Chromium

• Chromium is an open source Linux that can be built from source
• There are several pre-built or similar versions such as Chromixium
• Chromium is a browser-based system where every service exists in the cloud, preferably Google's cloud
• It was built on Ubuntu but has now apparently shifted to Gentoo because of the package system Portage which is used by Android

Chrome

• Chrome is a closed version of Chromium that only builds on Google devices
• It is designed to support Web applications i.e. apps built from HTML 5, CSS and Javascript
• Chrome now supports Android apps
• The main interface is the web browser

Chromecast

• Chromecast is an HDMI dongle designed to plug into a TV set or monitor
• It runs a digitasl media player
• It is a stripped down version of Android
• Content can be streamed over WiFi from the Chrome browser running on a PC, from some Android apps or some IoS apps

Chromecast protocol

• Chromecast searches for devices using mDNS (multicast DNS)
• It runs a Webserver running on port 8008 with Websocket support. Web sockets allow clients to send data to the server and receive replies directly from it
• And a web browser to run applications
• Clients can be built on Android, IoS or the Chrome browser

Android

• Android is an open source o/s with a Linux kernel
• The source is here
• The primary app environment is Java running on the Dalvik Java Virtual Machine (not Oracle's JVM)
• Main h/w platform is ARM with 512Mb RAM and a GPU supporting OpenGL ES
• An Android emulator is part of the Android development kit
• You can download an iso

BSD

• The Berkely Standard Distribution (BSD) was the first major fork of Unix from the AT&T version
• There are still 3 major versions
  • FreeBSD (Mac OS X is based on this) ("advanced computer operating system used to power modern servers, desktops and embedded platforms"
  • NetBSD ("fast, secure, and highly portable")
  • OpenBSD ("portability, standardization, correctness, proactive security and integrated cryptography")

VMs

Docker

Docker images

• In Docker you create an image, basically a virtual disk containing exactly the s/w you want
• You can then run that image communicating through some TCP port
• 14,000 images are available from https://registry.hub.docker.com/
• Or you can build your own
• Each Docker image is more lightweight than a virtual machine so many more can be run on a server