I got the baby settled to watch his favorite DVD, Wall-E and anxiously threw the gOS DVD into the my laptop's media drive. I'm not sure what I expected, nothing really as I've only heard of gOS and had no clue how Google was going to make it work or how it was going to look or function. Actually, I didn't know that Google had based their OS entry on Debian/Ubuntu and Gnome as the desktop environment. I felt an ounce of comfort when I read this because I'm familiar with Ubuntu 9.04 (jaunty beta) and knew that I wouldn't be too lost.
Because gOS is based on Ubuntu Linux, the partitioner looked familiar, if you're familiar with Ubuntu's system. Partitioning and formatting the hard drive was a simple and speedy operation and produced no error messages, so far, so good. I allocated 30% of my laptop's hard drive for gOS and installed the operating system following the prompts.
After the DVD was finished, I was prompted to restart my computer and continue. At the start-up, the two operating systems were displayed, Ubuntu (Jaunty) and gOS. I chose gOS before the ten second timer ran out and moved on. I'm not sure what I expected, nothing really as I've only heard of gOS and had no clue how Google was going to make it work or how it was going to look.
Look
Ok, I am a computer graphic artist and struggling writer. Looks, colors, sounds and all the media connected to "experience" is how I approach all technology. There are folks that enjoy the nuts and bolts but as a graphic artist, I watched a few projects get rejected because they didn't "look" sharp. Ok, enough of why I think looks are important in the development of technology. It's green! everything is green. Not as green as Linux Mint, but it's green. Not a problem, green seems to be the new teal and blue of that Microsoft gave us or the skittle colors that Apple put out. Green is an easy color that puts people at ease, it's disarming, cool and mellow. It made gOS approachable.
I think that they could have spent a little more time working on the interface because Gnome is extremely flexible. I expected a little more with Google's resources. I was expecting a clean, customized interface, not a re-purposed rendition of on of Ubuntu's "clearlooks" themes. The buttons are ugly and blurry and lack contrast.
So at this point, I don't know if Google did this or they contracted someone else to work on this while they focus on global domination. I just didn't think that this had the look of an OS that was poised for greatness. Ok, enough of putting down the look. It's an experiment I'm sure and if there's more interest someone will probably work on it.
Function:
Well, It's Ubuntu and not everything that works as well between Ubuntu and Gnome works in gOS. Again, something that with minor tweaking could have been improved. There is little to no guidance on how to make the graphics drivers work. I had to rely on Ubuntu's help guides to guide me through gOS's functions. The desktop applets work for the most part but they're still a little, "twitchy". It's a word that I use to describe minor bugs, twitchy. I've never been a big fan of those little shiny desktop apps and thought that maybe they're still being worked on. Well, they're still being work on--let's move on.
What I liked:
I thought the Mac-like, icon-zooming task bar was slick. Not as slick as the real thing, MacOS but an effective representation. I don't see a reason for them on the Mac and the same goes here. Maybe I've been using Linux too long and know faster ways of accessing applications but it still looks cool. I liked that Wine was preinstalled. I've had problems setting that up effectively in Ubuntu so I'm glad that gOS did this for me.
I liked that all of the Google web applications are installed on the zooming task bar, below. Firefox is still the standard browser on this system but because it's Linux based, you can probably anything that is available through the synaptic manager.'
Gmail, Calendar and Documents run as web applications through (Mozilla) Prism, a technology that enables certain web pages to run as applications. The applications still look the way they do through a web page but Prism denies you the use of the browser functions. That's ok because you using the controls on the application. It's pretty cool.
So, basically, if you're a Google fan like I am, you might enjoy this. Honestly though, it's really not that different than running Google's applications through your favorite Ajax supported browser. It's a step in the right direction and I look forward to gOS's updates. I understand though that Google's goal may be to eliminate the whole "Linux" thing and just make a web-based operating system. That's the future.
