New: Gopherus (Feb 14, 2023), Platform 24.1 (Feb 13, 2023)
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I remember reading something about an operating system by Google that is designed for "people who spend most of their time on the web." apparently there is no way to get it though normal channels, only though something called VMware (or something along those lines) from what I've researched about it.
What is it's main purpose? Why was Google so interested in making it's own OS?
It's an Operating System by Google based off Google Chrome. So picture Google Chrome as an operating system. It's 100% web based, and completely consists of online Google tools. So if you don't have internet, it's close to useless.
http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os
I'm not sure what the purpose of Chromium OS is though. Just seems like another stunt to take over the world to me :/
Isn't it geared more towards mobile/cellular applications? So the assumption that you have Internet access is okay in that scenario, since if your cell phone doesn't have Internet access then it's time to upgrade from Tracfone (like me). 
you seem to forget Chromium is the entire engine Google Chrome is based off of.
It sounds like it's something for people who waste 36.999..% of the lifespans on Facebook, Myspace, or any other social site. I'm not into them personally, never used them in fact. What if I want to install Wolfram Mathimatica 7.0.1? Can't do that on Chrome OS, I imagine. Maybe it is another Google big bro thing...or they're trying to gain a foothold in the OS market.
Unless I made it up, the operating system is ubuntu with a custom graphical interface. Its targeted towards fairly specialized hardware, so that it can boot quickly.
You can download compiled torrents, but last I knew it was only available as source code. This may definitely have changed.
I don't know why google is making its own OS. Because it can?
Its not an OS. It's more of a browser that you can run without booting up your computer.
From Chromium OS website:
"Prerequisites
You need to have Linux. We currently support the following:
Ubuntu (Hardy 8.04 or newer, Karmic 9.10 recommended)
A 64-bit system for performing the build (we hope to support 32-bit machines as well at some point)
An account with root access (needed to run chroot and modify the mount table)
Chromium prerequisites (needed to build a Chromium-based browser as part of building Chromium OS)"
Just don't see the point of it unless you never use anything but the internet
That's a laugh... I watched the Chromium introductory video and it says that it does away with all the hardware layers, programs and basically most of the OS, yet Chromium has a dependency of another OS to run it. That's a joke!
The idea is a good one, it's true that most of peoples' time is spent on the web and we can even run applications in our browsers now. Still, to call it an OS is a bit of a misnomer.
Google Chromium pOSer: Partial Operating System End-user Replacement
But after it's shipped on actual hardware, installing it won't be much of a problem now will it?
The hardware idea is because if everything works in any web browser, It will work fine in chrome OS,
If something is designed in say, Web GL, or runs flash, or runs a plugin inside the app via embed, it will run fine in Chrome OS.
The reason it's called Chrome OS, is because it is an OS, even though it uses another OS as a back-end.
Besides, Why do all the work of creating a OS when Linux is already available as a perfectly good back-end.
What if the underlying OS fails?
I just think it's "cheating" that's all, it's a bit like saying you've created a brand new sports car that totally blows any Ferrari out of the water... oh and btw, under the hood is a Ferrari engine. 
I understand the idea, I just think that the way it is presented is misleading.
And to answer you're question of why bother creating a completely new OS... it's called improvement. You see an opportunity to change and improve something. That is pretty much the reason anything is ever created. If we stuck with the status quo every single time then the word "innovation" wouldn't exist. Why bother creating any new programming languages ever, when a perfectly good one in C++ exists already? Why bother creating hybrid or fuel cell vehicles when the internal combustion engine is perfectly adequate? Why bother creating Chrome OS if Linux is already awesome, doesn't need another layer on top of it? Nothing is without fault.
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