Chromium blog

Chromium OS is an open-source operating system designed for running web applications and

browsing the World Wide Web. It is the development version of Chrome OS, a Linux distribution

made by Google.

Like Chrome OS, Chromium OS is based on the Linux kernel, but its principal user interface is the

Chromium web browser rather than the Google Chrome browser. Chromium also includes the

Portage package manager, which was originally developed for Gentoo Linux.Because Chromium OS

and Chrome OS use a web browser engine for the user interface, they are oriented toward web

applications rather than desktop applications or mobile apps.Google first published the Chromium

OS source code in late 2009.

Chromium OS was first made available in compiled form by hobbyists. More organized efforts have

emerged over time, including a few manufacturers that have shipped devices with the operating

system pre-installed.

By May 2010, compiled versions of the work-in-progress source code had been downloaded from

the Internet more than a million times. The most popular version, entitled "Chromium OS Flow", was

created by Liam McLoughlin, a then 17-year-old college student in Liverpool, England, posting under

the name "Hexxeh". McLoughlin’s build boots from a USB memory stick and included features that

Google engineers had not yet implemented, such as support for the Java programming

language.While Google did not expect that hobbyists would use and evaluate Chromium OS ahead

of its official release, Sundar Pichai, Google’s vice president of product management (now the CEO)

said that "what people like Hexxeh are doing is amazing to see." Pichai said the early releases were

an unintended consequence of open source development. "If you decide to do open-source projects,

you have to be open all the way."

Hexxeh’s work continued into the following year. He announced "Chromium OS Lime" in December

2010, and in January 2011, released "Luigi", an application designed to "jailbreak"/"root" the Google

Cr-48 "Mario" prototype hardware and install a generic BIOS.The developer made the builds

available in virtual machine format on March 13, 2011. With no official build of Chromium OS

forthcoming from Google, Hexxeh’s "vanilla" nightly builds of Chromium OS were the principal

resource for people wanting to try Chromium OS. Hexxeh stopped uploading his builds on April 20,

2013.

More recent versions of Chromium OS are available from Arnoldthebat, who maintains daily and

weekly builds along with usage guidelines and help.In July 2012, Chromium Build Kit was released.

It automatically compiles a developer build and installs Chromium OS on a USB drive.[15]

In 2015, New York City-based Neverware produced a Chromium OS fork called CloudReady aimed

at the educational market, with the intention of extending the life of older PCs and laptops. A

subsequent version can dual-boot Neverware and the Windows operating system(until v64).In 2016,

Nexedi released NayuOS, a fork of Chromium OS precompiled for several Chromebook computers.

The operating system provides Chrome OS-like capabilities without storing data on Google servers.

It optionally removes the Google login and provides additional developer tools.[Also in 2016, a

London/Beijing based startup Flint Innovations has produced a line of Chromium OS fork named Flint OS, targeting a wider range of platforms including 64bits PCs, Raspberry Pi, Tinker Board,

Firefly development boards, and VMware virtual machines.The latest Flint OS releases are bundled

with features and enhancements additional to the original Chromium OS, including special releases

that help users in mainland China to use the OS.Later, they renamed it to Fyde OS.Fyde OS still has

same features in Flint OS, but brings Google Play Store and Android app support(if you are out of

China). The latest version of Fyde OS is based on Chromium R72. In 2017, Wayne Inc., a Korean

startup developed the Chromium OS fork for an ordinary PC named Chromic OS and launched their

Beta service. In 2019, Chromic OS was renamed Wayne OS and launched together with its newer

version and more compatible features, with the purpose of providing cheaper, safer, simpler & more

lightweight OS especially for older PCs and broken HDD/SSD PCs.

Some devices have shipped with Chromium OS preinstalled. In May 2011, Dell also released a new

build for the Dell Inspiron Mini 10v netbook, following up on an earlier build released almost 18

months earlier. The build did not support audio, but was bootable from a USB drive. Other devices

include the Kogan Agora Chromium Laptop by the Australian company Kogan and the Xi3 Modular

Computer, introduced by the company of the same name. In late 2015, a team headed by Dylan

Callahan released a beta Chromium OS port to the Raspberry Pi 2 single-board computer.In 2016,

Flint Innovations has also released Chromium OS port for the latest Raspberry Pi 3/B model named

Flint OS for RPi. Subsequently, this project has been fully open-sourced at GitHub, with all the files

and detailed instructions to re-create the build.

In June 2011, ISYS Technologies, based in Salt Lake City, sued Google in a Utah district court,
claiming rights to the name "Chromium" and, by default, Chromebook and Chromebox. The suit
sought to stop Google and its hardware and marketing partners from selling Chromebooks. The suit
was later dismissed and, as part of an undisclosed settlement between Google and ISYS, ISYS
abandoned its trademark efforts.