My Fully-Installed gOS Review

So I loaded gOS on a test machine:

• 1.0 GHz AMD
• 768 ram
• 20 GB HD
• 32 mb graphics card

The machine had trouble at first booting. I kept getting "Grub Error 15". I may have finally learned how to fix that issue. I checked the jumpers on the hard drive and sure enough they were set to "slave". After putting the jumper in the right place, it booted right up.

gOS is no faster than Ubuntu, but it's prettier. I found gOS to be about the same speed as Ubuntu, but a bit slower than Xubuntu on the same equipment. If speed is an issue, I'd recommend Xubuntu.

It uses Enlightenment e17 window manager. I'm not sure if I really like Enlightenment just yet. I'd have to use it a bit more. After looking over the Enlightenment home page, and the Download page, I see that Enlightenment has a connection to the Darwin project. Now I see why gOS seems close to Mac OSX.

gOS uses Ubuntu as it's underbelly, so everything was familiar for me. The little leaf in the lower left corner is the applications button - not unlike the Windows Start button on XP, or the Window button on Vista. But, the icons at the bottom of the desktop respond like Mac OSX dock icons. they can be resized to be smaller -which I did. Looked much better. Most of the Ubuntu programs are there, maybe in a few different application menu places. The settings and system menu took some getting use to. The close, minimize, and maximize buttons are in the same place as OSX in the window manager, and program windows. OpenOffice.org, GIMP, and the regularly installed Ubuntu apps are there along with the links to the Web 2.0 apps on the 'dock'.

If I were setting up a box for someone between 16-22, I'd probably use gOS. It's OSX like interface (thanks Darwin) will be familiar for some of them. The Web 2.0 links on the 'dock' are an extra bonus -Google, Blogger, FaceBook, YouTube, Wikipedia, Gmail, Skype, and others are just what most people in that age group uses. The people at gOS looked at 'what do people use' as the factor for what goes in the system. I'd add a link to Flickr myself.

If you're a kid putting together used computers, or putting a used computer together for a kid, gOS is probably the way to go. Personally, I'd wait till gOS 2.0 -If that's how they're going with their numbering scheme.

I really like the green them, though. Good touch.