Lets Download Chrome OS Image and Learn How To Use It

Posted by Pubudu Kodikara on Nov 24, 2009 in General, General, Software, Tips and Tricks (Hacks) | 2 comments

Want to have a taste of the Chrome OS? Last week Google have released the source code of their new Chrome OS, but its only for developers… then what about the normal users? Can’t they at least see what this is? Well.. now they can easily download and preview this latest masterpiece of Google… Want to know how? Keep reading…

First, What is Google Chrome OS ?

First, it’s all about the web. All apps are web apps. The entire experience takes place within the browser and there are no conventional desktop applications. This means users do not have to deal with installing, managing and updating programs.

Second, because all apps live within the browser, there are significant benefits to security. Unlike traditional operating systems, Chrome OS doesn’t trust the applications you run. Each app is contained within a security sandbox making it harder for malware and viruses to infect your computer. Furthermore, Chrome OS barely trusts itself. Every time you restart your computer the operating system verifies the integrity of its code. If your system has been compromised, it is designed to fix itself with a reboot. While no computer can be made completely secure, we’re going to make life much harder (and less profitable) for the bad guys. If you dig security, read the Chrome OS Security Overview or watch the video.

Most of all, we are obsessed with speed. We are taking out every unnecessary process, optimizing many operations and running everything possible in parallel. This means you can go from turning on the computer to surfing the web in a few seconds. Our obsession with speed goes all the way down to the metal. We are specifying reference hardware components to create the fastest experience for Google Chrome OS.

If you want to learn more, or if you want to see some videos about Chromium OS, read the following article : Just the Browser : Google Chrome OS : Chromium OS Is Now Open!

How to Get Chromium OS ?

As I said earlier Google is only offering the source code of the Chromium OS, so we have to compile them by ourselves! Actually normal users don’t even know the meaning of “Compiling”…. Not to worry… We have done the compiling part for you. But, it cannot be installed as a separate OS, still you can test it as a virtual machine! We’ll tell you how to set up and run a virtual machine later. Now, as the first step you have to download the image from us :

• Download the VMware image of Chromium OS (Build date : Nov 23) (324 MB)

How to Use it ?

• Before starting, uncompress the zip file you have downloaded…. After that follow these steps :

1) First we need to get Virtual Box.

• For Ubuntu users : Virtual Box is already in the Ubunutu repositories. You can get it by issuing the following command in your terminal (go to the main menu Applications > Accessories > Terminal )

sudo apt-get install virtualbox-ose

• For Other Linux and Windows users, you can download Virtual Box from here : http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

2) After you download and install Virtual Box, open it and click on “New” as shown in the image :

Add New Virtual Machine

3) In the next window click on “Next”. After that give a name for your Virtual Machine, For “Operating System” select “Linux” because Chrome OS is based on Linux. For the version select “Other Linux” and click “Next”

Give a Name and Set the Version

4) Next set the amount of memory for the virtual machine and click “Next” (Do not give too much, keep some to your own system )

Set the amount of Memory

5) In the next window select “Boot Hard Disk (Primary Master)”  (By default its selected) and select “Use existing hard disk”. Now click on select hard disk button as shown in the image :

Use existing hard disk

6) Next, click on the “Add” button as shown in the image, select the image you have downloaded “chromeos-by-earthorg.vmdk” and click on Open. After that select the image and click on “Select” . Click “Next” to proceed.

Add the image

7) Then they will give you a summary of the OS, read it (if you want) and click on “Finish”.

8) Next, select your Virtual Machine and click on “Settings” as in the image :

Go To Settings

9) In the settings window go to the “Network” tab and in the “Attached to” field select “Bridged Adapter” and click “OK”

Attached to Bridged Adapter

10) Next select your Virtual Machine again and click on “Start” (Next to Settings button). Booting…. Now, Chromium OS will ask for a user-name and password from you. For this you have to use the user-name and password you use to login to your Google accounts such as Gmail. After you enter those info, your inside Chromium OS!……Enjoy!