I see no reason that I would want to "install" ChromeOS on any PC. That removes some of the inherent reliability of a Chromebook. Plus PCs cost more in general.

If you like ChromeOS functionality, get a Chromebook or Chromebox for the best experience. If you aren't sure yet, just try to live in Chrome for a week and see how it goes. No apps, no local storage. No hardware add ons like printers or cams. Just plain vanilla Chrome.

I hope the chances are very small. Chrome os has security controls that would not be achievable with a distro. Chromium is not the same as Chrome os. It is similar though, it is better to have a model where Google controls the software and hardware to guarantee a bullet proof platform. There is also custom firmware that is specifically unique to each platform. You can't expect Google to support all platforms out there. I can assure you that running chrome os on everything is not a goal at all.

+Chuck Woodard OK. So how about Chromium-OS then? I can understand Google not wanting to provide generalised support (even if it works for Canonical, Microsoft and many others). But could the community produce a version that was more third party friendly?

There's enough people asking for this, and Hexxeh and then ArnoldTheBat kind of providing it. And I can see the appeal of having a self-contained copy of ChromiumOS sitting on a USB stick. And/or a reliable way of trying out the environment without spending the money on a Chromebook.

The main problems at the moment:- - Startup failures related to device location of the USB stick
- Startup failures related to the STATE partition and endless reboots
- The usual flaky linux support for some trackpads, network adapters, sound cards, etc
- non-FOSS software like MP3 support, Flash etc, etc

All of these have been solved by other distros. It ought to be possible for Chromium-OS to solve them. If there's the will.

Maybe I'm asking the wrong question. Perhaps it should be "what's the fastest and lightest weight way of running Chrome from a USB stick?".

What exactly are you trying to accomplish? You want to have access to your Chrome or Chrome OS like environment from any machine you sit down at?

Why not install the XFCE spin of Linux Mint onto a USB stick, install Chrome and uninstall any of the stuff that Mint installs by default that you don't want. It's reasonably lightweight and better supported.

+Julian Bond For your first reply, The most important goal of the Chrome team is to provide security, security and more security, then speed and simplicity. Installable executables are forbidden. From what I understand, any method of malware introduction via trojan or virus is forbidden, Chrome OS does not trust any apps.

Secondly, there is verified boot. From the initial point of power up, every component of the boot process is signed, encrypted and verified via hash, then the hash is verified by another hash, and that hash is again verified by another hash. Even the firmware is signed. I should mention that Legacy Bios is not supported, it is all UEFI Bios now. 

Chrome OS is hardened beyond the verified boot. When an Auto update occurs all the hashes are changed in order to guarantee the code has not been tampered with, and updated firmware comes down with it. I have a Google sheets somewhere that describes all of this but cannot put my hands on it right now.
Up until Chrome OS, no one has done it this way before. Chrome OS is a black box that is sealed tight against intruders. The team did not want folks to just "try it out" as they knew that there would be some joker out there that would try to break it, and then it would be open to those who have nothing better to do than to craft nasty things that we all would rather not happen.

Linux is fairly secure but not enough, Windows is my bread and butter so I will not say what I think about it, other than it could be better.

I have read that the team stated, "for those who do want to check it out", they can play with Chromium, but it has never been implied that the Chromium base would be maintained. It has been left to others to do this. I don't know what you do for a living, but it is cheaper for me to spend $200.00 than to spend hours/days fooling around trying to install code and still not have the level of security that Chrome OS provides. It is a small price to pay if you think about it.

I have not attempted to run Chromium from USB for the reasons I have stated above, so I cannot answer that question..sorry.

+Scot McSweeney-Roberts Yesterday afternoon, I fired up Precise Puppy, installed Chrome and ended up with something pretty useable. Same kind of approach. Ultra lightweight Linux distro + Chrome, plus a little customisation.

Interesting that the sticking point was the same that I believe ChromeOS has a problem with. Finding a full function music player that can index and play a large MP3 collection on a home NAS. Auto-mounting a windows (SMB/CIFS) share is a bit flaky and awkward. And most of the music players are also a bit flaky. But then so is iTunes and WMP and even Winamp has it's problems.

+Julian Bond Which NAS? Synology NASes have a built in web based music player and I'm fairly certain others do as well.

It's actually a Buffalo. But like most of these things, the web based player is primitive and unpleasant. I'd much rather simply treat the drive as a remote disk and use my favourite music player to play the files.

I could upload to Google Play but the library is too big.

There's also a media server, but again, media server clients are unpleasant.

There's a certain irony that using the shared drive and running one of a big choice of music players is all trivial in Windows. 

+Steve Liberty I have an old eeePC that gets used for playing media and occasionally for camping trips. I wanted to try a ChromeOS environment first before finally replacing it.  So the goal was to run ChromeOS from a USB stick as a Live-USB. But I failed as I can't get Chromium-OS to run.

Running Linux Distros from USB in order to try them out is an old game we've been playing for years. Some of the Distros are specifically designed for this so you can carry a rescue environment in your pocket or boot into your own environment on other people's machines. The question is whether this is something Google and/or the ChromiumOS community might make straight forward at some time in the future.

And the biggest reason for doing this. Being able to carry your personal Chrome environment round with you on a USB stick and being able to boot into it on any PC without installing anything or leaving anything behind.

Hmmm. PortableApp or Zero install on any windows machine?

Julian, when you use Chrome everything is in the cloud. You leave nothing behind. All you need is the chrome browser. It's a thin client. So when you login to your Google account everything is there, except things you may have stored locally.

+Julian Bond all you really need is Chrome on the machine you "sit down at", and you are 95% of the way there. There isn't much else of substance in a ChromeOS environment .

Yes and no, the issue being Google's Chrome Sync. You want all your extensions, settings and bookmarks synced up, but you probably don't want to leave them on the machine.

+Julian Bond OK, here is an example. I login to chrome, and all my stuff is there. I then logout of the browser, my wife logs in. She does not see any of my extensions or my bookmarks. All of those things are tied to my account. If you quit the browser without logging out, your stuff will still be there when someone else fires up the browser because you never logged out.

oh, ok. It works then.
BTW. Just came across another alternative, Chrome as a portable App on a USB Stick. http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/google_chrome_portable