In the leadup to the official reveal of the Samsung Chromebook Pro, codenamed Kevin, a separate device called “Gru” popped up a lot, and all signs seemed to point to the low end of the market. Particularly observant parties, however, may have noticed that another device, codenamed “Caroline“, was mentioned in some of the code. So far, all that’s really known about Caroline is that it’s going to be very similar to the Chromebook Pro, and it’s going to run a high-end Intel Core processor in the 6th-generation Skylake family, opening the device up to shenanigans like flashing Linux or running Windows games. This rather exciting Chromebook, much like Kevin, is making itself known in the code. A pattern that adds a bit more credence was noticed by Gabriel Brangers over at Chrome Unboxed; in code commits for almost every Samsung Chrome OS device since 2012 or so, a certain name has popped up, and that name is on a commit that mentions Caroline.
Previous commits and odd pieces of evidence here and there may have given us details about what Caroline could be, but this latest commit, which requests permission to add some touch tweaks to Caroline’s code, comes from the common name mentioned on Chrome Unboxed. That name is Jongpil Jung. Jung’s name can also be found on commits that mention both Caroline and Kevin, such as applying the touchpad firmware from Kevin to Caroline. The similarity in components that this would require strengthens the argument that Caroline may be an offshoot or high-end variant of Kevin. While Kevin boasted a powerful ARM processor, long battery life, and premium exterior, things like a super-powered Intel processor and 4K display that adorn top of the line laptops these days were absent; this could be Caroline’s niche, though to say so at this point is purely speculation.
Jung’s name apparently only pops up in commits that have to do with Samsung devices, meaning that he is not a regular Chrome OS contributor. He was last seen working on Caroline’s code around 8 AM EST, and the buildbot for commits to Caroline seems to still be working on implementing the various changes being made. The bot chirps away in the commit comments between actual commits from humans, telling commit writers whether a given commit worked or not. From the looks of things, there are still some bugs to work out with Caroline, but thanks to piggybacking off of the code for Kevin, things seem to be moving along at a nice clip.