A quick look at the Chrome OS

Google showed off its hotly anticipated Chrome OS for the first time yesterday and released the source code to the public, even as the company cautioned that it is still about a year away from releasing the new operating system.  So what do we know about this new operating system that looks poised to thoroughly shake existing paradigms of just what an operating system is?

For one, the Chrome OS will not support hard disks, only solid state drives.  All user data is also synced to the cloud.  And if you're wondering if your netbook has what it takes to run the Chrome OS when it's released, forget it.  The only way to ‘install' the OS is to purchase a Chrome OS.  In a nutshell, the machine boots up from a custom firmware into an optimized and protected kernel.

Because Google started from scratch, the search engine giant was able to weave security into every aspect of the operating system.  For one, the OS boots up using a ‘verified boot' process, with no other app trusted by the OS.  Indeed, all transient data on the user-partition is encrypted for heightened security.  Once booted-up, the front end of the Chrome OS is represented by - you guessed it - the Google Chrome Web browser.  For more in-depth technical information, you can also check out the Google Operating System blog here.

For more on this story:

- check out this article at CNET.com