We recently covered CloudReady, a Chromium OS-based system designed to give old computers a second life. Borrowing concepts from Chrome OS and wrapping them in a traditional Linux distribution isn't a bad idea, and that's exactly what Chromixium OS does: it blends the look and feel of Chrome OS with the support, stability, and familiarity of Ubuntu LTS.
One of the biggest obstacles any computer user faces is hardware compatibility. There's always that component that gets abandoned by its manufacturer, or unstable drivers that cause endless headaches. The Linux world has accumulated countless bad experiences on this front, as demonstrated by Linus Torvalds' colorful response to Nvidia. Some companies simply aren't interested in improving the situation, so it falls on the community to build bridges that make hardware work better. For example, CloudReady, which we mentioned yesterday, is a great example of an interesting project, but it suffers from the same growing pains as Chromium OS when it comes to support.
What Makes Chromixium OS Different?
Chromixium OS is an alternative worth considering. The key difference is that its code is not based on Chromium OS at all—instead, it's built on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. It replicates the Chrome/Chromium OS experience using Openbox, some LXDE components, and the Compton compositor. It does a solid job of providing access to all Google services, and as expected, Chromium takes the role of the main browser. The use of Openbox gives users an efficient, minimalist interface that never gets in the way, and because it's built on Ubuntu LTS, users should find better hardware support and security updates through 2019.
Current Release Status
The latest version of Chromixium OS is 1.5, which arrived in July of this year. The most serious issue with the distro right now is the lack of a stable 64-bit edition. The developers have published a Release Candidate that should become final soon, but until then, the safest bet is the 32-bit build. For older systems or netbooks, that's not a problem, since it's rare to see those machines with more than 4 GB of RAM. In short, if you're drawn to the Chrome OS interface and have some Ubuntu experience, Chromixium OS is what you're looking for.
We'd like to extend a personal thanks to commenter 'JR', who suggested we take a look at this distro.
Official site and download: Chromixium OS
