Ubuntu Web Remix Wants to Be a Chrome OS Alternative, Beta Available Now

Ubuntu Web Remix

From the maintainer of Ubuntu Unity and UbuntuEd, here comes yet another unofficial Ubuntu flavor, Ubuntu Web Remix, which aims to be an alternative to Chrome OS or Chromium OS.

Meet Ubuntu Web Remix, an unofficial Ubuntu flavor created by Rudra Saraswat, the maintainer of Ubuntu Unity, based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) and designed as a free and open-source alternative to Google’s Chrome OS operating system for Chromebook devices, as well as the open source Chromium OS project.

Being an alternative to Chrome OS/Chromium OS, Ubuntu Web Remix uses Mozilla’s Firefox web browser rather than Google Chrome or Chromium. It offers support for Web apps, but you can also install regular Linux applications from Ubuntu’s software repositories.

The desktop environment used in this flavor is GNOME, version 3.36, and among the pre-installed apps there’s Anbox for running Android apps, DTube video sharing platform, Mastodon web app, Twitter web app, SoundCloud web app, as well as a bunch of web apps from the deGoogled /e/ Foundation.

Since Web apps are the base of this Ubuntu flavor, you’ll also have direct access to the Open Web Store, an open-source web-app store created specifically for this distribution to allow you to install even more Web apps.

On top of that, you can even create your own Web apps if you don’t find the ones you like to use. For this, Ubuntu Web Remix comes with tools that let you build and install Web apps for the desktop using Web technologies. Best of all, you can even publish your Web apps to the Open Web Store.

If you plan to install Android apps, you should keep in mind that they may not work properly on the live session or a virtual machine. Android app support is considered experimental at this time, and you might have to disable Secure Boot to get Anbox to work correctly.

Future releases of Ubuntu Web Remix promise tighter integration with /e/ Foundation’s App Store for even more free apps.

Ubuntu Web Remix will use the Wayland display server by default and the Adapta GTK theme, along with the Papirus icon theme.

For now, you can try the beta version of Ubuntu Web Remix by downloading the ISO image below, but keep in mind that this is a pre-release version not yet suitable for production use.

An official website will be available shortly.

Last updated 3 years ago

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