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CloudReady lets you dual-boot Windows and ChromiumOS on your PC

froggyboy604

froggyboy604

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CloudReady is an operating system designed to basically turn your existing PC into a Chromebook. Launched in 2015, CloudReady makes it easy to replace Windows with an operating system based on Chromium OS (the open source version of Chrome OS). But now you can also create a dual-boot setup on some computers, allowing you to switch between Windows and CloudReady/Chromium when you turn on the PC.

Home users can download and install CloudReady for free, but the developers at NeverWare are also offering paid education and enterprise versions of the software, which will work with Google Management Console service, support automatic updtes, and include technical support services.

For now, the dual boot version of CloudReady requires a relatively recent computer with UEFI firmware, at least 32GB of available storage space, and Windows 7 or later. Legacy BIOS, earlier versions of Windows, and OS X and Linux aren’t officially supported, although it may be possible to get the software to run on computers with those types of firmware and/or operating systems.

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CloudReady sounds like a good operating system for people who need a very lightweight operating system for quickly browsing the web. The 32GB of free space requirement for CloudReady seems pretty high since there are some Linux OS which only require 10GB or less free space.

I feel Puppy Linux, Tiny Core Linux, and Lubuntu would be better for dual-booting Windows and Linux because of their lower free space storage requirement.

The UEFI firmware requirement also makes CloudReady not compatible with most older computers which still use BIOS setups, so older PCs can't use this OS.

Users who already have a newer Windows PC would probably just install the Google Chrome or the open sourced Chromium web browser to use most of the features of Chrome OS within Windows.
 
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Eh, isn't there better ways to dual boot without the need of a third part program?
 
Demon_Skeith said:
Eh, isn't there better ways to dual boot without the need of a third part program?
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Most Linux operating systems like Ubuntu, and Linux Mint also comes install with the GRUB boot loader which is used to pick which OS the user wants to boot into during PC startup if more than one operating system is installed on a PC's storage drive.

But, if only a Linux OS is installed, you just can boot into Linux, Recovery command line console, or Memtest which is a RAM tester program installed with GRUB.
 
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froggyboy604 said:
Most Linux operating systems like Ubuntu, and Linux Mint also comes install with the GRUB boot loader which is used to pick which OS the user wants to boot into during PC startup if more than one operating system is installed on a PC's storage drive.

But, if only a Linux OS is installed, you just can boot into Linux, Recovery command line console, or Memtest which is a RAM tester program installed with GRUB.
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I thought the OS selected was based on the PC tower itself?
 
Demon_Skeith said:
I thought the OS selected was based on the PC tower itself?
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Boot loaders like GRUB is installed on the hard drive's Master Boot Record which is at the beginning of the of the hard drive partition on the drive, and contain records on which operating systems are on the drive, and let you boot into different operating systems if more than one is installed.

I think the Boot loader on the PC's motherboard's BIOS/CMOS is very basic, and is just mainly used to boot your PC from a CD, USB external drive, or Floppy drive. I think you can setup your computer to use the PC's motherboard to pick the Hard drive, CD Drive, USB drive, and Floppy you want to boot into, but you still need to rely on Master Boot Record programs like GRUB, or the default bootloader which comes with Windows to boot your computer into a chosen operating system.

The PC's motherboard boot loader also can't detect multiple operating systems like GRUB bootloader which can detect many operating systems installed on one or more hard drive.

Archer said:
Not to sound like a jerk, but I don't understand why anyone would want to do this.
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CloudReady is more lightweight, and easier to use than other Free operating systems, and work on a lot of older computers. CloudReady also has most of the basic apps like a web browser, word processor, spreadsheet program, and and presentation program.

People also don't have to remove Windows to use CloudReady, so they still can boot into Windows to play games, and use programs like Photoshop.
 
Demon_Skeith said:
must not be much into IT, at my school alone we need to use several different OS for our projects. So something like cloudready would make it easier.
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I agree, that most computer courses need to use different Operating Systems for different projects like setting up a web server operating systems which just has the basic features on a web hosting server, so people can view websites when they visit a web address which is connected to the web server.

I think Cloudready is good for users who just need to use regular computer programs, on a slower computer which is too old and slow to run programs like a Web Browser, and Office programs like a word processor, and spreadsheets at a decent speed on Windows, and some Linux operating systems which has a lot of small programs running in the background which can use a lot of RAM, and CPU resources which slow down computers with under 2GB of RAM, and cheaper Intel Celeron or Atom CPUs.

But, CloudReady has fewer programs running in the background, so it should run better on slower PCs with 2GB or less RAM, and a slower Intel Celeron and Atom CPUs which was very popular in the past because of the cheap prices of Celerons and Intels.

Chrome OS can now run some Android Apps, so CloudReady can probably be use as a simple server for sharing files on a network, and using Remote desktop apps which are useful for using the internet to login to a person's PC to troubleshoot and fix problems with their computer by remotely logging into their PC, and taking control of it to fix Windows, Linux, and Mac by doing something like virus removal which the user may not know how to do themselves.
 
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