The Chromium OS has been open-sourced for hardly a week and some industrious tinkerers over at Dell have already delivered a beta version especially designed for the Dell Mini 10v netbook.
Here's how to get it:
I have released an USB key image file to: http://linux.dell.com/files/cto. The file name is: "ChromiumOS_Mini10v_Nov25.img." It contains a functioning image of my USB key loaded with ChromiumOS. In addition, I have made a best effort attempt to get the Broadcom Wi-Fi adapter working in this image. It's definitely not perfect (read: highly experimental, untested, unstable, yada yada…) but it does appear to function.
This version's boot time is around 12 seconds, a bit longer than earlier reported. The makers mentioned a few other minor issues you might be interested in knowing about:
- It will take more than 5-10 *minutes* for the ChromiumOS network connection manager to "see" the access points and allow you to select and connect – be patient.
- Wired connections appear to work fine and appear quick to connect.
- There are currently issues with both the connection manager as well as the underlying components (wpa_supplicant) that can easily break or get hung. When in doubt, reboot and give it another try.
- Use this image at your own risk – it comes to you totally unsupported and very minimally tested.
Still, for the amount of time that the Chromium OS has been available for netbook users to mess with, it looks like a solid effort. For more info on how to get Google's new operating system on your netbook, read the article over at Dell.
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