14 DAY TRIAL // It's been two years since we last heard from Dylan Callahan and his awesome Chromium OS for SBCs project that tried to bring the open-source, Linux-based operating system to single-board computers.
In July 2016, Callahan wrote to us that he is looking for new team members to join his project to continue full-scale work on Chromium OS for SBCs. Unfortunately, that didn't happen as a few months after the announcement we published back then, Flint Innovations Limited informed us that Chromium OS for SBCs was forked into Flint OS.
Flint Innovations had some big plans for Flint OS, supporting not only Raspberry Pi boards, but also x86 computers with Intel and Nvidia GPUs, and also promised to let users run Android apps, a Google initiative that's now mainstream on Chrome OS and already supported by most Chromebooks out there. In March 2018, Flint OS was bought by Neverware.
Chromium OS for SBCs is making a comeback
Now that Flint OS is "gone," and there's still no feasible way of getting pure Chromium OS running on your tiny single-board computer, Keith Callahan announced today that he is reviving the Chromium OS for SBCs project in an attempt to offer the community an easy way of installing the open-source Chromium OS operating system on Raspberry Pi SBCs.
"The first new release will be named after one of the co-founders of Chromium OS for SBCs, Hans-Gerhard Weinreich, who recently passed away this year," wrote Callahan. "Hans was one of the first people who initially helped me. He helped me for a year and a half, and then he went on to the recently acquired FlintOS to help design and code their Raspberry Pi project."
Callahan told Softpedia that he is currently working hard on the new Chromium OS for SBCs 1.0 (Codename Weinreich) release, which should hit the streets near the Christmas holidays, with initial support for Raspberry Pi 2, Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, and the new Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ boards. We wish him good luck and we can't wait to get our hands on the first release. Meanwhile, you can join the Reddit discussion if you want to help him with the project.