ChromeOS is an OS built on the cloud. To get a clear idea of what the cloud is and what it is not, I recommend this video (in Czech):
ChromeBox Hardware
So now we know what the cloud is, but what is the ChromeBox? (I will say ChromeBox instead of Chromebook, because I am planning to buy a ChromeBox.) It is a miniature PC with a hefty price tag, but also with plenty of computing power and potential. That is somewhat at odds with the video above, which says that operations are performed only in the cloud and all you get is HTML output, maybe a bit of JS at most.
That is why I would welcome it if Google offered Chromebooks with lower performance and, of course, a lower price to match. After all, even for well-off Americans, 329$ (that is 6687.58 CZK at today’s exchange rate) is a bit much for a little box that can do almost nothing but work with the internet. But really only a bit. I am also a little puzzled that the ChromeBox has 6 USB ports.
Of course that is a good thing, a USB port always comes in handy. From my point of view, what I could plug in there is a camera (though who knows whether Chrome OS would recognize it – in Windows, a camera connected via USB behaves like a standard Mass Storage device) and then, of course, a mouse and a keyboard – that is 3 ports at most for me, so what about the rest? 🙂 . What bugs me about the ChromeBox is that it has no built-in card reader – not even for SD(HC). What if I cannot connect the camera with a cable? So, that was the heart beating inside the ChromeBox, and now let’s take a look at the blood flowing through its veins.
ChromeBox Software
The ChromeBox comes with a brand-new operating system. It is not any version of Windows, nor Mac OS X, but the completely new Chrome OS. I am sure every one of you has already come across the Google Chrome web browser (or Chromium). Well, Chrome OS is almost the same thing. The browser in Chrome OS only adds an integrated Google Drive plus a few other OS-related extras, such as the option to change the wallpaper. Speaking of changing the wallpaper, Google did not exactly go the extra mile there. All you can do is pick a picture of grass or one of 8 colors – but they are all very dark, there is not a single light one among them.
If you want to try Chrome OS, download it from 👻 The domain has expired like prepaid phone credit.. There you can download it for VirtualBox or for a USB drive. If you want to put it on a USB drive, you first have to low-level format the flash drive with any program you like (for example this one => https://hddguru.com/software/HDD-LLF-Low-Level-Format-Tool/ ) and then copy it there with the dd program ( http://www.chrysocome.net/downloads/dd-0.6beta3.zip ): dd if=c:cestakimage.img of=.f: bs=4M (or whatever letter your flash drive has instead of F). At first I did not know how to copy it there either, and the whole thing seemed “kind of weird” to me, but now I know it is the best option Hexxeh could have chosen.
P.S.: Again, this is an article I wrote a while ago; these days I am no longer considering buying a ChromeBox :).