Sameer Samat, president of Google for the Android ecosystem, mentioned in an interview with Techradar the intention to merge Chrome OS and Android into a single platform. During the conversation, Sameer noticed that the journalist had a MacBook and an Apple Watch and asked what applications he uses on his laptop and how he manages his devices, explaining that he inquired because Google plans to combine Chrome OS and Android, and he is curious how people use their laptops.
Previously, official representatives of Google had not openly mentioned plans to merge Chrome OS and Android, although information about this was unofficially obtained from some Google employees in November 2024. The reason given for the merger was the desire to strengthen competition with the iPad and to use engineering resources more effectively, avoiding the dispersion of efforts across two operating systems.
An indirect confirmation of Google's intentions was the work started last year to transition the ChromeOS system environment to a variant of the Linux kernel, along with frameworks and system components from the Android platform. At the same time, recent releases of the Android platform have seen active development of the desktop mode and capabilities for working on larger screen devices.
The ChromeOS operating system resembles atomically updatable Linux distributions in its architecture, using a Linux kernel with specific patches, the upstart system manager, and the ebuild/portage build tools from Gentoo Linux. Although the user environment of ChromeOS is focused on using a web browser and web applications instead of standard programs, the platform includes a full multi-window interface, desktop, and taskbar. Applications designed for Linux and Android are launched using makinat virtuale, të cilat aktivizohen përmes hiper-vizorit CrosVM, i bazuar në KVM.
By default, Chrome OS employs encryption of disk partitions with user data (using fscrypt), while system partitions are mounted in read-only mode, verified with a digital signature, and updated atomically (two root partitions, one for operation and one for installing updates, which swap places). Output to the screen is handled by the Freon graphical stack and the Aura window manager (a compositing project is also developed on top of Aura). server Exo based on Wayland, working on top of Aura). The source code is distributed under the Apache 2.0 open-source license.
Burimi: opennet.ru
