Combining the best parts of Mac OS X and Ubuntu, gOS is truly a worthy competitor in the OS wars. It has simplicity, a well designed interface, a rock solid linux core and web apps. But is it good enough?!
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Introduction
gOS 3 is an Ubuntu ‘Hardy Heron’ (8.04.1) derivative with an interface that largely resembles Mac OS X; it's currently marketed as an operating system for netbooks and low-end desktops, mainly because it’s lightweight and web centered.
While its implementation on low-spec hardware doesn’t allow running high-end applications, like any Ubuntu machine, it can be easily expanded with numerous applications (it uses the same APT and Synaptic Package Manager as Ubuntu), and is by no means crippled if you install it on your workstation.
It’s licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike 3.0 and is a free 700MB download. It can be run directly from the CD, or easily installed on a USB stick using unetbootin.
What's different?
- Web Apps – tight integration, more than 100,000 iGoogle and Google Gadgets that are small, graphically rich applications that can be added to the desktop in seconds over the Internet.
- Wine 1.0 Out of the Box - enables Windows applications to run, even games with a little bit of tweaking.
- Skype – the premiere video and audio chat application is built-in with pre configured support for webcam and microphone.
- LXDE (Lightweight X Desktop Environment) applications – for smaller hardware requirements.
- Google Desktop as an alternative to Tracker.
- Google Picasa as an alternative to F-Spot.
- Google Documents, Calendar, and Mail launch in Mozilla Prism windows to more closely resemble desktop applications.
- Integrated Gears functionality for Docs and Reader, enables use offline. Also works with Remember the Milk to-do list service.
Google OS?
The thinkgos.com website clearly states 'gOS is not affiliated with Google or their partners.'. However, the OS was certainly built with Google's web apps in mind, which are featured right on the desktop: YouTube, Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Google Talk are all just one click away.
GUI
The UI is aesthetically pleasing, and while most will say ‘how original, brushed metal’, I actually prefer that to the brown Ubuntu theme. gOS 3 uses Gnome, Compiz Fusion and a new dock application called WBar, written in LXDE.
Performance
- Memory - I noticed a slightly reduced memory footprint, gOS using just 213MB compared to Ubuntu 8.04, at 289MB.
- Disk usage – the gOS install took slightly over 1.7GB.
- Fans and heat – During normal operation, surfing, listening to music and writing in OpenOffice, the system never went to 3rd stage cooling; unlike Vista, which runs permanently in the top mode.
- Did not crash during the 3 days of full time usage.
Conclusion
gOS is a lot of Ubuntu, a drop of Mac OS X and a slice of the web. And it certainly has a future in this new world of mobility oriented hardware. It won’t replace my Ubuntu installation right now, but I’m keeping this baby on a small partition and anxiously waiting for the next version.