g OS
g OS is a Linux desktop operating system based on Ubuntu, and optimized for the Web. It ships with virtually all known Google applications and services.
Snapshot review based on g OS 2.0 Rocket E
Origin – Home Page: USA – g OS
Desktops: E17 and Gnome
Price: Free and Open Source
Comments: g Os boots into a live CD E17 desktop environment, and from there, you can install it to harddisk. The gui installer is pretty basic, and aside from the options to manually partition the hard disk and bootloader location, has no other “advanced” configuration options. As with virtually all Ubuntu-derived Linux distros, LVM disk partitioning is not supported.
After installation, the first thing the system prompts you to do is either accept or reject the installation of the Firefox Google Toolbar plugin. The E17 desktop, which is the version used for this snapshot review is very fast and responsive: It feels much faster than Zenwalk, and on par with eAR OS Free Edition. The desktop has the same type of dock bar that eAR OS, but the g OS dock bar, the ibar, is better and easier to configure.
What makes the g OS different from other Linux or BSD desktop distro is that it ships with virtually all known Google applications and services, all of which are accessible from the dock bar, the menu, and from the Firefox Google Toolbar. Wherever you are on the g OS desktop, you are never far away from a Google application or service. Does that “g” stand for Google or Good?
There are, of course, other application installed. For audio playback, Rhythmbox is the only application installed, and Xine is the only video player. Because g OS ships with libdvdcss2, Xine will happily play your commercial (encrypted) DVD videos. That makes g OS the first US-based Linux distro – reviewed on this site – that ships with libdvdcss2 pre-installed. The only thing we did not like about Rhythmbox and Xine is that they are not automatically launched when an audio CD or DVD video is inserted.
Firefox 2.x is the only browser installed, and it ships with the flash plugin necessary for rendering flash content. However, it lacks the plugin needed to render quicktime content. For that, you’ll have to install the mozilla-plugin-vlc, using the graphical package manager. Other applications that comes pre-installed are the OpenOffice.org suite of office applications, GIMP, and Skype version 2.
One thing we could not fail to notice in the menu is that, aside from Leafpad, the GTK+-based simple text editor, there are no other desktop accessories installed. You may, however, install any desktop accessories, or any other application, using graphical package manager. This distro does not come pre-installed with a gui frontend to iptables, the Linux firewall.
Aside from the E17 version, there is also another version of this distro with the Gnome desktop.
Download/Buy: Installation iso images for the Gnome and E17 desktop are available from here. Currently, only the x86 architecture is supported. You may also purchase computers pre-installed with g OS.
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