Tag Archives: Hexxeh
Chrome On The Eee Pad Transformer
Posted on 13. Aug, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 
1 Comments
A very interesting series of tweets from Liam Mcullough earlier this week. For those of you who don’t know, Mcullough- also known by his nickname, Hexxeh, is the man who’s more or less been solely responsible for pretty much every Chromium OS release since Chrome first hit the market. He’s also the fellow who loaded Chrome onto a Macbook Air. With that information in mind, it was pretty clear what his intentions were when he tweeted on Sunday that he was “picking up an Asus transformer tomorrow, with the keyboard dock.” That said, he continued by establishing that he was “not interested in running Android on there.”
After spending about a day fiddling around with his new purchase(which apparently rather impressed him), Hexxeh managed to load Google’s Chrome OS onto the rig, as made evident by the screenshot above. Though it’s kind of hard to tell due to the lighting, that is none other than the Asus Eee Pad Transformer, complete with a shiny new OS- and it definitely isn’t Android.
Now, before you folks go getting all excited; there are a few things we’ll first need to establish. One; this isn’t as much of a total system overhaul as with the Macbook Air, either- in this case, he booted straight from a USB drive, in order to make it easier to work on the image. Second, the current build of Chromium on the Transformer is suffering from some…pretty nasty bugs, if Hexxeh’s to be believed. When asked about how well it ran, he responded with the following:
“runs terribly things to some huge bugs in the LDK, gonna try to work around them by patching Chromium and the WM. Basics like WiFi, touchscreen work, sound is MIA right now but that’s an easy fix.”
So….long story short, he’s still working feverishly on getting this system up and running. Those of you expecting a touch-based UI might be a bit disappointed, though. Hexxeh’s made it clear that he’s not keen on building a touch interface for the transformer at the current moment- seems likely he’s more focused on getting the basics working before he starts fiddling with the onscreen keyboard- something which is made possible thanks to the transformer’s rather excellent keyboard dock.
Currently, Hexxeh’s managed to shave ten seconds off the boot time of the Transformer (No word on how long it takes to load, I’ll keep you posted), and the release date for this build is…basically “TBA.” According to Mcullough, when or if he releases this build hinges entirely on when he finds the time to finish it.
Considering how fast he seems to work, I’d imagine it’ll probably be some time next month.
Either way, it’s pretty exciting news- as he put it, the experiment is basically “complete proof of concept” regarding the viability of Chrome as a tablet OS. Of course, we sort of knew the concept was true from the beginning- Hexxeh’s just demonstrating it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
You can follow Hexxeh on Twitter here, or visit his blog and toss a donation his way here.
Image Credits: Hexxeh
Chromium OS Ported To The Macbook Air
Posted on 29. Jul, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 1 Comments
Anyone who knows Chrome, knows Hexxeh- the fellow behind pretty much every open source Chrome OS build available on the net. If you’ve used a Chrome build, and it wasn’t on a Chromebook- you probably used on built by him. You probably get the idea by now- he’s kind of a big deal, guys-at least when it comes to the Chrome open source community. Now, you’re probably wondering what Hexxeh has to do with this story, right?
Turns out, he’s been busy- on top of developing new Chromium builds for all of us to fiddle with; he’s also managed to do something very interesting with Apple’s new Macbook Air- he’s jammed Chromium into it.
I’m not just talking virtualization, either-Hexxeh’s tossed OSX out the window for this one. The Macbook seen here is one hundred percent Chrome. Pretty spiffy, no? Now, unfortunately, the Macbook Air isn’t going to have all the same features one might find in a Chromebook- it’s simply not built to accommodate some of the features that are standard fare for Chrome- such as verified boot or boot speed optimization. According to Hexxeh, his jury-rigged Macbook Chrome takes around twenty two seconds to start up- pretty damned fast, but left in the dust by a traditional Chromebook.
Aside from a massive leap in hard drive space and slightly improved graphics hardware(which you’ll need to do some BIOS tweaking to get up and running); Hexxeh’s Macbook Chrome isn’t all that different from a traditional Chromebook. I mean, you could have double the RAM if you shelled out extra for the 4 GB model, and about .24 GHz more processing power, but that aside…not a whole lot to see here. Still, Hexxeh says it’s pretty awesome-we should probably take his word for it. After all; he is the expert here. Anyway, those of you who enjoy tinkering with code are probably clamoring to find out how to do this yourself, aren’t you?
Didn’t Get a Cr-48? Chrome OS Vanilla Will Soon Be Available for VM
Posted on 13. Mar, 2011 by Daniel Cawrey. 3 Comments
The Chrome OS laptop Pilot Program has seen its time come and go. There are a lot of people interested in what Chrome OS can do that were not the recipients of the device, and anyone outside of the United States was pretty much left out. But there are alternatives available, such as Hexxeh’s Chrome OS Flow and Vanilla builds.
Chrome OS Flow is actually an older, yet user-friendly version that works on most hardware. Vanilla comes from daily Chromium OS builds and doesn’t work with a wide array of devices. But Hexxeh is close to release daily VM builds of Chrome OS Vanilla, as evidenced by this screenshot that shows Chromium OS R12 running in VirtualBox.
Hexxeh Puts Chromium OS on a MacBook Pro
Posted on 21. Feb, 2011 by Daniel Cawrey. 7 Comments
UK student and Chrome OS developer extraordinaire Hexxeh has posted an image of Chromium OS on a MacBook Pro in what he calls a “bit of relaxing Saturday afternoon ebuild hacking“.
The open source nature of Chrome OS lends itself to this type of hacking. Indeed, Hexxeh has been the forerunner of all things Chrome OS in terms of hacks, and it’s fun to watch the things that he comes up with. A while back he announced Chrome OS Lime, the next generation of his Chrome builds which have already surpassed a half million downloads.
However, he has recently contemplated getting out of the Chrome OS game altogether due to numerous support requests and the costs associated with serving up those builds. Here’s hoping Hexxeh will continue his work, and judging by this he plans to do so.
Hexxeh Working on “Luigi” Cr-48 Firmware Toolkit
Posted on 03. Jan, 2011 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments
Sure, you could run through the entire gamut that is involved in flashing your Cr-48 BIOS. If you do, you can use your Chrome OS laptop to do whatever you wish, like throwing Mac OS X on it. Or you could wait until someone comes up with a toolkit to take care of all this for you.
Oh wait, it looks like Hexxeh is already doing that.
Luigi looks like a nice little package that will allow you to be able to use a custom BIOS, and then switch back to the stock one to use regular old Chrome OS. This instead of having to use an Ubuntu installation first. With Chrome OS Lime and now this along with being a student and all, we’re starting to wonder when this guy sleeps. If he actually does sleep.
Chrome OS Lime from Hexxeh on its Way Soon?
Posted on 19. Dec, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments
For those of you who are not going to be able to get a Cr-48 laptop, there are still ways for you to use Chrome OS on an old laptop lying around. The most popular and accommodating to hardware drivers is Chrome OS Flow, release by a UK developer name Hexxeh.
There is also Chrome OS Vanilla from Hexxeh, which is essentially a compiled version of what the Chromium OS project are pushing out. For more information on downloading Chrome OS for yourself, go here.
Anyways, Hexxeh is now saying he plans on releasing a new version of his builds called Lime. We’re guessing that this is in an effort to update his build for the new Chromium OS builds that are arriving every day. This along with enhanced hardware support a la Flow would be a huge hit, we’re looking forward to trying it.
It should be available in a few weeks, barring any beta testing setbacks. To get on the beta list go to ##hexxeh on irc.freenode.org. Let us know if you get a chance to try it out!
via Hexxeh’s Blog
With Over 85,000 People Running Chromium OS, Chrome’s OS Future Bright
Posted on 18. Oct, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 1 Comments
Google intends on having Chrome OS devices available from some of the top PC manufacturers before the end of the year. That means a major announcement will be coming soon, as well as a release of a first version of a completed and stable build of Chromium OS for developers to do what they wish with.
It may be flying under the radar, but one cannot ignore the significance of an open-sourced version of a brand new operating system for computers that will have a bit of a spotlight. This will likely be propelled from media news about Chrome OS’s official launch.
Chrome OS Release Candidate Available Soon?
Posted on 11. Oct, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 1 Comments
TechCrunch’s MG Siegler is reporting that there has been chatter about a “RC”, or release candidate build on the Chromium code site. It does indeed seem to be the case that there appears to be a version of Chrome OS that is going to be at a stable release.
This screenshot comes from on a post from October 3, so Chromium OS is at or near version 0.9.78.0. That’s got to be pretty close to version 1, which if the versioning is anything like Android (1 was the first release for devices) would mean an official release.
thechromesource Daily: Links for 10/4/10
Posted on 04. Oct, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments
The Google Chrome team has sent Hexxeh a note of thanks and a Nexus One for the work on his Chrome OS builds this year.
While outside developers will have to wait until 2011 for their Google TV apps, the platform will have Pandora, Netflix and more.
The Gmail team now has their own Twitter account for news and updates.
Google will release their third quarter financial results on a conference call that is scheduled for October 14.
LG has scrapped their plans for an Android-based tablet, saying that version 2.2 is not capable.
Video: Chrome OS on iPad
Posted on 30. Sep, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments
So it’s done. Hexxeh has shot some video of his Chromium OS-iPad creation which he calls the ChromePad Demo. Not much to it, but it does show touch capability which we have seen Hexxeh do in the past with a Joggler tablet. He has posted on Twitter that Flash doesn’t yet work on the ChromePad, but he’s working on it. Enjoy.
Hexxeh Puts Chrome OS on an iPad
Posted on 28. Sep, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 3 Comments
Being the multi-talented sort that he is, Hexxeh doesn’t only do Google-type stuff, he also develops Apple-based things in his spare time. No surprise then, that he has posted a picture of Chrome OS (well, Chromium OS) on an iPad. Although he does say about the Chrome OS iPad combo on Twitter “there are a few catches“. Still. Nice. Work.
You can follow Hexxeh’s seldomly updated blog here, but hey Hexxeh, can we have some video please?
Check out my interview with Hexxeh earlier this year.
Chromium OS Switches to HTML Options Menu
Posted on 21. Sep, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments
Hexxeh posted last night some images of Chromium OS’s new HTML option menus, just as Chromium browser is now experimenting with the feature by placing the menu as a tab up top rather than as a window. Since everything is supposed to be browser-based in Chrome, it makes sense to show that the internal workings of the platform itself can be run with web technologies.
In addition to the options in Chrome browser, the operating system settings are a tad bit more complex. There is a System, Internet, Users and Labs sections to go with the standard browser Basics, Personal Stuff and Under the Hood (in the U.K. version it’s called Under the Bonnet). The most interesting thing I find here is that the Labs component has become an option menu, which probably foretells where that experimental section is heading in the future.
Anyways, here are the screenshots.
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