gOS — all in one day

I know I’m late doing this, but oh well.

Here is what gOS’ website has to say about their new beta version:

Introducing gOS 3 Gadgets BETA

• gOS 3 Gadgets BETA instantly launches Google Gadgets for Linux on startup, introducing over 100,000 possible iGoogle and Google Gadgets to the desktop.
• Google Documents, Calendar, and Mail launch in Mozilla Prism windows to closer resemble desktop applications.
• The newest release of WINE 1.0 is included to now support thousands of Windows software for our advanced users.
• gOS 3 Gadgets BETA is based on the solid Linux distribution base of Ubuntu 8.04.1.

Designed for NetBooks & NetTops

• gOS 3 Gadgets BETA is the third, best version of the Linux OS that debuted at Wal-Mart stores less than one year ago.
• Today, gOS 3 Gadgets BETA will be shipping with NetBooks and NetTops in the US and internationally.

gOS 3.0 Features

Wine
Wine allows you to run thousands of Windows applications under Linux including popular titles like Adobe Photoshop, Internet Explorer, and World of Warcraft. Usually thought of as a Microsoft Windows emulator, Wine developers would prefer that users thought of Wine as a Windows compatibility layer for Linux.

Google Gadgets
Use Google ‘Gadgets’ on gOS – Install 3rd party Widgets to your desktop, code your own, or play around with the array of built-in gadgets!

Mozilla Prism
Prism is a new application from mozilla that splits web applications out of their browser and runs them directly on the gOS desktop.
Included: Google Mail, Google Calendar, Google Documents, and YouTube.

OpenOffice
OpenOffice.org is a multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites, the product is free to download, use, and distribute.

Mozilla Firefox 3.0
The award-winning Web browser is now faster, more secure, and fully customizable to your online life.

Skype
Talk, listen, watch, read, and write to anyone, anywhere in the world without worrying about cost, distance or time. With Skype you can Make free Skype-to-Skype calls – any time of day, any day of the week, anywhere in the world.

sources: http://www.thinkgos.com/gos.php and http://www.thinkgos.com/gos-features.php

It looks really cool, considering I am not a big gnome fan, but that’s just me.

Here is the first screen you will see once you boot up gOS for the first time (via the live version, in virtualbox, without it being a very big screen resolution):

As you can see, the nice gg (google gadgets) are all on the left hand side of the screen. There is the battery monitor (it reads 0 because I am using a desktop, also it is made for notebook computers – ie. laptops), a wifi signal gadget (again, not using wifi so its showing no signal), the weather globe with the default location “Happy Texas”, and a news reader.

As having ran this once before (I have been having problems with virtual box, something about not wanting to update, so I completely unistalled it and removed its folder, and installed a new version), I knew there were more gadgets on the desktop. (If you go to gOS’ website and look at screen shots you can see what I mean.)

These (above) gadgets have not been moved, this is what it looks like to me when I first had it run.

This screen shot is just to show you the other gadgets that come pre-open/running on your first boot up of the live cd:

Here you can see that the flowerpot, calendar, and calculator are running. After taking this screen shot, I promptly closed out all the gadgets so I could have more workspace on my small screen.

And here is the desktop free of ggs:

And also, I was having fun with the dock down at the bottom.  what can I say? docks amuse me.

Here is the way firefox looks in gOS:

In the attempt to look at one of the menu items that links to a page on gOS’ website, it froze up on me, so I ended up having to completely close virtualbox and restart it.

So here is a picture of the splash screen:

upon it starting back up, I get this nice error, ignore it, and continue messing with it:

the following shots are to give you a preview of what comes pre-installed on the live cd when you download it. It was very nice that firefox was (it was not when I first got into Kubuntu, but that was also 7.04 and we’re now in 8.04 [the numbering system for Ubuntu and Ubuntu forks is #.04 and 6 months later #.10]).

In an attempt to maybe refresh the desktop to get rid of the leftover image from the gg that deals with the news headlines, I found this menu (refreshing the desktop is an option when you right click on the desktop in Kubuntu)

The following show you the desktop customization menu:

The visual effect menu and some of the screen shots on their website, make me believe that compiz fusion comes pre-installed. Yay for wobbly windows!

Now, they openly admit that this version is based off of Ubuntu 8.04, therefore it is Debian based. That means that most programs that are installed on your Ubuntu (or Ubuntu fork – like Kubuntu, Xubuntu, ect) will still work with gOS

It would make the transition easier.

Luckily for Linux n00bs, there is an add/remove program for those who have no idea how to install something via terminal.
The following shows you the steps I went through to install tux type (a simple “teach you how to type” program great for newbies and those who just want to brush up on their typing skills — not just for kids! lol)

this is the menu where you can see ALL the games that are in the repositories that you can get, whether they run in gnome, kde, xfce

here is where I selected tux type

installing software is easy and convient because you don’t have to know how to do it manually or compile it from source.

For a complete beginner, this would be a good choice. It is made to run on a minimal computer; for the compiz effects, you will need to have the video card to support it.

Besides be glitchy in places (it is running in vb, its in beta), I give it a 4 out of 5 fish*

And now, for some reason, I leave you with an image of the log in screen:

*why fish? because tux is the mascot for linux, tux is a penguin, and penguins like fish