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A few months back, there was quite a buzz around the work being done surrounding containers being run on Chrome OS. Since that time, there hasn’t been much news on that front but we’ve stumbled upon some new signs that suggest the project is alive and well.
First, at some point since the release of Chrome OS 63, a new flag has been added to chrome://flags that enables the Chrome OS Container Utility.
The flag is disabled by default and enabling it appears to do nothing. This expounds on the recently added crosh command added to the developer shell late last year.
From what I have been able to ascertain, the feature will require building a container via Docker then calling on the container using the crosh commands.
I have received word from a source inside of Google that says the work on Chrome OS Containers continues to move forward and that Google is dedicated to making the project a reality.
The only bad news about all of this is that I have also been told that the containers work will target mainly developers. That said, if the project is successful that doesn’t mean we couldn’t see a public-facing rendition of the feature.
What that looks like is anybody’s guess.
Over in the Chromium OS discussion, one of the lead developers has shared fragmented details of how the feature would be implemented but it looks as though only approved applications will be allowed, at least for now.
Google I/O is roughly three months away and I have a sneaky suspicion we may hear more about containers on Chrome OS at the annual developer event. In the meantime, I’m going to keep poking around and even attempt to build and launch my own container.
If you don’t hear from me, I may have broken something or got lost in the Matrix. Wish me luck.
