TL;DR

  • We obtained Google's Chrome OS up and operating alongside Android on a Pixel cellphone.
  • here is possible because of a special construct of Chromium OS — the open-supply edition of Chrome OS — made for running in a virtual machine.
  • It's now not clear even if Google plans to liberate this to the general public.

    • previous these days, we broke the news that Google obtained Chrome OS running on a Pixel cellphone. The company created a special build of Chromium OS — the open-source version of Chrome OS — that's designed to run in a virtual laptop. A demo of this task, accepted internally as "ferrochrome," was privately shown off to different agencies at a fresh Google event. With slightly of effort, we managed to assemble and run our own build of "ferrochrome" on an Android cell. in the video embedded above, which you can get a first examine Chrome OS operating in a VM on a Pixel cell.

    You'll note in the video that the telephone I chose for this demo is my Pixel 7 seasoned, Google's flagship cellphone for 2022. This additionally may've labored on some other Tensor-powered Pixel device, and truly, my first choice for this demo was my Pixel eight professional. sadly, despite the fact that the Chromium OS build we compiled efficaciously booted up on my Pixel eight pro, there turned into a bug preventing it from stepping into the setup wizard. The reason i wanted to demo this on my Pixel eight pro in selected is since it's the only telephone I have within the Pixel lineup that helps display output. regrettably, in view that we couldn't get this automatically working on my Pixel eight pro, we settled on demoing "ferrochrome" on my Pixel 7 seasoned as an alternative.

    an extra issue you'll be aware from the video is that my Pixel 7 pro isn't working Google's latest legit solid or beta construct. instead, it's running a custom construct of Android compiled from AOSP. The reason for here is that I essential to make use of Google's VM launcher app. VM launcher is an Android app made by Google that calls APIs in Android's Virtualization Framework (AVF) to create and launch a digital desktop the usage of the configuration distinctive in a JSON file. It then creates a SurfaceView to display the VM when the app is showing.

    As that you can see within the video, Chromium OS boots up rather right away on my Pixel 7 pro. given that Chromium OS builds lack Google signal-in assist by means of default, I had to signal into a visitor profile. Networking didn't determine of the box, however this was a general challenge that become mounted after I ran a script and adjusted some settings in Chromium OS' settings. fortunately, USB peripherals like a mouse and keyboard have been identified instantly. Audio didn't work, however that's some thing i know that Google is actively working to fix. I didn't get an awful lot time to play around with this before I needed to catch a flight, however efficiency often appeared fairly snappy from the short time I had with it.

    Samsung Dex or Chrome OS on Android, which might you decide on?