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Chromium OS compiled in Debian running in VirtualBox

Posted on November 20, 2009, 2:45 am EST

So today Google announced Chrome OS and released the source code. So I grabbed the source and started lurking! I have compiled it with Debian and created the chromiumos.vmdk drive that you can load in VirtualBox or VMWare Player. In this article, I will explain what extra stuff I needed to make it compile on Debian and you can download the working image at the end of this article.

How to compile in Debian

Make sure you read the dev docs here http://dev.chromium.org/chromium-os/building-chromium-os , it works perfectly. So make sure you install:

1. Prerequisites
2. Download the Source Code http://src.chromium.org/git/chromiumos.git
3. And build!

In Debian make sure you have "qemu" installed (sudo apt-get install qemu), that is needed to create the image. And make sure you add sbin to your path (export PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:"$PATH" or it wont work. Thats all!

How it feels

Okay, it booted in 2 seconds in a VM! That is bloody quick. It seems slow in the VM but that is normal. It really seems like an unfinished product and many stuff hasn't been cleaned. Such as, many broken links (internal Google sites) still in tact. Keyboard shortcuts doesn't for many. The only thing you can make working is use the internet. Good for a start, I guess!

How to run Chromium OS

I used VirtualBox and VMWare Player, VirtualBox was very simple to use. All you had to do is follow these steps. Remember to download the virtual disk below:

Download Chromium OS (Root password: chrome)No longer exists.
Virtual Machine Disk Format (works on VirtualBox and VMWare Player)

Steps to run it:

1. Download from http://www.virtualbox.org/, its free and Open Source! Install it.
2. Create a new Virtual Machine.
3. Type any name (ChromeOS)
4. The Operating System should be Linux, and the Version could be Other.
5. Use an existing hard disk, point to the chromiumos.vmdk file
6. Thats it, press start!

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