Fake Chrome OS Surfaces — Briefly

There’s a lot of buzz about Google Chrome and the impending Google Chrome OS. But something strange happened Oct. 28. Gizmodo briefly posted an article saying Chrome OS was out. But was the report true?

Google’s Official blog didn’t say anything so Gizmodo was surprised. The blog read: “this came out of no where.” Less than an hour later, the Gizmodo blog entry was gone. The only remnant of the post was cached text in NetNewsWire. It wasn’t even up long enough for Google Cache to pick it up. What happened?

The link that Gizmodo provided leads to a suspiciously bare Google Site (that is: sites.google.com). It boasts that a new version of the Chrome OS is out. There were a few reasons I was suspicious. First: I’d previously seen a hoaxed YouTube video of the OS in action. Second; the main page said they were using GNOME. This didn’t make sense at all. Google’s own blog said they were developing their own window manager. My apprehensions were allayed when I spied some fine print on the download page. “Chrome OS is not related to Google. Service provided by SUSE Studio. See the license.”

So what is SUSE Studio? It’s a essentially a custom-linux ‘tailor’ for deploying appliances or self-branded linux distributions. A great idea from SUSE, a terrible implementation from the anonymous Chrome ‘hoaxers.’ In fairness, they’re not exactly hoaxers, since technically the software they provide is a legitimate implementation of SUSE with a ‘Chrome appliance’ at its heart. But it’s no where near the mythical operating system we’re waiting for.

If you’re wondering if I gave the OS a try, I didn’t.

I’ll hold out for the real thing.

NOTE: As of 4PM on 10.28.2009 – Gizmodo had not commented at all.

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