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ChromiumOS (formerly styled as Chromium OS) is a free and open-source Linux distribution designed for running and browsing the World Wide Web. It is the open-source version of ChromeOS, a Linux distribution made by Google.
ChromiumOS is based on the Linux kernel, like ChromeOS, but its principal user interface is the Chromium web browser rather than the Google Chrome browser. ChromiumOS also includes the Portage package manager, which was originally developed for Gentoo Linux. Because ChromiumOS and ChromeOS use a browser engine for the user interface, they are oriented toward rather than application software or mobile apps.
Google first published the ChromiumOS source code in November 19, 2009.
The most popular version, entitled "ChromiumOS Flow", was created by Liam McLoughlin, a then 17-year-old college student in Liverpool, England, posting under the name "Hexxeh". McLoughlin's build boots from a USB memory stick and included features that Google engineers had not yet implemented, such as support for the Java programming language. While Google did not expect that hobbyists would use and evaluate ChromiumOS ahead of its official release, Sundar Pichai, Google's vice president of product management (now the CEO) said that "what people like Hexxeh are doing is amazing to see." Pichai said the early releases were an unintended consequence of open source development. "If you decide to do open-source projects, you have to be open all the way."
Hexxeh's work continued into the following year. He announced "ChromiumOS Lime" in December 2010, and in January 2011, released "Luigi", an application designed to "jailbreak"/"root" the Google Cr-48 "Mario" prototype hardware and install a generic BIOS. The developer made the builds available in virtual machine format on March 13, 2011. With no official build of ChromiumOS forthcoming from Google, Hexxeh's "Vanilla software" nightly builds of ChromiumOS were the principal resource for people wanting to try ChromiumOS. Hexxeh stopped uploading his builds on April 20, 2013.
More recent versions of ChromiumOS are available from Arnoldthebat, who maintains daily and weekly builds along with usage guidelines and help. In July 2012, Chromium Build Kit was released. It automatically compiles a developer build and installs ChromiumOS on a USB drive.
In 2015, New York City-based Neverware produced a ChromiumOS fork called CloudReady aimed at the educational market, with the intention of extending the life of older PCs and laptops. A subsequent version can Multi-booting Neverware and the Windows operating system (until v64). In 2018, Neverware acquired Flint OS, a UK-based and China-based company. In 2020, Neverware was acquired by Google, and a similar "ChromeOS Flex" was released into beta in February 2022.
Flint OS became FydeOS, which is based on Chromium OS to run on Intel-based computers, and the Raspberry Pi 4 family.
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