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Try Out Chrome OS In a Virtual Machine

itwbennett writes "Some very generous Alpha OS geeks have snagged the Chrome OS source code and compiled a version to share with the rest of us, writes blogger Peter Smith. 'The build comes in the form of a virtual machine, which means you'll need VMWare or VirtualBox running, and of course the image of Chrome OS itself. The folks at gdgt are distributing the latter, and they've set up a page with all the links you'll need. You'll need to create a gdgt account if you don't have one yet. The Chrome OS image is only a bit over 300 megs, so it's a fast download. If you need a little more handholding, TechCrunch has a step-by-step guide to getting Chrome OS installed and running using VirtualBox, and a Chrome OS torrent they link to.'"

14 of 289 comments (clear)

  1. Nothing to see here... by Obispus · · Score: 5, Informative
    It looks exactly like the Chrome/Chromium browser, with a few more desktop icons and a weird window manager.

    The only novelty is that the lack of a "shutdown" option seems to be intentional; the local machine is supposed to be stateless in the sense that it commits all transactions remotely before announcing their completion. Plan 9 also tried to achieve that goal, at least initially.

    Kudos to the people who put these images together, though--they've saved many of us significant time.

    1. Re:Nothing to see here... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      It's important on your 10" netbook

  2. Shameless Plug by Jrabbit05 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Torrent and Info: http://pastie.org/706872 http://dl.dropbox.com/u/457451/ide.vmdk.torrent Because making an account on some shady website that's exploiting the situation seems wrong.

    1. Re:Shameless Plug by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 2, Informative
      You can also "steal" my login information: username: ninny

      password: password

      It will work until some wanker changes the password. .

    2. Re:Shameless Plug by Jamamala · · Score: 2, Informative

      Another shameless plug: I've got a thread going on here about what I've found - how to get a terminal, what packages are installed, keyboard shortcuts etc. Just a little bit more detail than what techcrunch and gdgt have been saying.

  3. Re:Torrent? by DirtyCanuck · · Score: 4, Informative

    User: DotSlash
    Pass: Slashdot

    Dunno if it allows multiple logins....

  4. Re:Torrent? by mister_playboy · · Score: 3, Informative

    Depends on who you ask. If you ask me, torrents not only clogs my connection regardless of upload/download speed so no one can browse the net, but are actually slower than most http/ftp downloads that support a few simultaneous connections.

    Any reasonable client lets you control how much bandwidth it uses... it's up to you to know how to configure your client so it allows you to do other things while you torrent.

    That's why rapidshare et all are so popular.

    Most people can't afford as much upload capacity as RS has... that isn't cheap, you know. My argument is that torrents are more useful for the uploader of the files, not necessarily the downloader.

    Besides, most people don't know what torrents are. You can't have them front and center to general users.

    Why is that? Because of the negative rap that torrents get. Which is why the bullshit in the original AC's post is a troll. I'm refuting this point of view.

    --
    Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law ::: Love is the law, love under will
  5. Re:Torrent? by cyberstealth1024 · · Score: 3, Informative

    try BugMeNot next time. (just looked on bugmenot for gdgt) Crap, gdgt is blocked from bugmenot. well, you can use this for other websites that you need to log into on a one-time basis

  6. Re:Can't Get It To Work In VBox by gearloos · · Score: 2, Informative

    Select BRIDGED (direct link) networking

    --
    "Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
  7. Re:Can't Get It To Work In VBox by Daengbo · · Score: 2, Informative

    Change the virtual network card to one that's supported. How to Try Out ChromeOS in Virtualbox

  8. Re:Counterpoint by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yeah, but haven't you ever had a power outage? It's the same thing. What did you do, just go home? That's what I did.

    In fact, in the last year at work I had more power outages than internet outages, exactly one power outage and no internet outages. The internet is getting more reliable these days, so while it seems scary, and definitely has a downside, if it saves money then businesses will do it anyway. They didn't mind being locked into Microsoft, they won't mind being locked into Google when it saves money from the bottom line.

    --
    Qxe4
  9. Re:Torrent? by rdebath · · Score: 3, Informative

    Your math is flawed.

    In the prefect case where everyone has 1MB/s upload it would in theory take 100 seconds for any number of people. This is because any one peer starts sharing what it's downloaded as soon as it has one single block of the file.

    Of course blocks are not infinity small, people don't have 1MByte upload speeds and it's not a 'big start'.

    The best models depend on the state of the swarm. During the initial seed then there is one slow seeder first order approximation is that everybody in the swarm is at the same percentage level. Transfer rate is limited by the upstream of that first seeder.

    If the many of peers disappear once they have the file then the swarm is in a seeder starved state. The download rate of any one peer will be about the same as it's upload rate because of the 'tit for tat' like sharing rules in most clients when they aren't seeding.

    If the swarm has lots of seeders then in addition to the 'tit for tat' rate a peer will get a 'fair share' of the total upload bandwidth of all the seeders. This is what can fill your downstream rate.

    The vast majority of swarms are in the seeder starved state but at the moment the ChromeOS VMs are seeder rich; go for it.

  10. Re:The real deal about Chrome OS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    That's what I thought initially, but this build of ChromeOS requires a gmail account to log into the system.

  11. getting console by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    ctrl+alt+t will open up a console session

    F8 will give you a screen with other keyboard shortcuts (there's a bunch of stuff that's interesting).