Five minutes of Google Chrome OS
Unless you've been living behind a tree, you'll have heard that Google has presented a first issue of their new operating system called Chrome OS. I was a bit curious to see what it feels like, so I played with it in a VMWare Fusion instance for a few minutes.
- It boots very quickly.
- I didn't find a shutdown or reboot option, but I understand they aren't needed because the OS will eventually reside in flash memory (meaning it cannot break).
- It does Gmail and Web. Period.
- It is going to be excellent on netbooks, and that is where it belongs.
Is there an official download site for this VMWARE image? I was unable to get my image to run in VMWARE Player, due to some syntax errors. I downloaded my image from http://gdgt.com/. I was able to get it to run in Sun Virtual Box, where it seems to run fine, except for a certificate revocation error when trying to go to gmail's https server. I also wanted to know how to get to the applications tab, so I can add Picassa, Google Docs and other web api. I'd love to hear what others think, or if you have an answer to any of my questions.
Why should Flash memory be 'unbreakable'? Did you mean ROM or ro-mounted media?
@Tim I'm not aware of an official download site — it's probably too early for that — and I didn't experience certificate errors.
@Goetz, by 'unbreakable' I mean it cannot easily be overwritten: if my understanding is correct, Google will be shipping Chrome OS such that the OS will be booted from a read-only media such, that a power cycle won't cause damage. But I suppose we'll have to wait until shipping to really find out.