Summary
- Purdue University student Ersei booted Linux using Google Drive.
- Using a FUSE RAM disk, all the OS’ crucial mechanisms were put in place to launch over the cloud.
- Its potential use cases include booting Linux from Git repositories or SSH.
Google Drive is one of the best storage solutions for people wanting to upload files and folders to the metaphorical cloud. It continuously gets quality-of-life improvements across the board, including recently integrating the much-wanted dark mode into the platform and new filter categories for Android devices (even though they strangely came a month after they hit Drive on iPhones). There’s not much that Drive can’t do for you, and now, that surprisingly includes being able to boot up an entire operating system.
No, seriously; Purdue University’s Ersei, a computer science student, managed to start up a Linux OS directly off of Drive on a computer with no local storage (via TechSpot). By creating a FUSE RAM Disk to load the OS’ crucial start-up components directly from Drive, Ersei was able to load Linux through the cloud server, albeit with some kinks to work out. Ersei goes through the process of coding the self-titled “cloud native computer” on their blog. This impressive chain of events all stemmed from their competitive spirit to “one up” their friend’s achievement of booting Linux from a Network File System.
There are problems, and there are some use cases
Throughout Ersei’s entire experiment, they had to deal with multiple problems that needed fixing through smart thinking, such as working around multitudes of symlinks on Drive. When switching to actual hardware instead of virtualization, Ersei had to enable the setup to use an actual Ethernet driver and to change the network settings to match their house’s network. When all was said and done, they thought of a few practical use cases for the OS on Drive system, such as booting Linux off of Git repositories or booting off of SSH.
We’ve covered a lot of cool technological advancements on Android Police, but getting the entirety of an operating system to boot up on Google Drive is up there with the best of them. While Linux might not be the OS of choice for the general computing public, in terms of lightweight operating systems, ChromeOS might be best (especially for an on-the-go student). On the topic of “cool,” you can get your retro handheld gaming fix with a custom Game Boy Color and the FPGBC kit.
