What’s inside Google Chrome OS? Linux 2.6.30

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For an operating system that is basically just a browser, Google’s Chrome OS has got a lot of attention over the last 36 hours.

Looking under the hood of the actual code as part of the Chromium OS project (no need to do a full download just check out git) reveals some interesting insights into what actually makes it work and leaves me with some big questions on where it’s headed.

At the top level, Chrome OS is now powered by a Linux 2.6.30 kernel which came out in June. So no it’s not (right now at least) the more recent 2.6.31 kernel which came out in September. Which is kind of curious.

Why wouldn’t Google use the most recent Linux kernel? After all this is a development operating system, it’s not yet for production use so might as well use the leading edge of development right?

And yes, Chromium uses a bunch of items from Ubuntu and there is a direct connection between Google and Ubuntu. But take a look at Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, it uses the 2.6.31 kernel and not 2.6.30.