Google have announced that they are working on their very own Linux distribution. Google Chrome OS (yeah lets confuse the mundanes by naming the OS the same thing as the browser)  will be a light and fast operating system targeted at netbooks. Naturally it will be tied in closely to their online applications just like Android is. Other than that details are pretty thin on the ground at the moment. Will it use QT or GTK or will Google create their own widgets? Will they roll their own desktop system?  No doubt this will spur on the development of Linux versions of the Chrome browser as well as being an eager platform for Wave. This announcement could well have very beneficial knock on effects for Linux and Open Source in general. With such a prominent and well known backer as Google Linux could help hardware manufacturers see Linux based systems as worthy of having well supported drivers. No doubt Microsoft will not be pleased with Google’s latest plan and are already working on one of their “get the facts” FUD campaigns.

Developers will get their hands on the OS towards the end of the year and netbooks with Chrome OS pre-installed should start showing up in 2010.