Playing with Google Chome OS in a virtual machine

After watching the Google announcement on Thursday, I decided to build a virtual machine and compile the operating system from source. I used an Ubuntu 9.10 virtual machine , as that is what they recommend, and then followed the build instructions from the developers web site. Eventually after an hour or so of compiling , it spits out an image you can put on a USB stick.

I then booted another virtual machine from this USB stick and built the following image. You log in with your Google account and away you go. I have to say considering this is an alpha release, it works and is not that slow to have a look at. I'm really enjoying the chess game, it really shows what can be done on this platform, and anyone who thinks this OS is just going to stay on netbooks is deluding themsleves.

I would have to say, that unless you like playing with the source code, which I do, then there are lots of people publishing pre-built virtual images for you to play with, and that would be a lot easier way just to have a look. If you do want to do the compiling yourself, then here is the link - building Chrome OS from source

Here's the screen shot:

Chrome OS built from Source

Here is the demo.