Recently acquired by Google, CloudReady will no longer support Oracle VirtualBox or the Flatpak software deployment and package solution.
“CloudReady will no longer support VirtualBox and Flatpaks after v87,” a CloudReady support article explains. “We will no longer ship CloudReady with these utilities.”
Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday — and get free copies of Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (normally $9.99) as a special welcome gift!
"*" indicates required fields
According to CloudReady maker Neverware, support for both of these solutions predates the inclusion of beta Linux capabilities in Chrome OS/Chromium OS, and neither is needed anymore as a result.
“Moving forward we will focus on making Linux (Beta) work on more CloudReady devices,” the support document says. The firm points to the ChromeOS Linux (Beta) website for more information.
The problem, of course, is that Chromium OS, which is used by CloudReady, already lacks some key features found in the official Chrome OS releases, including support for the Google Play Store and Android apps. And some commercial CloudReady customers probably rely on VirtualBox or Flatpak already. Perhaps the situation will improve with Google acquiring CloudReady: It could make these Linux (Beta) support more readily available—along with the Play Store and Android apps—on CloudReady-based devices.
In the short term, CloudReady customers can block updates to prevent the upgrade to Chromium OS 87 and the removal of VirtualBox and Flatpak support. But that will only be tenable temporarily.