Googlebook laptops arrived only a few weeks ago, and Googlebook OS is already running on hardware Google never built it for. Developer Skylar Taylor-Barrick has published gbos-vm, an open-source project that boots the OS inside a GPU-accelerated virtual machine on Apple Silicon Macs, with Chrome working.
The install script downloads Google's own recovery image for the Dell XPS Googlebook, an ARM64 build based on Android 17, replaces the hardware-specific vendor partition with virtual device components from Google's Cuttlefish project, and boots it under QEMU. The Dell is one of the Snapdragon X-powered Googlebooks, so its Arm image runs on the Mac's hypervisor without emulation. That also means Intel Macs are out.
Googlebook OS renders through Vulkan while Macs use Metal, so the project passes Vulkan calls through MoltenVK. The README asks for 16 GB of RAM, 60 GB of free storage, Xcode command line tools, and the Android SDK with NDK, plus a hefty 9 GB of downloads. First boot takes about 45 seconds on an M5 MacBook, which is the only machine the developer lists as tested. The rough edges are plenty, however. Bluetooth crashes on boot, a TPM daemon crash-loops, the display is capped at 60 FPS, and audio was silent on one boot. The rebuilt vendor partition uses software Key Mint and Gatekeeper with no verified boot, so keys aren't protected by a secure element.
The developer recommends treating it like a dev VM, and it's reasonable to see it as a free way to poke at Google's Chromebook successor before buying one.
Source: TechPowerUp News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing