As you may all know, Google released source code for it’s much ballyhooed OS, named after it’s popular browser named Chrome.  I’ve been able to run a vmware image in VirtualBox and although I know it’s just a technical preview of the OS, I can say it’s pretty zippy (good for a sub-netbook machine).

Again, the emphasis, sub-netbook – I really don’t think this will replace your netbook/laptop any time soon as it’s primary OS.

As a side note, I am thinking of compiling and building the sources in Ubuntu soon so I can look at how they made the linux kernel boot that quick (even in VirtualBox, it booted up, in let’s say, less than 10 seconds?).

Anyways, I’m getting somewhat offtopic… here’s how to install Chrome OS in VirtualBox (I am assuming you have VirtualBox installed on your host OS already):

1. Download the vmware image here: http://gdgt.com/google/chrome-os/download/

2. Unarchive the vmware image to a folder of your choice.

3. Open up VirtualBox and click on the New Button.

Follow these screenshots shown below for setup:

Create Virtual Machine

Set OS Name

Set Memory Requirements

Select your vmware harddisk (3 screenshots below)

Finishing up

And you should be able to start your Chrome OS in VirtualBox by selecting Chrome OS and pressing start button (sample screenshots of Chrome OS below):