[pipposanta]

Hi,
Dell has just released a new image of Chrome OS working with Mini 9 and Mini 10v. the image is dated May 13th.

You can download it and read release info here: Index of /files/cto

[reflex]

Thanks for the heads up.

[pcmaniac]

Thank you piposanta.
I am trying it now. This is my first encounter with Chromium and kind of disappointing.To my ignorance I thought Chromium was capable to run GUI browser without X underneath. Pipe dream! The same Xorg again

[suprolla]

Thank you, was looking for something like this to try next

[dellomeo]

very interested in either just buying or building a chromebook
i am in canada so they won't be here for awhile (though i am close to the border so i guess i can hop over and pick one up but not sure about things like backup and registration etc)
really interested to know a bunch of stuff about a "dell chromebook" as well as chromebooks in general:

what i want is the equivalent of a chromebook without the wait or cost, i really want a fast boot, this is critical and i want simplicity which chrome offers

1) if buy mini 1012, can i wipe the drive and install only the chrome os ? (pretty sure i can)
2) if i can do that, can i get the same boot time as the chromebook (8 seconds) probably not since it will be using dell's bios
2) have also thought about just buying the 1012 and trying to get a really fast boot setup with win 7 and maybe just using the chrome browser
3) don't really want to do a dual boot since it sort of defeats the speed and simplicity issue
4) does anyone know if chromebooks (actual chromebooks not 'homemade" chromebooks) allow local storage (certain stuff i don't want in the cloud like passwords and bank stuff) ... i guess an sd card would work or usb but don't really want a usb sticking out all the time

any thoughts appreciated, thanks !

[pcmaniac]

My two cents. Well, maybe four.

1) if buy mini 1012, can i wipe the drive and install only the chrome os ? (pretty sure i can)

Absolutely. But you are going to ran into some hardware problems. You might need to install and configure additional WLAN, sound, trackpad, etc. linux drivers. Not a big deal if you like to dig into hardware issues.

2) if i can do that, can i get the same boot time as the chromebook (8 seconds) probably not since it will be using dell's bios

I do not think Samsung or Acer or whoever else bios is much better than Dell. What I see from Chromium on my mini 10v now is very short Linux init procedure. Usually Linux desktop starts Xorg first. Xorg is very low level graphics API. Then it starts windows manager - a layer of API to provide application with windowing capabilities - frames, overlapping windows, and so on. After that Linux starts a desktop manager - start menu, task bar, background, desktop icons... Chromium (Chrome OS) on the other hand starts Xorg and immediately loads Crome browser. Since Chromium is "one app OS" it does not need windows or desktop. Or you may consider browser as windows and desktop manager if you want.

2) have also thought about just buying the 1012 and trying to get a really fast boot setup with win 7 and maybe just using the chrome browser

Sure you can get relatively fast to Windows desktop but also consider time you need to load Chrome browser large windows binaries.

3) don't really want to do a dual boot since it sort of defeats the speed and simplicity issue

Simplicity yes. Speed not necessarily.

4) does anyone know if chromebooks (actual chromebooks not 'homemade" chromebooks) allow local storage (certain stuff i don't want in the cloud like passwords and bank stuff) ... i guess an sd card would work or usb but don't really want a usb sticking out all the time

Lot of speculations running wild all over the web to the point. I would bet on 32-64GB SSD on Chromebook as local storage - otherwise it does not worth the price.

[dellomeo]

I do not think Samsung or Acer or whoever else bios is much better than Dell. What I see from Chromium on my mini 10v now is very short Linux init procedure. Usually Linux desktop starts Xorg first. Xorg is very low level graphics API. Then it starts windows manager - a layer of API to provide application with windowing capabilities - frames, overlapping windows, and so on. After that Linux starts a desktop manager - start menu, task bar, background, desktop icons... Chromium (Chrome OS) on the other hand starts Xorg and immediately loads Crome browser. Since Chromium is "one app OS" it does not need windows or desktop. Or you may consider browser as windows and desktop manager if you want.

hive, hey thanks, very helpful ..

how long do you think chrome would take to boot on a dell 10 if only chrome os was on the machine ?

the chromebooks are apparently booting in 8 seconds ...

[pcmaniac]

Chromium is way too anxious regarding its boot time. It even reports boot/reboot time on login (sign in to google account) screen. My reboot took 33.95 seconds. Keep in mind I was booting Chromium off USB flash drive (cheap Patriot - slow kind). Also my multiple boot is setup to give me a couple of seconds to choose OS.

I reboot again and happy to be back to Mac OS X on my Dell mini.

[dellomeo]

well, just bought a vostro v130

it is $400 with ubuntu and i bought the win 7 version for $430 which is well worth the extra $30 since i can just barely hang in there with linux

i hope i can somehow get chrome os on there and get a fast boot since i bought this instead of an ipad 2 for quick email and quick web surfing

kind of fed up with apple

[petercarlill]

Just installed the Dell build of Chromium OS on my Dell mini 9.

Booted from USB and it installed to the HDD in about 10 minutes.

Took me two minutes to set up WLAN following the instructions in the Dell readme, and got sound working thanks to the instructions on osdir (go to shell, type alsamixer, unmute headphones and speaker using m key)

I've got a boot time of 16 seconds, not quite the 8 but I think I'll survive!

-One other thing worth noting, i needed an ethernet connection to log in before I could setup the wifi so be careful if you've only got wifi connection.