Google’s Chrome OS might not yet be upon us but we have a nice alternative in the form of BrowserLinux. This Linux distribution is based on Puppy Linux, in itself a very light OS, which was made even lighter by only including the most basic features of a web browser via Firefox, music player and PDF reader. This OS weighs in at only 78MB in disk space. This makes it very ideal for those netbook models that had very little disk space in them like the first Acer Aspire One and the EeePC 2G. And not only that, it even has a smaller package that’s only 68MB if you’re really stingy.

You can install it in the netbook’s built-in drive or in a USB, just make sure your thumb drive is fast enough for it to boot from. And if you feel the need for a bit more, their site has links for installing office apps, an email client and Wine for running Windows programs. You can also install other Linux apps with a little elbow grease and know-how.

If you have an old computer that’s not getting any use but can still work and connect to the net, this might be a good time to dust it off and put in BrowserLinux. The small size will make browsing snappier since there’s no other apps hogging resources, it would make it a good candidate to install not only in netbooks but handheld UMPCs and nettops as well. I might even use it as a virtual machine since it looks perfect for my browser-based work.

source BrowserLinux via EeeUser, liliputing

A post from the Asus Eee PC blog.

BrowserLinux, An Ultralight Browser OS