Chrome OS is an operating system designed by Google that is based on the Linux kernel and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user interface. As a result, Chrome OS primarily supports web applications
The first Chrome OS laptop, known as a Chromebook, arrived in May 2011. Initial Chromebook shipments from Samsung and Acer occurred in July 2011.
Chrome OS is only available pre-installed on hardware from Google manufacturing partners. An open source equivalent, Chromium OS, can be downloaded from Neverware and installed on almost any computer with 2GIGs or more of RAM.
Good-N-Free Meetup 