Chromium OS

Chromium OS is the open-source development version of Chrome OS, one of Google's operating systems (OS). Chromium OS is based on the Linux kernel and uses Google's Chromium browser as its principle user interface. As a result, Chromium OS primarily supports web applications.

Architecture

Chromium's architecture is three-tiered, consisting of "three major components:

Installable, working versions of Chromium OS have been produced and made available for download primarily by hobbyists. Some devices come with Chromium OS preinstalled as their main operating system.

Release history

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 Manchester, 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.