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Download the Google Chrome OS Virtual Machine

google-chrome-ball Last week, Techcrunch reported rumors of the release of the Google Chrome OS. They stated that the info came from a reliable source, and indeed that source was reliable. Google had an event at their headquarters, and indeed provided new details and a demo of the Chrome OS. The Chromium Blog has some great videos that provide some additional information about Chrome OS as well.

The Chromium OS source code is available for download (Chromium OS is the open-source version of Google Chrome OS), and you can compile and build it. It took some time, but I did manage to do this on my 64-bit Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) machine. I also managed to put together a VirtualBox virtual appliance that is all ready to go. I built a torrent for it, so feel free to download it here:

Download the Chromium OS VirtualBox Appliance Torrent

Please continue to seed, as I’m sure there will be many people out there wanting to try it out.

To use it, just start up VirtualBox, click File and then Import. Navigate to the chromiumos.ovf file and select it. The virtual appliance will be imported into VirtualBox and you should be good to go.

I also included a txt file that more or less has the commands I used to build it. You may be able to run it as a script, although I haven’t confirmed that it will work. I guess you could say I more or less took “script-like notes” as I was building Chromium OS.

If you hit Ctrl+Alt+T when you first log in, you’ll get a shell prompt. You can run “sudo su” (no quotes) to log in as root, and I’ve set the password to “password” (no quotes). If you use this machine for anything serious (although I doubt you would), be sure to change the password.

You should be running VirtualBox 3.0.12, and when you import the virtual appliance everything should be configured properly. If you get an error that says “network not connected and offline login fail” when you try to log in, be sure that the virtual network adapter is set to Intel Pro/1000 MT Desktop (82540EM).

If the network adapter is already properly configured but you are still seeing the error, try logging in with the user “chronos” with the password “password” (no quotes). This should log you in and bring up the chrome browser window. If you don’t see a Google Accounts login screen, try hitting the refresh button. That should bring up the Google Accounts login screen.

It is absolutely astounding how fast it boots. It really is nearly instant-on and takes a mere few seconds to bring up the login screen.

chromium-os-login

Once you log in with your Gmail account, it launches and you’ll see the Chromium interface open up to your Gmail. There is also a Google Calendar tab and a New Tab tab. The little chrome sphere appears in the upper left corner, but when you click on it you don’t get a menu as you see in some of the Chrome OS videos. Instead, you get a Google.com account login page.

google-chrome-running

As you can see, it looks very much like the Chrome OS screenshots that had surfaced last month. Of course, being that this is running on a virtual machine without any decent video drivers on the operating system, the resolution is quite low (800×600). Your dear old granddad may be the only one that actually finds it visually appealing at this resolution.

Right now the most impressive thing is how fast this operating system loads. Of course, it should load fast because there really is hardly anything there. In any case, it is rather neat to see an early release in action. The fact that it actually works on a virtual machine is quite promising. Eventually as drivers for more hardware are incorporated into it, it should be possible to run it your own real hardware.

I also found a VMWare virtual disk image on a Google Wave about the Chrome OS. You can download it here:

Download the Chromium OS VMWare Virtual Disk Image

As of now, the link to the VMWare disk image is valid and the download works.

Update: I just went into the Chrome OS Wave I found with the link to the VMWare disk image, and apparently the poor guy that posted that file to Amazon Web Services ran up a $380 bill so he took the file down. Here’s the torrent of the same file posted up on Pirate Bay:

Download the Chromium OS VMWare Virtual Disk Image Torrent

However, I haven’t tried using it, so I can’t confirm that it will run on VMWare without issue. Enjoy your Google Chrome OS virtual machines!

85 thoughts on “Download the Google Chrome OS Virtual Machine”

  1. I can’t login this OS. It said network disconnected. I tried both VMWare and VirtualBox, neither is failed.
    πŸ™

    PS: I am using Virtual Machine software in windows platform. Is it the reason? That is unbelievable.

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  3. I just download Chrome OS in virtual machine for VMWare and only has .vmd file, and can't open directly only with that file. It is needed to have .vmx file to work it. Thanks

  4. I’m not sure about storing confidential information (banks/account details etc) on Google servers, for sure it will get hacked. I think Google OS should have options to choose between storing data online or on disk.

    I like the simplicity approach of Goggle Chrome Os and should have been implemented by Linux distributors (RedHat, SUSE, Manadrake etc) many years ago, unfortunately they just don’t seem to learn how to build Simple OS with good Graphical User Interface.

        1. It may be a problem with the network configuration on your installation of VirtualBox. Do you have any other VirtualBox virtual machines where networking is working fine?

          1. yes…. i have booted a dsl linux live cd in virtual box and connected to internet successfully
            i have also tried to bridge the adaptor instead of nat and nothing changed….

            1. Are you running Virtualbox 3.0.12? It seems others are having similar
              issues. I did find one thing that may help, from the VirtualBox forums
              here:

              http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&

              Someone logged in as “chronos”, hit refresh on the tab displayed, it tried
              to resolve the servers and started working. Try logging in as chronos with
              “password” as the password (no quotes) and see if that does the trick.

              1. also where is the refresh tab ???
                and another question what is the different bettween import ovf file and directlty choosing the 327 MB vmdk file ??
                i noticed that the import method generates a new ~600 MB file …

                1. for those having the connection issue: these are the settings that solved it for me:
                  linux>ubuntu system type.
                  bridged connection specifying the type (airport in my case)
                  and the one that made it actually work in the end: BUMPING UP THE ALLOCATED MEMORY!
                  was sitting at 256, but brought it up to 1024 and it connects!

                  hope this helps πŸ™‚

                  1. You should be able to use bridged or NAT. The OS does need to be set to
                    Linux, and you do need more than 256MB of allocated memory. My ovf file
                    takes care of all this when you import it, rather than just trying to use
                    the disk image with your own new virtual machine.

              2. I've imported the chromium.ovf file, but I receive the message “network not connected and offline login failed”
                thanks in advance

          2. If you're using vmware and get a network error message when you try to log in, make sure you change the Network property of the virtual machine to be Bridged, by default it's set to NAT.

                    1. I got networking to work 100% in Sun VirtualBox 3.0.12 r54655 in Windows 7 x64. In the “Details” tab, click on Network. In the window that pops up, change the adapter to “Intel PRO/1000 MT Server”. Start your VM and login!

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            2. the most important setting to login is guest operation system type. You need to set it to “linux / debian” or ” linux / other” or “other / other” to login.

              I was used not to login. After I changed this setting, I can managed to login chromium os.

            3. log in as chronos/password THEN enter your google account info.

              BTW i've just tried this and all it seems to be is a web browser. is this it?

              1. Yep, as of right now it's pretty much just the web browser. Before go-live
                they will provide other applications and all the applications will actually
                work (calculator & notebook do not work right now, for instance). They have
                also said that the user interface is subject to change, so we'll have to
                wait and see what the first production release will actually look like.

            4. I followed you directions for VirtualBox. I had no problem coming up and going online, but it was really slow. Unless I can figure out a way to speed it up, I doubt if I will use it much.

              1. Yeah, at this point it's not terribly fast. Since you need to run it on a
                machine that is capable of doing all the same things it can do (and do them
                much faster), I wouldn't imagine using it a whole lot other than just to try
                it out.

                1. Hello there
                  I have ubuntu 9.10 and Virtual Box 3.0.12 and I did everything you said here. Imported the .ovf file, changed ram to 450 mb (as I only have 1024 mb installed). The network card is configured as you said. The problem is that I get a blue screen after I login with “chronos” and “password” or with my own google account. I only get a blue screen and a cursor. Nothing happens, no click or keyboard action seems to be detected. Is there any reason this happens?

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            14. Thanks for putting this together. Have you tried to install the Guest Additions? I can't see how to access the CD-ROM or a terminal window within ChromeOS. I realize that is the whole idea to Chrome, but how is one supposed to add the Guest Addtions?

              1. I haven't tried installing the guest additions, but it may work. You can
                open a terminal window with Ctrl+Alt+T. Then just su and use password as
                the password. Then navigate to the cdrom (/media/cdrom ?) and install the
                guest additions.

                1. Hmmm… the cdrom drive doesn't appear to be mounted. I also tried taking a peek at /etc/fstab (as if I knew what I was doing) and it says: #UNCONFIGURED FSTAB FOR BASE SYSTEM. Thwarted, again.

            15. Loaded it onto a USB Thumbdrive and imported it using the current version of Portable VirtualBox I already had on the Thumbdrive. Worked right away and I happily IM'd on Facebook for over an hour.

              Have run it portably on various computers I have access to.

              Thanks for giving us a way to preview ChromeOS

            16. Amazing. Granted this is pre-alpha release of something, but I've never had such high expectations and felt so let down. I've come to expect perfection from Google, and this OS… in the current state…. is nothing. After a minute, I was thinking I'd be happy if it let me mount a network drive, of course not even. I am beginning to think this could be Google's first real disaster.

              1. Well, Google has had “disasters” before. One good example is Lively (
                http://www.lively.com/goodbye.html), which bombed just a little over a year
                ago. I doubt if Google will fall on their face w/ Chrome OS as badly as
                they did with Lively.

                Chrome OS is specifically targeted to netbooks, not desktops. I think when
                it finally does go live, it will have plenty of offline support. They've
                already taken many steps to help them get there, and will continue to do so.

            17. Hey Every One Now I got it. I could log in to this. Just try with your vm setting with Debian 5 and then change your network setting to bridged. that's.. i'm running on vista sp2 and vmware 7. gud luck.

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            20. What's astounding is not how they manage to get it to boot so fast, what's astounding is how they manage to get other operating systems like Windows to boot so slow. I've been in computers since the days of the 286 and my computer today is over 20,000 times faster than the 286 I started on. Granted the OS is doing a lot more but honestly, there is no good reason any OS should take more than a few seconds to boot.

              1. Agreed… It seems more and more “bloat” is introduced into operating

                systems, just because the machines they run on are capable of handling it.

                I like Google's minimalist approach, and the design of an operating system

                should be no different. I wish Android would leverage the work Google has

                done with Chrome OS so that Android would boot as fast.

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