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Since Google officially launched the new Googlebook platform, one of the biggest outstanding questions is what this means for existing Chromebook hardware. While we wait official transition paths for existing Chromebook hardware, the enthusiast community is not sitting idly by.
On the r/Googlebook subreddit, user you/mawitime shared photos and impressions after successfully booting a “Frankensteined” version of the Googlebook operating system on an existing ASUS Chromebook Plus. And while booting an experimental operating system on unsupported hardware is a neat trick in itself, the real headline is how well it actually works.
Surprisingly fast compared to ChromeOS
One of the lingering concerns about building the Googlebook operating system on a heavier Android base is whether it will bog down processors in older or more modest laptops. According to you/mawitime, the exact opposite is true.
Running on an ASUS Chromebook Plus equipped with an Intel Core i5-1235U processor, 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM, and 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage (it’s no slouch), the user noted that the most shocking point was the speed and smoothness of the operating system.
“Probably the most shocking thing is how fast and smooth it is. It won’t slow down existing machines at all – in some cases it seems even faster than ChromeOS.”
The poster also added in the comments that even though their specific machine had 16GB of RAM, the lightness of the system left them confident that it would run just fine on standard 8GB configurations as well..
Built with Google Antigravity and community tools
How did they actually achieve this? Ironically, they used Google’s own agentic AI tools to make it all work.
In the thread, you/mawitime explained that they had spent several days working alongside Google Antigravity to restore a bootable version, probably taken from an official ASUS Googlebook recovery image. Because it was a rough build, many hardware drivers weren’t cooperating out of the box, leaving essentials like Wi-Fi, audio, and Pixel multi-device integration broken for the time being.
However, the modding community is already getting organized. Much like the famous “Brunch” framework that allowed users to install full ChromeOS on standard Windows PCs for years, developers are already tinkering with a new repository called brunch aiming to bring Googlebook OS to unofficial x86 hardware.
A good sign for the future of the platform
While we obviously don’t recommend wiping out your everyday Chromebook to install a driver-free version of the Googlebook OS today, seeing it flying on a 12th Gen Intel processor is fantastic news. This proves that Google’s new desktop architecture isn’t just for cutting-edge silicon and has the optimization elements to make existing hardware feel brand new. Stay tuned!
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