Google Chrome OS announcement makes nerd’s pulse race

It’s been speculated for a while now that Google has been working on a netbook-optimized operating system. Well, tonight, it became official.

So today, we’re announcing a new project that’s a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It’s our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we’re already talking to partners about the project, and we’ll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.

Going on, they talk specifically about the architecture it’s going to run on.

Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.

Wait. Did they just say a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel? That’s kinda-sorta what OS X did, but Apple doesn’t seem to want to make a netbook.

Now it gets interesting (aka “opinions”).

  • Chrome OS will compete with osx (~linux/bsd with a better windowing system), especially since Apple hasn’t talked about releasing a netbook. If Linux was built with a more intuitive and polished GUI, I think it’d be more widely adopted than it is.
  • Also competes with Microsoft (win7, gazelle (pdf link) and their oem relationship with netbook vendors

And if I had my fingers crossed with a wishlist in mind, it would be:

  • Native iscsi support – load the kernel from the web
  • A better package management system to preserve the UX (ie, a lesson learned from android)
  • Webkit (osx, chrome os) creates a better opportunity for SaaS and PaaS

If you’re interested in real insight, these are some great places to start:

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