Google’s Fuchsia OS is now Available for the Pixelbook and other Chromebooks

Google has been experimenting secretly with a new operating system, Fuchsia, for more than a year. But in the meantime, we haven’t been able to learn about its development. The good news is that in a new document, Google has listed several devices that can run Fuchsia, including its own Pixelbook, Acer’s Switch Alpha 12, and Intel’s NUC mini host.

Created by Google and open-sourced for a developer community to contribute to, Fuchsia is still a mysterious operating system that the search giant hasn’t detailed at all. Chrome Unboxed reports that Google has now released documentation to allow developers to load Fuchsia onto the company’s Pixelbook.

The tech blog Chrome Unboxed reports that Google quietly released instructions for installing, Fuchsia on the Pixelbook laptop. The search giant has also released instructions for installing the operating system on the Acer Switch 12 and the Intel NUC.

Fuchsia is an early-stage experimental project. We, you know, we actually have lots of cool early projects at Google. I think what’s interesting here is its open source, so people can see it and comment on it. Like lots of early-stage projects, it’s gonna probably pivot and morph.

Although the documentation describes how to load the software into the above devices, but for the normal consumer, we suggest you to buy a new a hardware that comes with a new system pre-installed, given that the OS is still in its early stages (unsuitable for production), and to avoid baffling problems.

Getting it going on the Pixelbook isn’t any easier. The installation guidelines recommend installing it with a USB drive, but warn that the process is “destructive” to the USB device. Allegedly this just means you’ll need to reformat it, but again, the wording, and the choice of supported devices so far, means Google isn’t actively encouraging people to have a go at this stage.

In addition, Fuchsia uses the company’s own “Escher” renderer and “flutter” SDK. The former is primarily responsible for drawing Material design elements on the screen, while the latter is used across platform code implementations to facilitate IOS and Android developers.