A UK-based developer who finally scraped together enough money for a MacBook Air managed to hack Google's Chromium OS onto it a short time later, according to a blog post published on Tuesday. Chromium's startup time is slower than OS X and the need for BIOS emulation bogs the entire thing down, but the author managed to force the OS and the hardware to put aside most of their differences. For science.
The process involves putting the install image on a USB stick, and then rebooting the computer with both the Chromium and OS X install USB sticks inserted in the computer. A quick command later, the 11-inch MacBook Air is rebooting to the Chromium login screen.
The author, who goes by Hexxeh, notes that his process overwrites OS X on the MacBook Air's SSD; dual-booting is a project for another day. But all the hardware, including WiFi, sound, touchpad, and screen brightness controls work under the new OS, except for Bluetooth, which is not supported by Chromium.
Hexxeh expects that the hack would work on multiple types of NVIDIA-based Mac notebooks, but he only plans to support the newer 11- and 13-inch MacBook Airs. While the notebook is generally slower, the author also notes that battery life "is probably slightly better."
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