Installing Chromium OS on my Netbook (Asus Eee PC)

I've currently got an Asus Eee PC 900a netbook I picked up refurbished that my wife and I use to surf while we watch TV. (btw: thank goodness they don't make 9" netbooks anymore; it's way too small for me; and also too damn slow.)

The OS that comes with it (Xandros?) is fine, nothing special. The one thing I can't do, however, is to update Firefox that comes with it (v2 something) to a recent version. This is becoming a problem. I almost feel like I'm running IE6; I can't access some websites now (though I'm still way more secure.)

Maybe I could spend some time figuring it out, but it seems that I can spend that same time figuring out how to put Google's Chrome OS on it. (Ack, looks like it's now called Chromium OS: http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os)

So, here goes.

First, this link makes it sound pretty easy:
http://gdgt.com/discuss/chromium-os-on-asus-eee-pc-via-5l7/

Follow those instructions (download image, stick image onto a USB drive; I used a 4GB), so far so good.

Next, was the hard part: getting the darn netbook to enter the bios or the boot screen so I can boot from the USB drive.

Naturally, there are a variety of posts that Google will turn up, but the hard part about it all is that the netbook is configured for a fast boot (Quick Boot, Quiet Boot & Boot Booster). So, hitting the correct key combination comes down to luck and timing.

Though one post, http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=973406, suggests to pull the power and battery pack to help. I didn't have to go that far, fortunately.

Now that I've gotten it, F2 will take you into setup. If you time it right. ESC will take you to the boot screen. (They call it BBS Popup, for whatever reason.)

So, boot from the USB drive and you're presented with a simple 'chromium os' login screen. Login as 'chronos' no password and you're into the OS. This is really just a browser window. From here you can setup your wireless passkey.

Everything works well. The browser/os is quick. The font is small and crisp (more room for content). The one problem. It's an old build. The About box shows v4.0.253.0 (32516) for the browser version. The login page shows v999.999.32409.000656 (Dev build Fri Nov 20, 2009). So, this is almost a year old.

I went to the Chromium OS page (see above) and looked into what'd it take to build it myself. Yikes. I am not that crazy. I'm a Windows developer with some old experience developing on various Unixes. While, I could probably get a build going it looks like it's just way too much crap to pull together, first to build the browser, and second to build the OS. http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/building-chromium-os

Fortunately, some young kid, Hexxeh, ("I'm a 17 year old") who has the time and the talent (and obviously no wife and no child; the best time sinks of all) has a more recent build. http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/

He has his own custom build, Flow, that I tried out (only 2GB). It's a bit too custom for me, but he's obviously spent a good deal of time and thought into a good customization of Chromium OS. It's also a bit out of date: v 6.0.321.0 (38366) for the browser and v0.5.31.201002131622 for the OS. So, that's Feb 13. Over half a year old. He mentions that he hasn't had a lot of time to keep up with the latest builds and still add his customizations. Understandable.

What he has done is set up a nightly build repository; I'd like to thank him whole heartedly for this. It's something all good build teams do and while I'm sure the Chromium OS team has one also, I couldn't find it on their website. Which either means I'm blind or it's internal only.

Nonetheless, head over to Hexeh's site (http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/vanilla.php) and grab the latest nightly builds of Chromium OS.

I grabbed the very latest at the time of writing (v0.8.71.rdb7d4e77 Oct 6, 2010) and following the instructions here: http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/wiki/doku.php?id=windows_instructions, used the Windows Image Writer to "burn" the OS to my USB drive. (Make sure to run as Admin in Win7.)

Now, reboot with the new build. Different login process now: I have to select language and network before the login screen. (Note: this is just the first login.) On the login screen I can skip logging in and just use their Incognito browser; nice! OS version is 0.8.71.2010_10_06_1056. Browser version is 7.0.547.0 (61590) Sweet.

I can "Exit Guest Mode" and get back to the login screen and login with my Google account. When I go to GMail, it still prompts me to sign in. That's good.

Oh, interesting. Once I sign out of the OS, I'm presented with the login screen, but it's got big chunky placeholders (for photos of yourself) that you can just click on. I like it. That'll be useful for my wife and I to each use our own IDs.

Now, can I write the OS to the internal SSD instead of using the USB drive to boot?

Yes! http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/wiki/doku.php?id=faq look for "Can I install this to my HDD/SSD?".

Hmm, when I open the terminal window I'm in a 'crosh' shell. Typing 'help' brings up a list of basic commands. One of them looks like it will install the OS to my SSD, but I can only see the description; the actual command has scrolled off the screen. Can't pipe to more either. Guess, I'll just try it via the FAQ above.

Well, to do the 'chromeos-install' I need to know the root password. I wonder what that is? Ah, it's 'facepunch', which is Hexeh's root password for his builds (this is in his FAQ).

The command completed successfully. Time to cross my fingers and reboot.

It worked. Very nice.