The Chromium OS has been open-sourced for hardly a week and some industrious tinkerers over at Dell have already delivered a beta version especially designed for the Dell Mini 10v netbook.
Here’s how to get it:
I have released an USB key image file to: http://linux.dell.com/files/cto. The file name is: “ChromiumOS_Mini10v_Nov25.img.” It contains a functioning image of my USB key loaded with ChromiumOS. In addition, I have made a best effort attempt to get the Broadcom Wi-Fi adapter working in this image. It’s definitely not perfect (read: highly experimental, untested, unstable, yada yada…) but it does appear to function.
This version’s boot time is around 12 seconds, a bit longer than earlier reported. The makers mentioned a few other minor issues you might be interested in knowing about:
- It will take more than 5-10 *minutes* for the ChromiumOS network connection manager to “see” the access points and allow you to select and connect – be patient.
- Wired connections appear to work fine and appear quick to connect.
- There are currently issues with both the connection manager as well as the underlying components (wpa_supplicant) that can easily break or get hung. When in doubt, reboot and give it another try.
- Use this image at your own risk – it comes to you totally unsupported and very minimally tested.