Chrome OS notebooks from Acer and Samsung are expected to launch next calendar month at $349 and $429, respectively. The fact that you can get a more powerful netbook with Windows 7 pre-installed for roughly the same price, or even less, is already putting some people off. Merely that doesn't mean you should disregard Google's operating system without so much as giving information technology a try -- especially since it'southward bachelor as a complimentary download for you to exam on your own hardware.

Google Chrome Bone is to Chromium OS what the Google Chrome browser is to Chromium. It's substantially Chrome OS's open source blood brother, used primarily past developers, with code that is bachelor for anyone to checkout, modify, and build.

While you'd normally have to build Chromium OS from source to try it out on your reckoner, several developers have released installable builds that will salve you the trouble. Over at chromeos.hexxeh.net, builds are automatically generated each day at around 6PM GMT from the latest Chromium source code, and made bachelor in either bootable USB, VirtualBox or VMWare format. Nosotros'll cover both methods in this article while highlighting their pros and cons.

Virtualization Through VirtualBox

Although Hexxeh recommends USB images for the best experience, the easiest fashion to try out Chromium Bone without even rebooting your computer is running it as a virtual machine. More importantly, since Chromium Os will not run on all hardware, this is the fashion to get if you lot've got an incompatible machine and just want to give it a quick look.

  1. To get started download and install VirtualBox, so head to this page and get the latest VirtualBox build (for this example we are using version 0.13.526.r8fce2546, congenital on May 17 2022).
  2. Extract the image file using an application like vii-Nix or WinRAR, and then you get a .vdi file.
  3. Open VirtualBox and create a new virtual machine using whatsoever name you similar. Nether Os Blazon, select Linux as the operating system and go out Ubuntu equally the operating system version.
  4. Next you'll have to gear up the amount of memory that will be allocated for the virtual machine. For our test we but left information technology at 512MB, which seemed acceptable, but you tin ramp it upwards a petty if wanted.
  5. In the next screen choose "use existing hard drive" and click on the explore folder to the correct. Select the .vdi file extracted on step 2, then click next through the residue of the screens and you lot're done. You lot tin can commencement the virtual auto and begin using Chromium OS right away.

If you lot'd rather employ VMWare the procedure should be pretty like, but make certain to download the appropriate image file.

The disadvantage of running Chromium OS as a virtual motorcar is that there's no graphical acceleration and it simply won't exist every bit fast as the operating organisation is designed to be. On the other mitt, as mentioned before, information technology volition load on your reckoner and be usable even if your hardware is not listed equally compatible on the Chromium OS website.

If for some reason Chromium Bone won't load y'all tin merely download a previous build instead. Information technology's not a common occurrence but Hexxeh's repository keeps an archive of daily builds going back up to a month.

Kick Chrome Os from a USB drive

If you've got the right hardware, y'all tin also run Chromium OS natively on your computer from a USB stick. For the most office, any relatively modern x86-powered laptop or Atom netbook should work, but in some cases you might encounter some compatibility issues with certain components. Here's a list of what'south been tested to work so far -- and a separate desktop and laptop listing by Hexxeh. The process is even simpler with this method:

  1. Get the latest USB build and use a plan like WinRAR or vii-Zip to extract until you go the IMG file.
  2. Insert a blank, 2GB or larger USB thumb bulldoze and launch your preferred deejay imaging software.
  3. Hexxeh uses Image Writer for Windows but you can use whatever suits you. Just launch the program, select the image extracted in the first stride, and write information technology to the USB drive.
  4. Once the image is copied to the bulldoze, close the program and you lot can then boot from your USB stick.

If you are really committed to Chromium OS you could potentially follow the same procedure to install it into a partition on your hard drive and dual-kick alongside your main operating system. For now at least I'm happy simply test driving Google's operating system without making it a permanent resident on my automobile.

If all goes well you'll be presented with a very straightforward setup sorcerer, where y'all can configure language and network settings, and so enter your Google credentials and option an avatar. That's it! Next thing you'll see is a plain Chrome window, which will be very familiar if yous've already been using Google's browser on Windows or whatsoever other platform. You lot can offset browsing correct away or add applications from the Chrome Spider web Shop to have 1-click access to them.

Proceed in mind that while Chrome OS is based off Chromium Os they are non exactly the same affair. Features similar Verified Boot and Like shooting fish in a barrel Recovery are not available in the latter, nor is the congenital-in PDF reader, although y'all can still access PDF files through Google Docs. Other than that you lot'll get a pretty shut experience to the real thing, with no programs loading on startup, no need for software updates or virus protection, and everything running on the deject.