Back in the mid-1990s, Microsoft took on Netscape not to dominate
the Web browser market but because Microsoft was afraid that the
Netscape browser could become a threat to Windows--that the Web browser
itself could become an operating system.
Now, more than 10 years later, we are finally getting a look at what
it would be like if the Web browser was the operating system. Because
that is exactly what the Google Chrome OS is, at least in the early
developer version that was recently released: The Google Chrome Web
browser is, for the most part, the only interface for the Google Chrome
OS.
In fact, if you want to get a good feel for what it would be like to
use Chrome OS, just fire up the Chrome browser and use it for all of
your computing tasks for a day. By doing so, you’ll experience about 90
percent of what the Chrome OS has to offer.
In fairness, this is a very early look at the Chrome OS; in many
ways, it is essentially pre-alpha. The OS could change significantly
before its expected release at the end of next year, but this developer
release does raise some intriguing issues about an operating system
with which nearly every task happens on the Web.
Click here to see a slide show of the Chrome OS developer edition.
According to statements by the company, Google does not plan to
release Chrome OS as a stand-alone operating system, but instead plans
to partner with OEMs to deliver Chrome OS on netbooks and other
devices. But Chrome OS is an open-source project, so it is possible
that others will build versions of Chrome OS that can be downloaded and
installed on any system.
To test the developers release of Chrome OS, I downloaded the source code from the main Chromium site at www.chromium.org/chromium-os
and built it on an Ubuntu VM that I had running. I also downloaded a
pre-built image of Chrome OS from the Internet and loaded it onto
another virtual machine. (The latter may be the easier way to get
Chrome OS for most interested parties.)
When you first launch the Chrome OS, you are presented with a simple
login screen. If you already have a Gmail account, you can use those
login credentials to start up Chrome OS.
Once Chrome OS is launched, you see what is essentially a standard
Chrome Web browser screen. However, a unique button appears in the
upper left-hand corner of the screen. Clicking this button launches the
Applications page, one of the few aspects of this developer build that
is different than the Chrome browser. Within this page is a pre-set
list of applications that can be launched within Chrome OS. These
include the Google applications you'd expect, such as Gmail, Google
Apps, Calendar, Picasa and YouTube. However, the list also includes Web
applications such as Yahoo mail, Pandora, Hulu, Facebook and Twitter.
Since most of these applications are web-based, launching them from
this Applications screen will simply launch a tab within the browser
with the application running within it. However, the list does include
a couple of system-based applications. These include a very simple
calculator that, when launched, runs in the lower-left corner of the
screen. When minimized, the calculator app appears as a box anchored to
the same corner.
A couple of the applications required a Google.com login to run,
which means that--at least for now--you pretty much have to be a Google
employee to test them.
It looks like users will eventually have the ability to customize
the Applications page, as the Create Application shortcut link in the
browser included an option to add to the Applications menu. However, I
was unable to get this to work in my tests of the developer build.
There are only a few other small areas of the Chrome OS that lead a
user to believe that he or she is running a new operating system and
not just a full-screen Web browser. Three icons in the upper-right
corner of the screen offer basic system information and settings
option. When clicked, one icon displays information on system battery
life, the second lets users set up networking options for wireless and
wired networks, and the third essentially brings up the same options
that are included in the Chrome Web browser tools menu. (One small
difference is a tab lets users control options for touchpad sensitivity
and time zone.)
Outside of these options, the rest of the settings were pulled
directly from the browser settings. There was even an option for
choosing another browser to be the default. This is probably just a
result of pulling the menus from the browser--it doesn’t look as if
Google will allow installing different browsers, or any disk-based
applications, on Chrome OS systems.
A task manager was also available (by right-clicking in the title
bar) that showed processes running and how much memory they were using.
All Web, All the Time
While the Google Chrome OS looked and felt a lot like the Google
Chrome Web browser, the developer edition provided an intriguing look
at how a browser-only OS might work.
With access only to Web-based applications and tools, I could
perform the majority of my daily tasks. I can at least conceive of
doing my computing using only Web-based resources.
However, during my testing, I ran head-first into the challenge of a
Web-only model: For more than 2 hours during one of the days I was
testing Chrome OS, I lost my Internet connection. And for those 2
hours, Google Chrome OS was useless. It turns out that without the Web,
a Web-based operating system can’t do much.
Chief Technology Analyst Jim Rapoza can be reached at jrapoza@eweek.com.
Application Development News & Reviews 
