Chromium OS review

So, I've been a little busy this couple of days, but the good part is that I've also been using Chromium OS, the Chrome open sourse version, on my netbook. Now, you can find and download the Chrome beta version for download. I got it here. Just register and download the virtual machine file. But I will talk about the version of Chromium that I used because it was precompiled for netbook usage. If you want a download link just email me, because, it's compiled by someone, and I don't want to take credit for his work.

So, how can I put it short? I like it, but it won't catch as a desktop operating system, and you'll se why. I used it on my Asus eee701 4gb surf version, and ran it from a 8gb stick. You won't need 8gb, don't worry, it only uses about 700mb of space.

So I stick in my stick (:D) into the netbook's USB, and boot from it. To tell you the truth, that was a freaking fast boot! They didn't lie, I used my phone to time the boot, it really took just about over 7 seconds before I got the blue LOGON screen (don't worry, it isn't the Blue Screen of Death). Now I have to introduce my Google account, but, the version I used, precompiled for a netbook, was created so it would open the OS, without being connected to the Internet, so I've inserted a standard user and password, took from the download site. Before I've installed it, I've read online that on a similar eee, the WiFi didn't work, well, for me it did. I saw my home network imediatly, and connected to it using wep encryption. The first thing that caught my attention was the grim way the touchpad worked. It was very slow, and had to tap it real hard for it to click, but after a few minutes I found in the settings menu the sensitivity settings for it, so I managed to set it right.

Now, when it started, I wasn't surprise to see that actually the whole operating system was the Google Chrome web browser. The main window features a series of common used "aplications", that are actually web-links like Gmail, Y!Mail, Hotmail, Youtube, Twitter, etc... You even have a "get more" link, but that doesn't work now.

So, that's about all you can do with it, about now. Browse the web, communicate, manage your documents and appointments via GDocs and GCalendar, all of these, online. Me, being a avid user of both Google services, I managed to do a small part of my work using this OS, so I was pleased. What displeased me, was that I didn't have sound playing clips online, on both Chromium netbook and Chrome Virtual Machine.

Why did I say it won't catch as a desktop system? Well, as much as we are all Internet depending people, we still have to have our Photoshops or word processors or music and movies on our harddrives, something that will be impossible on Chrome.

So, that's the first look at Google's new operating system. I'll let you know more, when I find something new that it's interesting to share.

PS: Chrome OS beta, won't run very good on a virtual machine with less the 1Gb of ram assigned to it, but it will let you logon to the system using your own Google account!