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Google announced Chromium OS in November of 2010, after many cheers. Soon, hobbyists such as Hexxeh have created versions of Chromium and building them with new implementations, such as Java. Soon, Hexxeh and others rose to the top as the builds were released, as everyone in the community wanted a taste of Google's new ideas. As of early 2012, the build mirrors of the Chromium website are starting to get newer versions that look like they were made for tablets.
Google's Announcement[]
Google announced the Chromium Projects at the 2009 Google I/0 conference, where the new software was being shown. The software allowed for easy use of the Internet, by running only one program on top of the Linux kernel: The Chrome web browser. Chrome was turned into Chromium, the version made not for Windows and Mac, but a free, open source version, for Linux. Chromium OS was formed by putting Chrome's speed into the Linux kernel as well. The boot up time is being worked on; the current boot-up time is being lowered from 7 seconds. This is for Chromebooks. The regular computer running Ubuntu may or may not take that much time, depending on what type of computer you have.
The Google announcement caused people to request Google use an SVN repository to keep all the code, so users could easily get the things they needed from it if they were going to build their own version on Windows or Mac. For Linux, Git was used and had an addon named "Depot Tools" to help keep the compilation line of tasks in check, along with all the things needed to get Chromium to run successfully. Other users, such as Hexxeh, helped develop their own versions out of the SVN repo, which made completely new branded versions of the OS instead of the standard made from the regular kit. Users developed more files to be added to the compilation process.
After Google's announcement, the world of Chrome and the other projects would not be the same. The new OS is revolutionary, as some schools use these computers running Hexxeh's OS, and some have hired companies to develop school-based versions for them. Chromium OS is a hit.
Two Differences[]
Many have seen the ads for Chromebooks online. After hearing about them, and then Chromium, what's the difference? Chromebooks have an automatic boot-up time, which doesn't come with Chromium. Tied to that the boot-up time is 7 seconds. Plus the boot-up time is tied to the 7 seconds and an automatic check for updates. The first thing that comes to mind between this is, Chromium is free and doesn't need to be bought with a whole new computer, but it doesn't have an automatic update. Plus, the boot-up time is not guaranteed to be 7 seconds. But the Chromium OS is better for the environment, and your computer won't have to go if you tried a Chromebook and liked it.
Chromium has also a different color scheme. But the projects are run parallel to each other. This makes it so new features in Chrome OS also get put in Chromium, which means most features are given back to the developing community to be taken in and readily put into a newer version of the OS. The Aura window manager Google just developed was released back to the community so people like Hexxeh could build free versions of the updated Chrome OS.