Google Company demonstrated partners at a closed event, the FerroChrome project, within the framework of which a special assembly of the Chromium OS operating system was prepared, designed to run in a virtual machine on devices with the Android platform. The Chromium OS interface was displayed on a large screen connected to a Pixel 8 smartphone. It is assumed that the ability to run Chromium OS can be used to create a full-featured desktop environment that can be used when the smartphone is connected to a monitor, keyboard and mouse.
Starting with Android 13, it was added to the platform Android Virtualization Framework (AVF), implemented on the basis of the KVM hypervisor and tools crossvm, and allowing you to run virtual machines with others with other operating systems. Until now, Google has used AVF to perform “microdroid” builds, which are used to isolate third-party system components.
The FerroChrome build is not yet publicly available, but Google published instructions on running Chromium OS in the AVF virtual machine. Using this instruction, enthusiasts managed to reproduce launching Chromium OS on a Pixel 7 Pro smartphone with a connected external screen, keyboard and mouse.
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