system if you have to be tethered to an ethernet cable?

The blog post includes instructions on how to copy the USB image file to a USB flash drive, but unfortunately the directions are aimed only at those who have access to another Linux machine. We’re not sure why Windows and Mac users couldn’t just modify the instructions found on this website to make their own Dell Chromium OS USB keys by substituting the Dell build for the one hosted on that site.

In addition, if you’re interested in trying out the Dell version of Chromium OS, there are a couple of things you should know:

You’ll need a hefty USB key drive – 8 GB minimum.
It may take 5-10 minutes for the Chromium OS network connection manager to “see” the Wi-Fi access points.
Some issues with the connection manager are still present. If it gets hung, reboot and try again.
And by the way, there’s no “reboot” – you have to press the power button on the Mini laptop.
The Dell build is unsupported and minimally tested – use at your own risk.

If you’re still feeling brave, the download is available here.

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Tags: basic building blocks, Dell Chromium, Dell Mini, google, Mac, open source code, os source code, sneak peek, source, system, USB, usb flash drive, version

How To Run Google Chrome OS From A USB Drive [Windows]

In: tutorial

23 Nov 2009

Just a few days ago, Google announced the release of the Chrome OS source code. Within less than 24 hours, the web was littered with disk images for running the new OS on virtual machines such as VMWare and VirtualBox. I even managed to put together my own Google Chrome OS download in the form of a complete VirtualBox appliance. I’m pleased to announce that I’ve taken it a step further, and now you can easily try it on your own computer from a USB thumb drive.

Before You Get Started

Before you decide to download Chrome OS, there are probably a few things I should tell you about it. It is in the very early stages of development, so there is still a lot of stuff that doesn’t work. In fact, it may not work for you at all.

You should also be made aware that this operating system is very simplistic by design, as it is intended for use on netbook computers. By definition, a netbook is a small and inexpensive laptop intended for very casual use such as web browsing and simple office tasks. When you launch Chrome OS, pretty much all you get is a web browser. Don’t be surprised if you go through all this and say to yourself, “I did all that work just to log into a freakin’ browser?”

Requirements

First of all, you will of course need a USB drive you can use to try it out. The disk image is 2,988,442,112 bytes, so you’ll probably need a 4GB thumb drive to be able to use it. If you have any files on your USB drive that you need, be sure to back them up to a safe place because this will wipe all the data from your USB drive. Consider yourself warned.

You will also need a computer that allows booting from a USB drive. You’ll need to instruct your computer’s BIOS to boot from the USB drive instead of the hard drive like it normally does. When you boot up your computer, it should provide you with information as to how to bring up a boot menu. On some machines it is the F8 key and others the F12 key or some other key.

If it all scrolls by too fast, some computers will allow you to pause the boot sequence by pressing the Pause key. That should give you all the time you need to read all that stuff on the screen to see if you can find out what the boot menu key is (if there is one). If you don’t see anything about a boot menu, you could also try editing your BIOS settings to boot from the USB drive. You may wish to consult your computer (or motherboard) manual on how to do this.

You will also need a little bit of luck. Chromium OS may or may not work on your computer hardware. I did successfully run it on two home-built frankenstein computers (with ASUS motherboards), but it did not successfully recognize the network adapter on my Dell laptop. All of this work may be for nothing, if it ends up that Chromium OS does not like your network adapter. Ah yes, I forgot to mention that you do also need a computer with a network adapter.

Finally, you’ll need to download the necessary files to put Chromium OS (that’s what the open source version of Google Chrome OS is called) onto your USB drive. I’ve packaged it all together in a torrent for you:

Download the Chromium OS for USB Torrent

You’ll need a good BitTorrent client like µTorrent to download it. If you’re new to BitTorrent, be sure to check out our Big Book of BitTorrent. You’ll learn more than you’ll ever want to know about it.

The torrent has a zip file that includes the disk image, as well as a Windows tool for putting the image onto a USB drive. The program you’ll use to create the Chrome OS USB boot disk is called Image Writer for Windows. It’s a nifty little tool for writing disk images, it’s free, and it’s open source.

You don’t need to download it seperately because I’ve already included it in the torrent. I just wanted to mention the good folks that developed the great application and send them some link love as well.

Installing Chromium OS to your USB Drive

Unzip chrome_os_usb.zip, and launch Win32DiskImager.exe. If you need a program to unzip the archive, you can download IZArc. If you get the warning below when you launch Image Writer, don’t sweat it. It’s looking for a floppy disk that’s not there.

Once you’ve got Image Writer running, click the folder icon and select the chrome_os.img file (it should be located in the same place where you extracted the zip file and launched Win32DiskImager.exe).

Connect your USB drive to your PC. If you have autorun enabled, you may want to wait a few seconds for your computer to do its thing. Just close whatever window may pop up. Next, click on the Device dropdown and select the drive letter that corresponds to your USB drive. Then, click Write and the program will commence writing the disk image to your USB drive.

Boot Up Chromium OS

You’re now ready to boot up Chromium OS! You can just leave the USB drive in your machine and reboot it. When the machine boots, press the boot menu key on your keyboard. Select your USB drive from the menu. In about 10 seconds or so, you should see the Chromium OS login screen.

chromium-os-login

Login with chronos and password. This will log you in as a local user. Once you log in, you should see what looks almost just like the Google Chrome browser. If you click on the Chrome sphere in the upper left corner, you should see a Google Accounts login page telling you to log into Welcome. Log in with your Google Account.

chromium-os-welcome-login

If you do not see this page and you get a browser page that says it could not find the page requested, then unfortunately luck is not on your side. It means that Chromium OS doesn’t like your network adapter. You could still however try it out in a virtual machine if you so desire. If you were able to succesfully log in, you should then see the application page.

chromium-os-app-page

As you can see, it is all in the cloud. All the applications you see on the app page bring up different webpages, and everything you do takes place within the browser. In my experience, although it did boot up relatively fast, the browser tends to run a bit slow and is a bit jumpy. Although the calculator and notepad launch properly in little popover windows, the apps don’t work and nothing loads into the windows at all.

The To-do List application doesn’t work either, and you get a Google.com account login page. Note, this is not the same as a Google Accounts login so you won’t be able to log in with your Google Account. The Google.com login page is only for Google employees. The Contacts application brings up a Google Talk gadget that doesn’t appear to work.

As I said earlier, a lot of the stuff isn’t working right. You’ll also see right at the top of the application page a message that says UI under development. Designs are subject to change.

All the other applications are simply links to webpages. One thing that I found rather amusing is that when you click on the Hotmail icon, it takes you to Gmail. However, the Yahoo! Mail icon does indeed bring you to the Yahoo! Mail login page. I suppose Google likes Yahoo! better than they do Microsoft.

So what do you think of Chrome OS? Do you think it is the netbook operating system of the future?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Tags: disk images, f12 key, f8 key, os source code, usb thumb drive

Live Blog: The Google Chrome OS Press Event

In: web resources

19 Nov 2009

Google has scheduled a press event for 10am PST this morning where the company plans to announce more details about its Linux-based Google Chrome OS. According to the information we received from Google, the company plans to launch Chrome OS next year. We don’t expect Google to release an early build of Chrome OS today, but we would be more than happy to be wrong. We do, however, expect to hear more details about the OS and to see a demo of Chrome OS’s functionality.

Read on for our live updates from the event, which will start at 10am PST.

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We are updating this post regularly – keep refreshing the page for updates.

9:55am: Ahead of the event, Google has already made the Chrome OS source code available.

10:00am: Still waiting for the event to begin. “Some of our attendees are unavoidably delayed in traffic.”

10:05am: Event gets started. No beta, no devices today. But they will give a demo and focus on technical demo.

10:06am: Google Chrome has been open-sourced.

10:07am: Why did we do Chrome? We wanted to push the web forward. Over 40 million users.

Focus on speed. Mostly on the JavaScript engine, but also on other parts of the browser.

Updated Chrome over 20 times in the last year, but users don’t notice this because it happens in the background. User experience should be seamless.

Coming soon for Chrome: Chrome for Mac will be ready this year. Chrome for Linux is coming along “very well.” Extensions are coming soon as well (with automatic updates).

10:10am: HTML5: we want web application to get more access to the hardware. Example: graphics; multiple threads; real-time communication

10:12am: 3 trends in the industry: netbooks, cloud (everything is a web application today), phones getting computing capabilities

Phones are becoming more like laptops and laptops are becoming more like phones.

Chrome OS

10:15am: Chrome OS will be focused on speed, simplicity, security.

Every application on Chrome OS will be a web application.

Simplicity: Chrome OS is just a browser – all your data is in the cloud. Users should be able to log into any Chrome OS machine and be up and running with their apps and data in seconds.

Security: users don’t install binaries on the OS. Keeps the system safe. Everything runs in the browser.

10:18am: Demo time. Booting up on laptop takes seconds.

“Everybody knows how to use a browser and we want Chrome OS to feel that way.

UI will still change until release.

Application Tabs: just like tabs in Chrome, you will be able to set persistent tabs for apps (Gmail etc.).

App menu on the top left to access apps as well (see first screenshot above). These apps will be little widgets that appear in a panel just like Google Chat in Gmail.

10:23am: As netbooks get better, we expect them to become entertainment devices. Shows chess game.

Shows Google Books in full-screen mode.

Chrome OS will feature multiple windows. You can drag and drop tabs from one window to another.

Even the file browser is a Chrome tab. Shows what happens when you click on an excel file. Actually launches Windows Live Office apps to show them.

“Every app you write for the web is a Google Chrome OS app.”

10:29am: Every file opens up in the browser: PDF, Micorsoft Office, etc.

Under the Hood

10:30am: Matthew Papakipos, Engineering Director for Google Chrome OS on stage now.

“We want Chrome OS to feel more like a Television.” Instant on – all flash memeory.

How to make the boot-up faster?

Right now, operating systems still spend a lot of time on unnecessary boot steps (looking for floppy drives etc.)

10:34am: Verified Boot: makes sure all the components are working and haven’t been modified by malware.

System automatically fixes itself and reimages the computer with the last working version – saves all system settings and cache data.

Security: all apps are web apps. The OS does not trust any app.

Other security steps: files system is licked down, every tab runs in a secure sandbox. There is only a small list of known programs (verified and signed).

User data on a Chrome OS machine is ALWAYS encrytped.

All the data is synced to the cloud (on the Google Drive?) – user partition on the machine is basically just a local cache.

10:41am: Back to Sundar Pichai, Vice President of Product Management.

Going to market: Chrome OS – but also working with hardware manufacturers.

Will only support flash drives – not traditional hard drives!

Google will specify reference hardware (specific wifi cards etc.).

Google wants netbooks with a full-size keyboard, larger resolution, better trackpad.

Launch: wants devices to be out by next holiday season.

Chrome OS Open Sourced

Google wants to work with open source community. Will give all of its contributions back to the community.

10:45am: Showing marketing video.

Q&A

10:49am: Question: What is the target group for a Chrome OS device? Will there be Chrome server solutions? Chrome as a server?

Answer: First we want to get netbooks out – no servers – but this is a paradigm shift in computer. Other questions: time will tell.

Question: Cost of Chrome OS netbooks?>

Answer: We will see larger netbooks – no price point – no price target.Demo ran on Asus EEE PC.

Question: How can manufacturers join the program?

Answer: Documentation on website. Reaching out aggressively to hardware partners. For software developers: there will be a page that shows which devices are compatible already.

Question: Will there be an app store? Will Google certify drivers from OEMs? What about applications to edit photos?

Answer: App store: the web is our app store and we will work hard on making those discoverable. Drivers: working with hardware partners. Want devices to be build on reference devices and with open source drivers. Editing: some apps are not available on the web. Most people who will buy this machine will have another machine in their home. This is not meant to be a primary OS – just a “delightful experience to be on the Web.”

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