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gOS Gadget Aims Ubuntu At Cloud Computing

DeviceGuru writes "The gOS project has released version 3.1 of its Ubuntu-based Google-centric distribution. The release draws its packages from the Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) repositories, but adds a bright green theme and a few alterations in default applications, but more importantly adorns its desktop with numerous gadgets based on the Mozilla Prism project along with an animated application-launch icon set based on the wbar project."

36 comments

  1. cloud computing by malkir · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    is a myth

    1. Re:cloud computing by Warll · · Score: 2, Funny

      Sure you don't mean vaporware?

    2. Re:cloud computing by danking · · Score: 2, Informative

      is a myth

      This is very true. This whole cloud hype is not really a cloud. It will end up being a small number of very large datacenters that do everything. True cloud computing will be when every node on the internet shares it's cached data and is able to supply resources (processing cycles, hard drive space, etc.) to the rest of the nodes on the internet. While each node will not represent a significant portion of the resources nor will each necessarily be physically located close to each other it will provide a truly uncoupled approach to the internet.

    3. Re:cloud computing by Cryophallion · · Score: 1

      Also known as "thin clients" 2.0 (or whatever number that concept is up to). In some small scale situations, I think it works (classrooms, etc), but people demand speed and responsiveness, and honestly, bandwidth is not guaranteed.

      The only thin client I use is Zimbra, but I can't imagine how long OO.o would take to load or make changes to a 50 page document on the cloud. I know some stuff is cached, but you can only cache so much.

    4. Re:cloud computing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How can I say "Cloud Computing sucks" without being a troll?

    5. Re:cloud computing by malkir · · Score: 0

      sounds... hackable. i can't wait till my neighbors pr0n is partially stored on my computer!

    6. Re:cloud computing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here you go. Good luck on breaking the encryption and packetization.

    7. Re:cloud computing by Erikderzweite · · Score: 2, Funny

      So, cloud is basically botnet 2.0?

  2. Re:Who Gives a Shit by sexconker · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Shit, I forgot to bitch about the fucking "cloud computing" bullshit.

  3. Re:Who Gives a Shit by Spazztastic · · Score: 2, Interesting

    He's going to get modded troll, but parent is dead on. Stop making more distributions, fix problems with the current ones.

    --
    Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
  4. And STAY off my LAWN! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    While yer at it!

  5. a whole distribution? by mrboyd · · Score: 1

    A whole distribution for something that they could probably have done with a couple of deb and a meta package?
    And they even made one with MySpace application instead of Google.

    Do I need a third pc if I want to poke someone on Facebook?

    1. Re:a whole distribution? by Hatta · · Score: 1

      Yes indeed. See also, UbuntuStudio, Mythbuntu, Crunchbang, gNewSense, etc.

      Of course, you could say the same thing about Ubuntu with respect to Debian.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    2. Re:a whole distribution? by Yfrwlf · · Score: 1

      It's just software and should be available for anyone to easily install. Having that selection of software come default bundled in an ISO is useful though if that's where you want your "starting point" for the software you want to be.

      --
      Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
  6. Re:Who Gives a Shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Go ahead and make more distributions. We'd fix the current ones, but now and again there will be a conflict of interest. At that point, you can either compromise or fork off and make your own distro. It's one of the things that makes free software great.

  7. Re:Who Gives a Shit by nine-times · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Who are you talking to? From your post, it sounds like you imagine there's one group of people who are constantly making new distributions and never finishing them, and we need to convince those people to stop doing that.

    In reality, it's usually that a new group of people form around an idea of what they want out of Linux, which is a different idea than other available distributions. Since the other distributions already have a direction that isn't going to change, and this new group has no power to make existing distributions change, they start building their own version.

    And really, there's no problem here. The freedom to come up with your own distribution or fork an application has been invaluable to Linux. Ubuntu (one of the most popular distributions today) was one of these "new" distributions just a few years ago.

  8. Re:Who Gives a Shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    YOU fork off. I was here first.

  9. Anyone tried it? by CannonballHead · · Score: 1

    There's a liveCD so I'll download it and try it on my old Dell laptop, which I plan to update to openSuSE 11.1 (from 11.0) anyways.

    Has anyone tried this yet, though? Does it actually work and "in seconds of turning your computer on" can you get online, while it loads another operating system in the background?

    That sounds pretty cool, I have to say. It'd be really cool, too, if I put the liveCD onto a USB drive and boot from there, seems like that'd be even faster and cooler.

    Anyways.. anyone tried the distro or are these comments, so far, just based on what people think about the screenshots? :)

    1. Re:Anyone tried it? by bcrowell · · Score: 1

      Has anyone tried this yet, though?

      I tried it in Nov. 2007, and wrote this review. At that time, gOS was by far the worst part of the WalMart PC that came with gOS preinstalled. I don't know how much that's improved since then. Their site says this is the third revision of the OS. I did notice that in the new screenshots, they've fixed one annoying usability problem I encountered, which was that the three buttons to maximize, kill, and minimize a window all looked the same. One thing to watch out for is that at that time, they had their WM available as a package you could install on top of Ubuntu, but if you did that, it would replace the gdm login screen with one that prevented you from starting any other WM, so even if you wanted to go back to Gnome, you couldn't do it without locating an obscure configuration file and editing it by hand.

    2. Re:Anyone tried it? by CannonballHead · · Score: 1

      Mmm, I meant specifically Cloud, not gOS. But thanks, it looks like people are mostly (except you, who actually did try gOS) going by the screenshots...

    3. Re:Anyone tried it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People think it's great just because it's Ubuntu. It's like a virus, disables your thinking when it comes to distro selection.

      Or to put it another way, moving to Ubuntu is like the progress in Animal Farm.

  10. Re:Who Gives a Shit by joe_cot · · Score: 3, Insightful

    One of the main qualities of GNU/Linux that makes it work so well is that no matter how many forks there are, the good stuff gets into the other distros.

    If someone makes a distro dedicated to killing puppies, but in the process comes up with a feature that's invaluable to everyone else, the other distros can easily take that feature and integrate it. The other distros don't have the change their direction, and the new puppy-mashing distro developers can work in an environment they're confortable with and with a purpose they feel strongly about, while still contributing to the community as a whole.

  11. Re:Who Gives a Shit by not+already+in+use · · Score: 2

    Linux on the desktop will always be broken, thanks to the celebrated "choice" it offers. There is something to be said about the singular direction that corporate development takes. Linux on the desktop will never be cohesive and consistent enough to make it unless there were a de facto distribution, which would never happen thanks to the conflict of opinions within the community.

    2008 was about as "Year of the Linux Desktop" as it will ever get. Any companies persuaded by the extremely vocal linux minority to support Desktop Linux will wake up and realize that the significant time and resources spent on developing for a non-standard platform whose demographic wants everything for free is a complete waste. Sorry Desktop Linux folk, but the ride was fun while it lasted.

    --
    Similes are like metaphors
  12. actually, it's... by __aajbyc7391 · · Score: 1

    "gOS Gadgets" (not "Gadget")... sorry about the typo (duh!)

  13. Re:Who Gives a Shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    This is also one of its biggest disadvantages. The fact that there are tons of distros means that if someone wants to write a device driver, office suite, browser plugin, game, etc that targets Linux, they have to deal with a myriad possible configurations of library versions, desktop environments, themes, sound systems, etc. Most commercial developers decide it's not worth it.

  14. Re:Who Gives a Shit by LingNoi · · Score: 1

    gOS has nothing to do with Google you fucking idiot.

  15. Re:Who Gives a Shit by sexconker · · Score: 1

    RTFS

  16. Bright green theme? Stuff that matters? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "bright green theme...more importantly...gadgets and ... animated icons".

    Whew! I was wondering what cloud computing was all about. If that is stuff that matters, the "cloud" is a cloud of funny smoke around the reviewer's head. If cloud computing is about something that matters, then the reviewer's choice of "bright green theme, gadets, and animated icons" is about everything except what matters.

    Welcome to slashdot!

  17. Re:Who Gives a Shit by AceofSpades19 · · Score: 1

    In case you haven't noticed, one of the points to using linux is choice, why would you use linux if it was just like windows?

  18. Re:Who Gives a Shit by rohan972 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is also one of its biggest disadvantages. The fact that there are tons of distros means that if someone wants to write a device driver, office suite, browser plugin, game, etc that targets Linux, they have to deal with a myriad possible configurations of library versions, desktop environments, themes, sound systems, etc.

    Nonsense, they don't have to deal with that, they can write the code and let the distros package it.

    Most commercial developers decide it's not worth it.

    Oh I see, you mean proprietary software developers decide it isn't worth it. You wouldn't really have meant commercial developers because that would include Red Hat, Sun, etc who write linux software.

    Seriously, the whole linux thing is not centred around making things convenient for proprietary software developers. This seems to surprise a lot of people but I don't know why.

  19. Re:Who Gives a Shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    IMHO, "Linux on the desktop" will translate more and more to "Ubuntu on the desktop".

    There are a lots of chances you see apps appearing that supports only Ubuntu by default.

    Then, since the pretended "big problem" of differing platforms and libraries is not that big at all, and is a matter of a few days of hack, theses "Ubuntu only apps" will make their way to the other distros,

    Companies will do what they always did : Target the biggest audience, and ATM it's ubuntu.

    It's already what's happening with lots of apps really, they give two things to download on their sites : The sources (Do it yourself and shut up), and a .deb package, tailored for the latest Ubuntu.

  20. Re:Who Gives a Shit by SomeGuyTyping · · Score: 1

    Any companies persuaded by the extremely vocal linux minority to support Desktop Linux will wake up and realize that the significant time and resources spent on developing for a non-standard platform whose demographic wants everything for free is a complete waste.

    Desktop Linux users want everything free not for free

    --
    My posts are definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.
  21. Re:Who Gives a Shit by budword · · Score: 1

    GNU vs Windows/Random Proprietary stuff is exactly the same as the difference between the free market and the old Soviet Command Economy. With GNU, individuals take the risk to create something they THINK other people will want. The market place kills off the ideas that don't work out as those distro creators thought they would. Vs large corporate CTO/CIO head geek type deciding what "cool" "hip" new features his army of business suit coders should work on. It's exactly why there are a million cool compiz effects for dozens of different Linux distros. Microsoft can never even begin to match what that small army of pizza/mountain dew fueled Mom's basement dwelling "code because I love it" geeks can do. (Yes, I'm aware the stereotype isn't accurate but it is damn funny.)

    Anyway, it took forever for the old Soviets and their awful command economy to die, even though they slowly when broke over 70 years. It might take Microsoft and their type another 70 years, but go broke they will. They can't compete with the better idea's coded for free for GNU.

    It'll just take a while.