28 Apr 12 Google Drive comes to Chrome OS
Google Drive has come to Chrome OS, the browser-based operating system that arguably needs it more than the average PC.
(Credit:
screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)
Google Drive is handy for mobile devices and conventional computers, but it’s just arrived on another class of devices where it’s potentially a lot more transformative: Chrome OS.
Google built Google Drive into the latest developer release of Chrome OS version 20.0.1116.0, said Chrome team member Danielle Drew in a blog post today.
Google Drive synchronizes files across multiple devices and with Google’s own servers; a file copied or saved into the folder on a personal computer or uploaded to the Google Drive Web site is then accessible on other devices. It’s tightly integrated with Google Docs, Google’s online service for word processing, presentations, and spreadsheets.
On personal computers, Google Drive or competing services such as Dropbox or SkyDrive can be useful. But on Chrome OS, Google’s browser-based operating system, it’s a big step up. That’s because its file management interface is rudimentary, and when you use it to store files, they aren’t available elsewhere unless you export them somehow — uploading photos to Picasa or e-mailing PDFs to yourself, for example.
With Drive, though, files stored with this supposedly cloud-computing operating system are actually integrated directly with the cloud. You could already get your Google Docs, of course, but now you can see all the other files you’ve stored much more easily. And services like Dropbox don’t work easily on Chrome OS the way they do on Windows or
Mac OS X.
“Think of it as your drive for Chrome OS,” said Scott Johnston, the product manager in charge of Google Drive, in an earlier interview this week. “It’s as if you have a local disk, but it happens to be stored in the cloud.”
That’s potentially important for another reason: unlike even low-end laptops, the Chrome OS laptops Google calls Chromebooks today have only 16GB. That’ll change with later models, said Sundar Pichai, senior vice president for Chrome and Apps at Google.
But it seems unlikely that it’ll ever match the much larger capacities needed for a less network-centric device, and Pichai said people will keep only what they most need on Chromebooks.
“People will have a way of choosing important files,” Pichai said. “I think of Chromebook as a cache of important data and not all your stuff.”
It’s clearly an early version of Google Drive, though. For example, I couldn’t drag and drop a file in Chrome OS’s download folder into Google Drive, though copy and paste worked to move it. And as with Google Drive in general, I find it slower than Dropbox to synchronize new files across different devices. Reloading the page doesn’t actually fetch updated data, but for me going back to a parent folder then reopening the one I wanted refreshed it.
There were some resizing issues, with thumbnails flowing awkwardly as I shrank the window. And for whatever reason, the thumbnail images were bigger and at least for me more useful using the Web interface rather than the Chrome OS file manager interface.
Those who want to try it out will have to use the developer channel of Chrome OS, which can be choppy going sometimes since it’s got newer features that haven’t been tested as well. To use the file manager interface on Chrome OS, type Ctrl-M.
Chromebooks so far haven’t made much of an impression on an industry fixated more with
tablets, mobile phones, and ever-slimmer Mac laptops. Google is beavering away on the project, though, most recently adding a new, more traditional interface to Chrome OS. That initially was available only for the Acer- and Samsung-built Chromebooks, but now it’s available on Google’s Cr-48 Chromebook prototypes, too.
Google also has said faster Chromebooks are on the way.
Article source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-57423364-2/google-drive-comes-to-chrome-os/
Tags: Chrome OS, Danielle Drew, Google Cr, Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Drive Web
28 Apr 12 Google Drive comes to Chrome OS
Google Drive has come to Chrome OS, the browser-based operating system that arguably needs it more than the average PC.
(Credit:
screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)
Google Drive is handy for mobile devices and conventional computers, but it’s just arrived on another class of devices where it’s potentially a lot more transformative: Chrome OS.
Google built Google Drive into the latest developer release of Chrome OS version 20.0.1116.0, said Chrome team member Danielle Drew in a blog post today.
Google Drive synchronizes files across multiple devices and with Google’s own servers; a file copied or saved into the folder on a personal computer or uploaded to the Google Drive Web site is then accessible on other devices. It’s tightly integrated with Google Docs, Google’s online service for word processing, presentations, and spreadsheets.
On personal computers, Google Drive or competing services such as Dropbox or SkyDrive can be useful. But on Chrome OS, Google’s browser-based operating system, it’s a big step up. That’s because its file management interface is rudimentary, and when you use it to store files, they aren’t available elsewhere unless you export them somehow — uploading photos to Picasa or e-mailing PDFs to yourself, for example.
With Drive, though, files stored with this supposedly cloud-computing operating system are actually integrated directly with the cloud. You could already get your Google Docs, of course, but now you can see all the other files you’ve stored much more easily. And services like Dropbox don’t work easily on Chrome OS the way they do on Windows or
Mac OS X.
“Think of it as your drive for Chrome OS,” said Scott Johnston, the product manager in charge of Google Drive, in an earlier interview this week. “It’s as if you have a local disk, but it happens to be stored in the cloud.”
That’s potentially important for another reason: unlike even low-end laptops, the Chrome OS laptops Google calls Chromebooks today have only 16GB. That’ll change with later models, said Sundar Pichai, senior vice president for Chrome and Apps at Google.
But it seems unlikely that it’ll ever match the much larger capacities needed for a less network-centric device, and Pichai said people will keep only what they most need on Chromebooks.
“People will have a way of choosing important files,” Pichai said. “I think of Chromebook as a cache of important data and not all your stuff.”
It’s clearly an early version of Google Drive, though. For example, I couldn’t drag and drop a file in Chrome OS’s download folder into Google Drive, though copy and paste worked to move it. And as with Google Drive in general, I find it slower than Dropbox to synchronize new files across different devices. Reloading the page doesn’t actually fetch updated data, but for me going back to a parent folder then reopening the one I wanted refreshed it.
There were some resizing issues, with thumbnails flowing awkwardly as I shrank the window. And for whatever reason, the thumbnail images were bigger and at least for me more useful using the Web interface rather than the Chrome OS file manager interface.
Those who want to try it out will have to use the developer channel of Chrome OS, which can be choppy going sometimes since it’s got newer features that haven’t been tested as well. To use the file manager interface on Chrome OS, type Ctrl-M.
Chromebooks so far haven’t made much of an impression on an industry fixated more with
tablets, mobile phones, and ever-slimmer Mac laptops. Google is beavering away on the project, though, most recently adding a new, more traditional interface to Chrome OS. That initially was available only for the Acer- and Samsung-built Chromebooks, but now it’s available on Google’s Cr-48 Chromebook prototypes, too.
Google also has said faster Chromebooks are on the way.
Article source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57423364-93/google-drive-comes-to-chrome-os/?part=rss&subj=software&tag=title
Tags: Chrome OS, Google Cr, Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Drive Web, Scott Johnston
27 Apr 12 Google Chrome OS: A New Aura
The promise of “cloud computing” is becoming a little more real every day.
Earlier this week, computing giant Google announced their cloud services aptly named Google Drive. And now we’re getting a glimpse of development related to another part of the puzzle – Google-branded hardware devices made especially to utilize cloud computing.
Google’s Chrome OS, and Chromebook computers which run it, have been with us for awhile now. In the beginning, the Chrome operating system was nothing more than a glorified Web browser with a bunch of downloadable, add-on applet. Those apps let you do a number of computing chores online.
Chromebook devices come with little-to-no internal storage. The idea was (and is) to store your stuff (such as Google Docs) in the Google cloud.
Google is now busy working to make the Chrome OS more “user friendly” for people who prefer turning on their computers and seeing a home screen with icons. The new software design is called “Aura” and, as you can see above, it sports a very familiar look.
Chrome OS still opens the Chrome browser when it first boots-up but there is now a small, semi-transparent box in the upper right-hand corner that, when clicked, opens the new home screen.
That new screen shows any home pages you’ve set in the browser as well as any Chrome applets you’ve installed. It also gives the device a much, more modern computing look and feel – almost Windows/Mac/Linux-like – including a somewhat familiar task bar with icons on the bottom of the screen.
The new design is only available for those who have set their Chromebooks to the “Developers’” download channel (in Settings). Google warns (and rightly so) that Developer downloads may not be stable as you might like and that you try them at your own risk.
Early versions of Aura didn’t work on Google’s original Chromebook hardware (the CR-48) but, as you can see, the latest developer’s version works just fine.
Article source: http://www.thestreet.com/blog/google-chrome-os-new-aura
Tags: Chrome OS, CR, Google Docs, Google Drive, Windows Mac Linux
26 Apr 12 Chrome OS Will Get Google Drive Integration
Yesterday Google launched its new Google Docs replacement/Dropbox competitor Google Drive. The new service retains all the functionality of Google Docs, while also allowing users to store files of any kind. They even promise that eventually users will be able to edit and otherwise manipulate all sorts of files.
Now it looks like Google also intends Drive to be tightly integrated into a forthcoming update to Google’s notebook operating system, Chrome OS. Though Chrome OS generally works pretty well using only web apps, the one glaring oversight in its design is any kind of actual method of managing files and file locations. Google Drive, it seems, will serve to rectify that. Google’s product manager for Google Drive, Scott Johnson told Wired that a Google Drive will be integrated into Chrome OS’s native file system, so that when the user clicks “save file” in their Chrome window, they will be taken to Google Drive.
This, interestingly, will have the effect of not only improving the way Chrome OS handles files, but also making the OS even more cloud-based and dependent on the web. With Google Drive integration, a user could save a file to their Chromebook and be able to access it from any other computer with a functioning internet connection via Google Drive.
According to Johnson and Google Senior Vice President Sundar Pichai, Google Drive integration will be coming in version 20 of Chrome OS. The OS is currently on version 18, with version 19 in development. So, don’t get too excited about getting Drive on your Chromebook just yet, because it looks like you’re in for a bit of a wait.
Article source: http://www.webpronews.com/chrome-os-will-get-google-drive-integration-2012-04
Tags: Chrome OS, Google Docs, Google Drive, OS, Scott Johnson
26 Apr 12 Google Drive and Chrome OS: Has the New 'PC' Arrived?
Will Google Drive inside Chrome OS usher in an era where the personal cloud reigns supreme over the personal computer? Photo: Karen Ka Ying Wong/Flickr
Google Drive’s impact on personal computing is bound to be big. Wired’s first test-drive of Drive sums up that many will like it, but “those who will prefer Google Drive are those who already prefer Google itself.” The bigger-impact question, coming as Act II of the launch, is: Will Google Drive integrated with Chrome OS usher in the next generation of cloud-based personal computing?
Wired Enterprise’s Cade Metz got the scoop that “Google will tightly integrate its new Google Drive online storage service with an upcoming version of its Chrome OS operating system.”
Chrome OS is Google’s effort to move all applications and data onto the web. First released last year on “Chromebook” laptops from Acer and Samsung, this lightweight operating system revolves around a single local application: Google’s Chrome browser. The idea is to streamline the way we use, update, and secure our laptop and desktop machines, and though it succeeds in some cases, the OS still hasn’t mastered the art of moving files from place to place.
By integrating Chrome OS with Google Drive — the online storage service Google introduced on Tuesday — the company seeks to correct this problem. “With Chromebooks, [Google Drive] is even more powerful,” says Sundar Pichai, the man who oversees development of the company’s Chrome products as well as its Google Apps online services, “because it just starts working naturally. Your local drive is also Google Drive. This makes it really powerful because you just don’t think about it.”
Basically, Google Drive — a service that operates on the web — will perform as if it was the local file system. If you open the ‘save file’ dialog box on Chrome OS, for instance, the system will take you straight to Google Drive. “We’ll … effectively integrate [Google] Drive into the native file system of Chrome OS,” says Scott Johnson, Google’s Google Drive product manager. “All the core OS functionality will use [Google] Drive as a place to store data — if that’s what you opt in to.”
Remember Gartner’s prediction that the Personal Cloud will replace the Personal Computer by 2014? With OS X Mountain Lion, Apple and Microsoft with Windows 8 are all gearing up for cloud-based computing. Google went prime time with the cloud with Play.
But Google, which many say jumped the gun with its full-on approach to a cloud-based OS in its first iterations, could bolster Gartner’s prediction by integrating Google Drive with Chrome OS, and make cloud-centric personal computing a reality.
If you are only willing to dip your toes in, at least for now, Google will integrate it into the Chrome browser on your PC as well, and the browser is where it’s at, writes Nathan Olivarez-Giles for GadgetLab:
Like Dropbox, Box, SugarSync and many other competing services, a desktop app for Windows and Mac OS X is available for Google Drive as well. But I see little advantage to using the desktop app over the web-based version of Drive.
And that’s just old-fashioned PCs. With Android smartphones and tablets, Google Drive seems sure to build upon Google’s cloud-centric mobile plans, he writes:
In the mobile app — which is currently only available for Android, but is promised for iOS — audio files are kicked out to music apps such as Google’s own Play Music or Spotify. Videos play back just fine in the browser, but in the mobile app, you’re once again kicked into another app to view your media. Rivals such as Dropbox, SugarSync and iCloud stream media without requiring a download or opening another app. It would be nice to see Google do the same.
On the Galaxy Nexus, the Google Drive app worked as well as any other app (e.g., People, Calendar, Maps) built into Google’s latest version of Android, aka Ice Cream Sandwich. With a clean, ICS-consistent aesthetic, it’s one of the better looking and easier to use cloud storage apps available for Android today.
Weigh in: Has the time come for cloud-based personal computing? Will Google Drive inside Chrome OS deliver that future? Or will you keep only your toes in with the browser and mobile use?
Article source: http://www.wired.com/cloudline/2012/04/google-drive-chrome-os/
Tags: Chrome OS, Google Drive, OS, Personal Cloud, Personal Computer, Wired Enterprise
25 Apr 12 Google Drive and Chrome OS: Has the New ‘PC’ Arrived?
Will Google Drive inside Chrome OS usher in an era where the personal cloud reigns supreme over the personal computer? Photo: Karen Ka Ying Wong/Flickr
Google Drive’s impact on personal computing is bound to be big. Wired’s first test-drive of Drive sums up that many will like it, but “those who will prefer Google Drive are those who already prefer Google itself.” The bigger-impact question, coming as Act II of the launch, is: Will Google Drive integrated with Chrome OS usher in the next generation of cloud-based personal computing?
Wired Enterprise’s Cade Metz got the scoop that “Google will tightly integrate its new Google Drive online storage service with an upcoming version of its Chrome OS operating system.”
Chrome OS is Google’s effort to move all applications and data onto the web. First released last year on “Chromebook” laptops from Acer and Samsung, this lightweight operating system revolves around a single local application: Google’s Chrome browser. The idea is to streamline the way we use, update, and secure our laptop and desktop machines, and though it succeeds in some cases, the OS still hasn’t mastered the art of moving files from place to place.
By integrating Chrome OS with Google Drive — the online storage service Google introduced on Tuesday — the company seeks to correct this problem. “With Chromebooks, [Google Drive] is even more powerful,” says Sundar Pichai, the man who oversees development of the company’s Chrome products as well as its Google Apps online services, “because it just starts working naturally. Your local drive is also Google Drive. This makes it really powerful because you just don’t think about it.”
Basically, Google Drive — a service that operates on the web — will perform as if it was the local file system. If you open the ‘save file’ dialog box on Chrome OS, for instance, the system will take you straight to Google Drive. “We’ll … effectively integrate [Google] Drive into the native file system of Chrome OS,” says Scott Johnson, Google’s Google Drive product manager. “All the core OS functionality will use [Google] Drive as a place to store data — if that’s what you opt in to.”
Remember Gartner’s prediction that the Personal Cloud will replace the Personal Computer by 2014? With OS X Mountain Lion, Apple and Microsoft with Windows 8 are all gearing up for cloud-based computing. Google went prime time with the cloud with Play.
But Google, which many say jumped the gun with its full-on approach to a cloud-based OS in its first iterations, could bolster Gartner’s prediction by integrating Google Drive with Chrome OS, and make cloud-centric personal computing a reality.
If you are only willing to dip your toes in, at least for now, Google will integrate it into the Chrome browser on your PC as well, and the browser is where it’s at, writes Nathan Olivarez-Giles for GadgetLab:
Like Dropbox, Box, SugarSync and many other competing services, a desktop app for Windows and Mac OS X is available for Google Drive as well. But I see little advantage to using the desktop app over the web-based version of Drive.
And that’s just old-fashioned PCs. With Android smartphones and tablets, Google Drive seems sure to build upon Google’s cloud-centric mobile plans, he writes:
In the mobile app — which is currently only available for Android, but is promised for iOS — audio files are kicked out to music apps such as Google’s own Play Music or Spotify. Videos play back just fine in the browser, but in the mobile app, you’re once again kicked into another app to view your media. Rivals such as Dropbox, SugarSync and iCloud stream media without requiring a download or opening another app. It would be nice to see Google do the same.
On the Galaxy Nexus, the Google Drive app worked as well as any other app (e.g., People, Calendar, Maps) built into Google’s latest version of Android, aka Ice Cream Sandwich. With a clean, ICS-consistent aesthetic, it’s one of the better looking and easier to use cloud storage apps available for Android today.
Weigh in: Has the time come for cloud-based personal computing? Will Google Drive inside Chrome OS deliver that future? Or will you keep only your toes in with the browser and mobile use?
Article source: http://www.wired.com/cloudline/2012/04/google-drive-chrome-os/
Tags: Chrome OS, Google Drive, OS, Personal Computer, Remember Gartner, Scott Johnson
25 Apr 12 Google Set to Meld GDrive With Chrome OS
Google senior vice president Sundar Pichai says the GDrive will soon be integrated with the company’s Chrome OS operating system. Image: Flickr/niallkennedy
Google will tightly integrate its new Google Drive online storage service with an upcoming version of its Chrome OS operating system, according to Sundar Pichai, the man who oversees development of the company’s Chrome products as well as its Google Apps online services.
Chrome OS is Google’s effort to move all applications and data onto the web. First released last year on “Chromebook” laptops from Acer and Samsung, this lightweight operating system revolves around a single local application: Google’s Chrome browser. The idea is to streamline the way we use, update, and secure our laptop and desktop machines, and though it succeeds in some cases, the OS still hasn’t mastered the art of moving files from place to place.
By integrating Chrome OS with Google Drive — the online storage service Google introduced on Tuesday — the company seeks to correct this problem. “With Chromebooks, [Google Drive] is even more powerful,” Pichai says, “because it just starts working naturally. Your local drive is also Google Drive. This makes it really powerful because you just don’t think about it.”
Basically, Google Drive — a service that operates on the web — will perform as if it was the local file system. If you open the ‘save file’ dialog box on Chrome OS, for instance, the system will take you straight to Google Drive. “We’ll…effectively integrate [Google] Drive into the native file system of Chrome OS,” says Scott Johnson, Google’s Google Drive product manager. “All the core OS functionality will use [Google] Drive as a place to store data — if that’s what you opt in to.”
According to Pichai and Johnson, Google Drive will integrate will version 20 of Chrome OS. An early incarnation of version 19 is currently under test, prior to its official release.
The long-rumored GDrive is an online service where you can upload, share, and collaborate on files, including documents, videos, photos, and PDFs. It’s available to consumers, but it’s also part of the Google Apps suite of online applications the company offers to businesses.
The service is similar to what Google has long provided as part of its Google Docs online word processor — it even looks the same — but in moving file storage to a new service, Google is looking to facilitate the transfer of files between all sorts of online applications, including its own services as well as those run by third parties.
VMware’s SlideRocket — an online service for building slide presentations a la Microsoft PowerPoint — is among a handful of third-party services that already tie into Google Drive. The appeal of GDrive, says Chuck Dietrich, who oversees SlideRocket at VMware, is that you can open files directly from the service. “When you open a document, you can immediately start editing,” he says. “They have their own editing tool, but they also have integration with other tools like SlideRocket.”
Other storage services, such as Box.net, are moving towards in a similar direction, so Google Drive is not unique in this sense. But this does make it a good fit for Chrome OS. Because the OS does not run local applications, you’re forced to shuttle files between online apps, and even when you have an effective local file interface, this can be difficult. You end up uploading files and then downloading them and then uploading them again.
When Google unveiled an early version of Chrome OS in December 2010, it offered no obvious way for users to access files stored on the machine itself. By the time the OS hit the market, it included a rudimentary file viewer, but moving files was still quite difficult.
Currently, Google offers downloadable software that tie Google Drive to the file systems of other desktop OSes, including Apple’s Mac OS X, letting you synchronize files across multiple machines. But with Chrome, this sort of software will be part of the OS itself.
As recounted in Steven’s Levy’s In the Plex, Google was on the verge of releasing a GDrive storage service several years ago, but Sundar Pichai was among the Googlers who were against launching the service — apparently because it was little more than a way of storing files. “The point I made was that files — in and of themselves — don’t matter,” Pichai remembers. “What matters is applications.”
But the new GDrive, he says, takes a different tack. “This version of GDrive is deeply tied to how we think about Google Docs,” he says. “The focus is on applications — powerful applications — that let people live and work in the cloud, create and collaborate. We started by letting people upload files to Google Docs, and GDrive is an evolution of this. It’s a place where you go to create and collaborate and share documents…Users are not just looking for file systems and storage.”
Soon, Google Drive will bring this approach to Chrome OS. And it’s needed.
Article source: http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/04/google-gdrive-chrome-os/
Tags: Chrome OS, Google Apps, Google Docs, Google Drive, OS, Sundar Pichai
19 Apr 12 How to run the new Chrome OS environment without a Chromebook
Google is revamping its Chrome OS platform with a new desktop environment and window management system. We took a close look at the user interface improvements earlier this week in a detailed hands-on report. In our review, we explained how advanced users can install the experimental new interface on a Chromebook by enabling the developer update channel.
Of course, that only works if you have a Chromebook. After we published our review, we heard from many readers who wanted to test the latest experimental version of Chrome OS on conventional hardware. In this tutorial, we will explain how to install a third-party build of Google’s operating system in a virtualized environment or on a bootable thumb drive.
Chrome OS is a Linux-based operating system that largely consists of open source software. Independent developers can download the source code from a public repository and compile their own builds of the platform. Google uses the name Chromium OS to distinguish the underlying open source project from the commercial version of the operating system that is shipped by hardware manufacturers.
A third-party build that is based on the code from the open source software repositories is technically called Chromium OS, and is branded accordingly. That’s what we are going to be working with in this tutorial. When you get it up and running, you will notice that the browser icon is blue instead of the usual red, green, and yellow.
Google provides detailed instructions that explain how to download the source code, compile all of the components, and generate a bootable system image. The process is a bit involved, however, and isn’t really intended for enthusiasts who just want to try the software. Fortunately, somebody else has already done all the work.
Liam McLoughlin, who is known as Hexxeh on the Internet, routinely generates up-to-date builds of Chromium OS and publishes them on his website for people to download. He offers two separate flavors of the operating system: vanilla and lime. The vanilla builds are more closely aligned with upstream whereas the lime builds include broader hardware support and additional components, such as a Java plugin.
McLoughlin generates new builds every day using the very latest code from the Chromium OS project. That means his recent builds include the Aura-based user interface and other new features that we looked at in our review. In addition to a standard disk image that is suitable for writing to a USB thumb drive, he also supplies a VirtualBox disk image that can be used to easily set up a virtualized Chromium OS environment.
Before we begin, it’s worth noting that running Chromium OS on a regular computer is not the same as running Chrome OS on a Chromebook. There are some distinctive hardware features in Chromebooks that you generally won’t find in regular netbooks and laptops. One key difference is that Chromebooks have a verified boot mechanism that checks at startup to make sure the operating system hasn’t been compromised.
That feature requires specialized hardware and a signed kernel that is supplied by a hardware manufacturer. It’s obviously not a feature that you are going to get when you run Chromium OS on a regular netbook. It’s also worth noting that these Chromium OS builds aren’t as tightly locked down as the standard Chrome OS. You get a full shell and have broader filesystem access.
Testing Hexxeh’s Chromium OS build
The process of obtaining a Chromium OS disk image and writing it to a USB thumb drive is different for each operating system. Hexxeh supplies a utility for Mac OS X that largely automates the entire process. The tool will download the Chromium OS build specified by the user and then write it to a USB thumb drive.
A similar tool is currently being developed for Windows, but isn’t available yet. Windows users will have to download a disk image from Hexxeh’s website and then use a third-party tool to write it to a USB thumb drive. Hexxeh recommends using Image Writer for Windows, which has a pretty self-explanatory user interface.
Linux users will have to use the dd command at the command line to write the disk image to a USB thumb drive. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me, the user-friendly USB disk creator tool that comes bundled with Ubuntu seems to consistently fail with the Chromium OS disk image. The dd command, which is the method that Hexxeh recommends, works perfectly. Please note that dd is unforgiving and can do nasty things to your hard drive if you feed it the wrong parameters.
To download the disk image manually, which you will need to do on Windows or Linux, visit Hexxeh’s website and click the USB thumb drive icon next to the latest build. I chose to use the vanilla flavor, which ended up working pretty well on my hardware. The disk image is compressed in a zip archive, with a total download size of 256MB. Hexxeh recommends installing it on a USB storage device that is at least 4GB.
After you write the image to a USB thumb drive, you can get a complete Chromium OS experience by booting from the device. The vast majority of modern PCs natively support USB booting, but you may need to jump through some hoops to get it to work. On most computers, it’s a simple matter of activating a boot device selection menu during startup. On some computers, you might need to go into the bios and manually configure the boot device order.
I tested Hexxeh’s Chromium OS builds on my HP netbook. When the HP logo appears during startup, I have to press the escape key to get to the boot menu and then F9 to get to the boot device selection list. The list lets me choose between booting from the built-in hard drive or the USB thumb drive.
Booting from a USB drive is obviously a lot slower than booting from an internal SSD, so it’s going to take a bit longer than it would on a Chromebook. The process is still pretty fast, however. You will see the Chromium OS logo on the screen for a few moments while the system is booting. When it finishes, you will be presented with the platform’s initial setup wizard. It will walk you through the steps of setting up your WiFi network and user account.
You only have to go through this setup process the first time that you boot the operating system from the USB thumb drive. On subsequent startups, you will instead see the login screen. After you get past the setup or login screen, you will see the Chromium OS desktop in all its Aura-enabled glory.
Hexxeh’s vanilla build worked mostly as expected on my HP netbook, but I encountered several minor hardware problems. The Synaptics clickpad on the netbook proved especially problematic and couldn’t handle click-and-drag operations reliably. I also encountered some difficulty getting the system to resume from a suspended state during my tests.
I had no trouble with WiFi, however, which worked perfectly out of the box. You might see different results, depending on your hardware. If you encounter serious hardware problems, you might want to check and see if your system is better supported by the Lime build.
Virtualization
As noted above, Hexxeh provides VirtualBox disk images alongside the USB images. The VirtualBox images are useful if you want to test Chromium OS in a virtualized environment instead of running it natively on hardware. The image is supplied in a VDI file, which is VirtualBox’s standard virtual disk format.
When you create a new virtual machine in VirtualBox and reach the step where it prompts you to specify a virtual hard disk, click the “Use existing hard disk” option. Next, click the folder icon to the right of the disk selection list. You will see a file selection dialog, which you can use to select the VDI file.
The vanilla Chromium OS build works well in VirtualBox, though you won’t be able to take advantage of the VirtualBox features that require guest additions. I had some minor issues with cursor control and had to select the option to disable mouse integration from the Machine menu.
Conclusion
Hexxeh’s builds are currently aimed at supporting conventional x86 hardware, but he’s also exploring other possibilities. In a recent Twitter post, he demonstrated an ARM build of Chromium OS booting on the $35 Raspberry Pi Linux computer. It’s possible that the enthusiast community will bring the platform to a variety of other hardware devices and form factors.
Using the instructions in this article, you should be able to get a taste of what Google is going to offer with the next generation of Chrome OS, including the much-improved user interface. Although running a third-party build on conventional hardware probably isn’t practical for day-to-day use, it’s an easy way to explore the capabilities of Google’s operating system without having to purchase a Chromebook.
Article source: http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/04/howto-run-the-new-chrome-os-environment-without-a-chromebook.ars
Tags: Chrome OS, Conclusion Hexxeh, HP, Raspberry Pi Linux, USB, VDI
19 Apr 12 Chrome for Android gets desktop mode and download support
The Google Chrome for Android beta has just been updated, and at least one new feature will have power users rejoicing. Chrome now lets you switch between a website’s mobile and desktop versions, just as a proper mobile browser should.
Chrome also now allows you to drop shortcuts to your favorite websites directly onto your Android home screen for faster access. System-wide proxy settings are now supported as well, and you can also specify which Android apps you’d like to use to open specific files types when you click on a URL in Chrome. A handful of other improvements also made the cut, including support for right-to-left languages.
There’s still quite a way to go before Chrome for Android is ready to dump the beta tag, of course. Despite the arrival of desktop features like tab synchronization, support for Flash remains MIA. While Adobe is no longer developing the mobile Flash plug-in, it’s possible that Google will deliver the newer Pepper version that ships with Chrome on other platforms to Android Devices. Chrome OS runs on ARM, too, so it’s still possible that Chrome for Android will one day receive Flash support.
The goal, of course, is to end up with a single browser to develop and maintain across all platforms — Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, Google TV, and Chrome OS.
If you’re interested in checking out the progress so far, fire up Google Play on your Android device and install the latest beta version. As long as you’ve got Ice Cream Sandwich on your phone or tablet, you’re good to go.
More at the Google Chrome Blog
Article source: http://www.geek.com/articles/news/chrome-for-android-gets-desktop-mode-and-download-support-20120418/
Tags: Android Devices, ARM, Chrome OS, Google Play, Ice Cream Sandwich, MIA
16 Apr 12 Clearing up a few myths about the newly renovated Chrome OS
April 16, 2012, 12:34 PM — 
Chrome OS is odd. That’s the one thing almost everybody can agree on. Whether Google’s web-centered, Chrome-based notebooks are “odd, but also the future,” or just plain “odd, and probably not for me” is the central point. It doesn’t help that very few people have had a chance to actually use Chrome OS, and that the majority of those who have seem to be tech writers, programmers, IT administrators, or other folks who have reaching, exacting demands of their hardware.
There are public offices, universities, non-profits, and corporations that were given Chromebooks under a test program, but we’ve heard comparatively little from those institutions, other than through the filter of customer testimonials posted by Google. So the greatest public service I can try to provide in this very narrow topic space is to clear up a few ideas about Chrome OS, Chromebooks, and what they are and are not meant to accomplish. I’ve been using Chromebooks since December 2011, when the first reference model Cr-48 notebooks were released.
Now that Google’s released a developer preview of Chrome OS’ almost entirely new look, it feels like a good time to do some QA.
Chrome OS is basically Chrome running full-screen on your system, and nothing else, right?
That was mostly true until recently. Chrome OS had a login screen, a Settings page with more system-wide options, and a few specialty Chrome-OS-focused Chrome apps, but, generally, it was a Chrome window.
But that’s changed with the addition of a new window manager. The focus is still on web-based productivity, specifically Google-based apps, but now one can manage multiple Chrome windows on one screen, create “applications” out of web sites by removing all of the browser controls around them, and use a Windows-style taskbar to manage multiple browser and application windows. There’s even a bit of a Windows-style “Aero Snap” function, where dragging a windows to the left or right borders of the desktop instantly resizes a window to half the screen’s width for side-by-side operation.
But, still, it’s just Chrome, right?
That’s still true. But look at some of the upgrades that Chrome has seen recently that make it a bit more than just a window onto the web:
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Offline access for Gmail, Docs, and Calendar. There’s full send-and-receive for Gmail, while still read-only for now with Docs and Calendar. But it’s a very helpful start down the HTML5-powered offline realm.
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Offline access for other Chrome apps, including Scratchpad, which can, oddly enough, save and sync documents to Google Docs.
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Multiple user profiles, which, you might think, aren’t so handy for a system that requires separate Google sign-ins, but for people with multiple Google accounts, they’re a handy way to avoid account confusion from one window to the next.
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Tab syncing across computers, so you can pick up immediately on what you had open at work or home when you flip open a Chromebook.
Why would I want a laptop that does less than a Windows or Mac laptop (on which, of course, I could run Chrome)?
Good question–the best one, really. Google’s pitch so far has been one of hassle-free computing. A supremely secure core system, one that doesn’t need anti-virus production, and can easily and quickly be restored to factory condition if something did somehow get through. Automatic updates that don’t bother you, and install quickly whenever you get around to rebooting. Cloud-based documents, settings, and everything else, so you could throw it in a river, and you wouldn’t really lose a thing. No app stores or installer packages, no 32-bit-versus-64-bit questions, and only one folder, really, in which you can store a few necessary downloads.
What makes Chromebooks different from other laptops, hardware-wise?
Hardware-wise, they tout the long battery life (sometimes 8-9 hours, depending on usage, and pitched as an “all-day battery”), the built-in 3G connectivity on some models (likely upgraded to 4G in newer releases), and the relative lightness of the devices. The keyboard, while surprisingly full-sized, tends to draw mixed reactions, depending on what you need underneath your fingers. They have relatively tiny, solid-state hard drives, usually around 16 GB, meant for storing a few downloads, but with the majority of your storage based in the cloud.
Can I get work done on this thing?
The answer here is the same as with an iPad: it depends on what you’re doing for work, and how comfortable you feel working entirely on the web, without much local file access. If you need to create complex spreadsheets and work with them whether or not you have an internet connection, Chromebooks aren’t for you. If you generally work with email, traditional documents, and tend to travel in places with good Wi-Fi or reliable cellular coverage, Chromebooks might work great. If battery life, universal backup, and lightweight portability matter to you, a Chromebook can be a great kind of secondary computer. If raw power, Skype video chats, and development tools are what you need, look elsewhere.
Article source: http://www.itworld.com/operating-systems/268196/clearing-few-myths-about-newly-renovated-chrome-os
Tags: Aero Snap, Chrome OS, GB, Google Docs, Whether Google, Wi Fi
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