Installing the Chrome Operating System

General geekiness found me trying to get the Chrome OS jogging this weekend. It took pretty a bit of time to work thru all of the resources consisting of some conflicting instructions and horrific software. It all worked out, though, and I now have the OS jogging on a netbook. This put up is a quick summary of what changed into worried and doesn’t consist of the severa deadends and problems I encountered.

Operating System

Basically, Google’s try and broadens a small-footprint manage gadget for netbooks running net-based total apps. The middle plumbing is Linux, and the UI is a version of the Chrome browser. Whether or not this could locate huge-scale mindshare might not be decided for a pretty while. The legit launch will probably be 12 months from now. But it’s miles an exciting idea, and I desired to get my hands around it. If it does become popular, it will likely be something that user help experts will want to understand if you want to guide their apps successfully.

The foremost factors are the device hardware and the Chrome OS software.

The pre-launch model of Chrome OS has a whole lot of hardware dependencies. So I did some net studies to choose a device on which the OS has been effectively established. There have been some candidates. I picked the Asus Eee PC Seashell because it met the necessities and gave the impression of a nice netbook.

The netbook comes with Windows 7 installed. To use the Chrome OS, you want in addition to a USB flash force that has a photograph of the software on it.

The page referenced under Jorge Sierra presents instructions, a Chrome construct, and an image writing device. I already had a couple of the equipment referred to in the article.

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I did all the flash disk processing on my Toshiba/Vista pc.

The Sierra article provides a hyperlink to a Bit Torrent bundle with the Chrome OS and a picture writing tool. There are different Chrome OS builds available but this one labored exceptional.
I ran the torrent and the download took about ten mins. I opened the zip record that changed into the torrent package and then extracted the Chrome OS build: chrome_os-img.

The subsequent step becomes to layout a flash power. Since the photograph record was near to a few GB, I bought a 4 GB SanDisk Cruzer. Any emblem will feature paintings, but I wanted one with an LED to inform you there has been interesting in it. I used the HP Disk Storage Format Tool to format the USB force using the NTFS placing. The Format Tool is available from some of websites.

I checked the formatting the usage of the Windows Manage command. Click Computer/Manage/Storage/Disk Management. If the formatting went efficiently, you ought to see the USB power and a “Healthy” message.

Next, I used the Win32 Disk Imager application to put the photo record on the USB pressure. This become protected in the Sierra package deal, but I had it already. After launching the utility I pointed to the chrome_os—img report. My USB pressure (E) became already decided on. Click Write, and the method starts. When the Progress bar is full the copying is whole. The USB pressure is now prepared to be used.

After unpacking the netbook, I first activated the Windows 7 Starter kit, protected on the tool. I do not suppose you need to do this. However, I wanted the tool to paintings with Windows anyway. And I wanted to check the wifi connection. The wifi determined my community just quality, and I powered it down.

The final step calls for an alternative to the BIOS so the netbook boots from the USB force.

I plugged the USB force into the netbook. I pressed the energy button and tapped the F2 key till the BIOS setup seemed. The BIOS key might be special from tool to device. BTW, I needed to faucet the F2 key in preference to keeping it down.

The boot instructions I located at the web failed to quite work for me. I had to make changes inside the BIOS. The following commands are labored for this Asus netbook.

 Chrome

From the Boot menu pick Boot Device Priority. The first alternative ought to be the device HDD tough power. Press enter and you ought to see Removable Dev as an alternative. Select that by pressing input.

Below Boot Device Priority is the option Hard Disk Drives. The 1st Drive was the HDD hard force. My USB was indexed with the aid of name (SanDisk Cruzer) as the 2d Drive. Pressing input at the 1st pressure brought up a pop-menu. I decided on the USB pressure and it swapped places inside the listing with the HDD. Then F10 to store and go out from the BIOS setup.

The device without delay booted to the Chromium OS login screen. I used the username and password furnished with Jorge Sierra’s aid: “Chronos” and “password”. I consider that is a logon carried out using Jorge for his unique distribution. I noticed instructions for a one-of-a-kind Chrome OS distribution and the logon changed into exclusive.

The first issue appears in the Chrome browser. The equal browser you’ve got on Windows or Mac. The OS would not robotically apprehend your wifi. A small icon in the top right corner of the display has a wifi menu. Click that and choose your network. I additionally examined my ethernet cable, and that worked first-rate. Once that is achieved, I should begin surfing the web.

All of that paintings, and so far, I hadn’t completed something that you couldn’t do in any other OS with any browser. The OS genuinely loads actually fast, tons faster than the Windows 7 Starter.

There is a page that operates as an application dashboard. You can see a screen seize on the Sierra net web page. A Chrome icon inside the top left corner of the screen launches that web page. From there, I launched Facebook, Google Docs, and many others and put in my logons for every. I couldn’t trade or add any gadgets to the manipulate panel. I anticipate so that it will exchange. For unlisted packages, like LinkedIn, I released them in the browser and set bookmarks.

There become an essential OS feature that you can test – Cut and Paste. I was capable of reducing and paste between the various web apps without a hassle. While we take this with no consideration on Windows, Mac, and many others, that is the sort of conduct that you need an OS for.

Another crucial conduct is printing. This apparently is not supported right now. I attempted the usage of the print commands inside the various apps. Mostly I obtained blunders messages. In Gmail the handiest preference was Print to File. I didn’t honestly assume there to be support for specific printers. That may be a hard proposition for Google, I think. But probably an important one.

I had set the date and time in Windows. The date became diagnosed in Chrome OS; however, now not the proper time. There turned into a menu item to exchange time options, but the conversation box did not have a way to alternate the time—only the time quarter.

There is no OFF button within the OS. I just used the energy button. However, the subsequent time I booted, Chrome showed a message that the machine hadn’t been shut down effectively. I anticipate there could be a few fixes for that.

John R. Wright
Social media ninja. Freelance web trailblazer. Extreme problem solver. Music fanatic. Spent several months marketing pubic lice in the financial sector. Spent 2002-2008 supervising the production of ice cream in Africa. Had some great experience developing robotic shrimp in the aftermarket. Spent several years getting my feet wet with puppets in Miami, FL. Was quite successful at supervising the production of corncob pipes worldwide. What gets me going now is working with electric trains in Mexico.