Think you can make a better fast-booting, Chrome-focused OS than Google? Want to craft a custom Linux system that boots from a USB stick? SUSE Studio gives you 15 GB to do exactly that, and you do it all online.

SUSE Studio is what powered the fan-made "Chrome OS" we posted yesterday, which, in that case, was a semi-stripped-down system loaded with the developers' version of Chrome, Google webapp links, and OpenOffice. If speed and cloud computing aren't your bag, you can create a fully functional system with Firefox, 3D graphics, and whatever apps you can find installed. Want your system to start up with an AWN dock and Launchy keystroke launcher running? Not a problem.

Even if you don't know all that much about Linux, it's pretty easy to build a system you can boot from a USB stick or live CD/DVD, run inside a virtual machine program, or actually install it—or, heck, even test it out in your web browser.

Windows/Mac/Linux: The official, actually-made-by-Google Chrome OS won't hit netbooks until late 2010, but you can try out a custom-built Linux distribution that's somewhat stripped down and puts Google's browser at the center of everything.

"Chrome OS" was built using SUSE Studio, a distribution and virtual appliance builder spawned from the OpenSUSE Linux distribution. It loads up with a Chrome icon, uses built-in webapp links to Google Calendar, Gmail, and other Google services as apps, and carries a copy of OpenOffice, just in case you need some straight-up desktop editing done. Most importantly, it holds the latest development copy of Google Chrome inside, along with a pre-built Flash plug-in.

One year ago, Google Chrome came out of nowhere to re-ignite the browser debate. Today, it's reached (development) version 4.0, and it's anchoring a much-anticipated operating system. Here's a look back at where Chrome's been in 12 short months.

Linux users are some of the first to tout (or demand) the benefits of 64-bit computing, and it looks like the devotion may pay off. CNET points to Chrome developer mailing list posts indicating that a 64-bit build of Chrome's open-source, development-stage Chromium counterpart is well underway, ahead of versions for Windows or OS X. So while Microsoft and Apple will have built-in 64-bit browsers for their 64-bit systems, Linux gets a helping hand in the browser field from the big G.