gOS - Closest Thing To A Google Operating System?

Everyday I wake up to fire up my laptop and usually find myself wondering what I would do if I could build my own SEO friendly, Google intertwined operating system. Not that I have some huge amount of love for the big G, but when it comes to shortcuts to speed up my work flow, I’m totally down for it.

So tonight I spent a little time wandering around over at Distrowatch to check out what new flavors of Linux are out and I stumbled across gOS. Interestingly enough, what grabbed my attention was how they place more dependency on tying in web apps into the desktop itself that quite frankly, all of us seem to use.

Serious Google Love

Integrated Google search feature sits on the desktop all the time. Gmail. Google News. Google Calendar. Google Maps. Google Docs. Google Products. The way the desktop interacts with all of these webapps is by placing shortcuts on what they call an iBar (just like the Mac application bar on the bottom of the desktop). Click it and Firefox opens up the webpage for you.

Despite all this love, this is NOT an operating system that Google had any hand in making. The Google peeps did see the OS and they only thing they did officially approve was the integrated search feature. If anything, I would imagine Google will watch this distro to see how well people react to it and gather up other data points for if and when they finally cross over and make an official operating system. It’s only a matter of time, and we all know it.

But outside of all these Google apps, there are other webapps and installed apps that warrant attention.

• OpenOffice.org
• Various Games
• The Gimp (free alternative to Photoshop)
• Pidgin Instant Messenger (aka Gaim)
• Mozilla Thunderbird
• Firefox
• Facebook
• Skype
• Wikipedia
• Xine Movie Player
• YouTube
• Blogger

Is it just me or does this seem like the online junkies OS or what? Sounds pretty promising.

Buy Underwear & A New Computer With gOS

Walmart actually sells a $199 computer that comes with gOS preloaded. Seriously. Walmart is pushing Linux. If anyone else here finds irony in a multi-billion dollar corporate tool of the apocalypse peddling OpenSource software for a profit please raise your hand.

I haven’t met anyone who has bought the computer, and from what you can see, the hardware is pretty low end. Thus the low price. The gOS site doesn’t offer much in the way of info as to how it would run on anything but an Everex system.. and there’s no support forum, just a wiki. Honestly, that kinda thing puts a bad taste in my mouth since the Open Source community is all about offering a clear path to support and education about the software or initiative being offered. Not at this site though.

If you get one of these systems and you end up hating gOS, be aware that you sure as hell couldn’t load Vista on there as an alternative. You could probably run XP fairly smooth on it though. But why would you want to do that?

Conclusion

I installed this operating system and uninstalled it with 10 minutes of using it. It sucks in ways I can’t even begin to explain. Horrible hardware recognition, slow, buggy and simply not worthy of the download. But if anything, this may be why Google hasn’t released an official operating system outside of the plex. Tying in webapps with desktop use is still not exactly seamless simply because you know deep down inside that you could have just opened up Firefox and done this on your own. The Everex might be a great starter computer for a high schooler.. but that’s really about it.

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