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Check it out for yourself! http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/
My opinion? It’s interesting, but I don’t know how well it will really do. It’s REALLY just a browser on top of the Linux kernel so far (as of the build I used). I look forward to seeing where Google goes with it.
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[..YouTube..] i really can’t stand cloud computing.. this is a nice effort, though. i presume ‘chromium’ os is the open source version, as with the browser, that’s how the guy was able to modify it.
[..YouTube..] How did you get the virtual machine to boot from the USB image? Did you use a bootloader ISO?
Just download Windows Image Writer (https://launchpad.net/win32-image-writer) and the Chromium OS – Flow.img (http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/download.php?release=Flow&type=usb)
Tell Windows Image Writer where the .img file is, and press WRITE. Then, on startup press F8 and choose your USB Disk!
[..YouTube..] Looks quite interesting what are the app caterogies tho? Was quite able to make them out
[..YouTube..] @TheWrinkledCheese I think it’s a round of ball busting all over.
Did I actually say “download links” though? I’ll have to watch the video over again.
[..YouTube..] What a co-incidence, I just tried out ChromeOS Blog’s tutorial build myself yesterday.
It didn’t pick up my laptop wifi either, but wired work and it ran very fast. The task switching and keyboard shortcuts (F8) are pretty cool though the whole idea of having JUST a browser with no real window management or apps (not even a terminal?) is pretty odd.
Like the other commenters, I’d rather a small Linux build like Slitaz.
[..YouTube..] @FeelItRising I suppose if you don’t want to have to manage software, or even be able to, it could be useful.
[..YouTube..] @Yerzriknot agreed. that’s why I used the facepunch account.
[..YouTube..] @IckleBanana that could explain why I had problems right-clicking, though it worked fine on my netbook.
[..YouTube..] @MrRevolutionary101 see, I see it from a different perspective. my desktop is much more powerful than my laptop and netbook, so I’m more inclined to want to use it for more powerful local apps.
[..YouTube..] personally, it would never be right for me, whether I’m on a Desktop, laptop or netbook I’d want a ‘propper’ OS. However i see can that it would be a good idea for some people. If all you do is web browsing, email, basic document creation, and other basic tasks web-apps are fine you really don’t need a big clunky app, and let’s face it, a chrome OS user is one less winblows user, which is never a bad thing
[..YouTube..] i couldn’t tell but was the background sound coming from the OS? or was that just to spice the video up? it was really faint, so i coulnt tell
[..YouTube..] @SubaruSumeragiX1999 already done. check out youtube.com/watch?v=QHrFY7vli5k
[..YouTube..] @librano I was using the VMWare image from the Hexxeh site.
[..YouTube..] @codebean It was really just links to other websites, but there were a lot of standard categories, like productivity, sound&video, etc.
[..YouTube..] @superjamiedotnet I haven’t tried building it myself yet, but I might sometime soon.
It picked up my netbook wifi just fine, it was just really slow picking up the one on my laptop.
Btw, it does have a terminal (at least the build I was on). I forgot to mention it, and it’s not terribly useful at this point, but if you hold Ctrl+Alt and hit T, it comes up.
[..YouTube..] @metalmaniac248 I could see it being useful for very limited users. people who just want to get on the web and don’t do anything locally. not many people, but it’s doable.
[..YouTube..] @JohnPortfolio2010 ah, that’s just my background music. I put it in most of my videos.
[..YouTube..] this video is great but chrom or chromium os is pretty much the internet i’m not sure if it will be a big hit or not
[..YouTube..] All online sounds good in marketing, in reality it’s not a good idea for many reasons. Privacy beeing one of the most important ones. Also a system that is nothing more then a brick with a battery on it when i don’t have internet, isn’t exactly useful for me, especially when i’m working at places with bad internet-connectivity.
[..YouTube..] @Tarnus88 I know most of the Google stuff has offline options for when you’re not connected, but for the rest of the web, yeah…
[..YouTube..] @Tarnus88 That’s what I was thinking about at the end of the video. Hopefully they’ll find some way to make small client-side pieces for more web sites so that they could be at least partially available offline.
[..YouTube..] i have 2 question, i didnt pause the video to see what apps there is in the OS but i see some like hulu and problaly a lot of the media ones wont work outside USA
Are google aiming for only american market?? cause Chrome OS doesnt seem to have many apps and if 50% of those apps wont work outside USA, im gonna be really sad
can u install plugins? like veetle plugin ? cause if not and u cant see the media sites outside USA its horrible and it goes against linux principles
peace
[..YouTube..] @kakita123 Realistically, it doesn’t have any apps, as far as I can see for now. All of those things were just links, and they had a BBC iPlayer link in there as well, so I think they (not sure if it’s Google or Hexxeh that determined all of those) are looking at at least the US and the UK.
You should be able to install Chrome/Chromium extensions, and do the bookmark sync and all the traditional Chrome things once it’s done.
[..YouTube..] I think “facepunch” MIGHT come from the movie “New Moon” in the Twilight series. I know this simply because my little sister enjoys watching these movies over and over and over and over and over and………………
[..YouTube..] i’ll build a firefoxOS !
[..YouTube..] Looks more like cloud based–like PeppermintOS.
[..YouTube..] @thisweekinlinux I listened for it and read the description. I didn’t see or hear download links. Ball busting is fun ain’t it
[..YouTube..] I think the only reason for the “Facepunch” login is because of the fact that it doesn’t let you configure wireless until logged in, so you would need to have Ethernet to login to with your Google account
[..YouTube..] @russjr08 that’s a good possibility, yes. Of course the one I downloaded from gdgt made you use your own gmail account no matter what.
[..YouTube..] hmm. don’t think i want it. but i will try it on my netbook like another distro
[..YouTube..] Worst OS ever developed. not to mention, google has botnet built into all their programs.
[..YouTube..] Not long now until the official ChromeOS is released…. Can’t say that I will be using it…. But it will be interesting to see what Spins of ChromeOS comes out in the future…. Hopefully with local application support…. although I can see everything moving to the Web in the future…. Theres already great Web based games out there that run great such as “Quake Live Arena” those who havn’t seen it, try it out, its free
Odd. I don’t like it.
@Drmgiver, I’m inclined to agree…
[..YouTube..] Cool thanks for this!
It’s kind of as simple as Tiny Core but like x16 bigger!
[..YouTube..] Thanks for the review! Saves me some time!
[..YouTube..] @thisweekinlinux Well for both perspectives, chrome OS fails. I doubt that cloud computing will ever be mainstream. However, I might be proven wrong in the next decade or so.
[..YouTube..] @MrRevolutionary101 agreed that for the moment, it’s not a terribly useful OS. It’ll be interesting to see what cloud-based apps are coming. For me, a good cloud-based video editor is in order. I know YouTube has an editor, but it’s very limited.
Kodingen, (Code editor) Jcut,(Video editor) Pixlr (Photo editor) Google Docs, EyeOS’ apps and the Aviary Suite make up the bulk of necessary applications. The only thing Chromium OS needs is a integrated file manager. (Manage downloads and files on external storage devices)
[..YouTube..] That looks really good but I’m not sure that it’s something I’d use for the time being until I’ve tried it for myself. Great review as always mate.
[..YouTube..] @scouser73ubuntu thanks a lot.
[..YouTube..] Cool. I really wanna try it. It doesn’t look amazing though, but good enough to try! Also, it doesn’t seem like an OS, that will go far.. Good review, Jordan!
[..YouTube..] @UbuntuHelpGuy agreed. so far it looks like a browser with a couple of widgets and a fancy bookmarks UI… :/
thanks, UHG!
[..YouTube..] hey bro
you can actually log in with your google account once you log in with facepunch and get on the web 
[..YouTube..] as a side note i have tried this “os” and much prefer a full install of ubuntu on my netbook :p [runs great
]
[..YouTube..] @nolanhester1 yeah, I actually tried out the gdgt virtual appliance of ChromeOS, and it didn’t provide a username/pass, so I used my gmail account and it immediately logged me into gmail/gcal/gdocs/etc. very cool, but still not my cup of tea.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Francisco Cribari and Jan. Jan said: RT @ThisWeekInLinux: Distro Review: Chromium OS (Flow, by Hexxeh): Check it out for yourself! http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/ http://bit.ly/d61gfM [...]
[..YouTube..] I’m guessing the “facepunch”-thing is because of a forum called facepunch. Just google it, cus it’s a good forum…if you like Steam-games/photoshop and such
[..YouTube..] @thisweekinlinux Researching further, I see it’s based on Ubuntu Karmic. You can get apt-get going with a few easy terminal commands. Fullscreen browser, fullscreen terminal with Screen, this is becoming pretty useable now.
[..YouTube..] @superjamiedotnet ChromeOS is based on Karmic? How did I miss that?
[..YouTube..] I’d try it if I had a netbook. Still, I’d probably just use Ubuntu Netbook Edition.
Good review.
[..YouTube..] @SonicLizzz you’re probably right. not a forum I’m familiar with, but it’s an uncommon phrase.
[..YouTube..] heard about this one but never tried it out wondering if i should or not. umm
[..YouTube..] @unknowntechnology I’m not in a big hurry to put it on anything, honestly.
[...] build codenamed Flow is provided by the folks over at Hexxeh, which is reviewed in this video by This Week In Linux in a VirtualBox environment. The build was already released in February 2010, so the Chromium code [...]
[..YouTube..] i demand skype in this!
[..YouTube..] @pacorocks1 that would be pretty sweet, but I think that would require either a web-based Skype, or for google to include it, and if they’re going to put one app in it, they might as well put a slew of them, and then it wouldn’t be a purely “cloud-based” distro.
[..YouTube..] @thisweekinlinux or at least an alternative that runs on the web
[..YouTube..] @pacorocks1 actually, with the Skype SDK out there, it’s entirely possible somebody will create a Skype web app… I could see it being done pretty easily using Django, since that’s just Python for the web.
[..YouTube..] @thisweekinlinux Yeah they hide it pretty well
Check the Tips & Tricks section of Hexxeh’s wiki.
[..YouTube..] ChromeOS is really not that interesting at this stage… I guess that’s why Google should really keep this from the public!
[..YouTube..] @thisweekinlinux Google Voice probably
[..YouTube..] Chrome os makes a lot of sense, computers do get slower and more unreliable because of all the stuff that’s installed. This could be the next big thing. However – do I want Google or any other company to “own” my life? my documents? know what I do and when?
[..YouTube..] i don’t like that they want to put everything on the cloud
Thanks for the review and, against the trend, I think this is going to be very handy!
I use web based accounting, gmail docs/spreadsheets and gmail, all linked directly and without a browser.
At present I am using Peppermint Ice because of it’s speed and rock solid efficiency. A comparison may show that Chromium OS Flow is just ‘overkill’ because it is nice to use the other things tied to a more complete OS.
Google is striving towards a Cloud printing arrangement which may give it more practicality?
….but, this Peppermint Ice is outstanding and is not easily topped!
@plumtreed I could see ChromeOS being useful in the long term. There are always going to be people who don’t need a full desktop OS on their system because they just do internet-based things.
[..YouTube..] @thisweekinlinux There already is a web Skype app – imo.im
[..YouTube..] @davidsfc9 I’m inclined to agree.
[..YouTube..] I feel that I would like the option to have local content, but the idea of the cloud is pretty cool. I’m wondering how music will be handled, as only being able to stream music won’t be enough for me to ever switch to this OS. I understand that it’s a long way off and meant for net books, but the lack of local content is disappointing.
[..YouTube..] @DkassBTU yeah, depending on what you want to do with it, it could be useful as something minimal and fast, but I’m a local storage kinda person.
[..YouTube..] @thisweekinlinux You seem to know your way around each OS pretty well. I’m having some small glitches switching from Windows 7 to Linux, think you could email me at DPiazza@bryant.edu and assist me? I’m trying to use Linux Mint, which is based off the Ubuntu distro. I’m just so tired of all the downfalls of Windows, despite how many things I love about it.
[..YouTube..] @DkassBTU what sort of glitches are you having? You might have better luck asking in my IRC channel or on the forum. sorry, I’ve just been swamped lately, and I’m getting ready to go on vacation for a week.
[..YouTube..] @thisweekinlinux I guess they’re not so much glitches as transitional problems. I still haven’t found a suitable replacement for iTunes (I don’t have an iPod, but I love it’s album grid and music organization), and I don’t think I should have to sacrifice something as basic as satisfaction with my music player to enjoy Linux. I’ve tried Amarok and Rhythmbox, but neither came close to iTunes. I also need Office 2007, as Open Office has compatibility issues with Office 2007.
[..YouTube..] @DkassBTU It’s been a while since I tried it, but I remember the Songbird media player being pretty awesome, you might give that a look. Banshee is also pretty decent. Not sure about an iTunes replacement though.
With Office 2007, if you have to have the actual program, you’d have to run it with Wine. there’s a guide on appdb.winehq. org for it that says it runs very well. I don’t have MS Office or i’d try it myself.
[..YouTube..] @thisweekinlinux Thanks for the suggestions, but unfortunately Songbird has discontinued Linux support. It’s a shame it’s becoming so difficult to find programs by major publishers for Linux. I love the architecture of Linux, but can’t live without some native Windows programs.
[..YouTube..] @DkassBTU There’s a community-supported version of Songbird that’s on the way, but not quite available for download yet, called Nightingale. Might be worth looking into that?
[...] codenamed Flow is provided by the folks over at Hexxeh , which is reviewed in this video by This Week In Linux in a VirtualBox environment. The build was already released in February 2010, so the Chromium [...]