Chrome OS: You don't need to buy a Chromebook to enjoy the features of its operating system Google. All you need is a computer and a USB.
Google does not officially offer the images of its OS, but there are several developers who distribute it operating system. The method below works with whatever operating system you are using: Windows, macOS or Linux. And of course we won't replace your existing operating system.
Below we will create a bootable USB that will contain Chromium OS or Chrome OS. Your USB will be completely deleted during the installation process of Google's operating system. If you have valuable data on the disk, you will need to save it elsewhere.
Download the latest Chrome OS image
Google does not have an official one version of Chromium OS which you can download.
We tried Chromium on an HP Laptop with the following image:
https://chromium.arnoldthebat.co.uk/special//Camd64OS_R58-8872.B-Special.7z
It's a special version, because with the simple images I first tried, I could not connect to the internet. (They did not have the necessary drivers). Nonetheless, I quote the link, you may be more fortunate:
https://chromium.arnoldthebat.co.uk/?dir=daily&order=modified&sort=asc
The compressed size of the image is 459MB and when unpacked it reaches 7.7GB!
Let's see how we can transfer it to USB. On Linux I use an amazing tool that works on all platforms (cross-platform). It is called Etcher and you can download it from the link below at platform you are interested in:
After installing the app, select the image after unpacking it. The application will see on its own USB, you just click on Flash!
Once the process is complete, the application will let you know. That's it!
You can restart your computer, and choose from where to boot. If you give it the USB path you will create in the way above, it will run Google's operating system.