Free Penguin Download - gOS Download

Free Penguin download - gOS

gOS 2.0

32 bit

gOS is a series of GNU/Linux distributions created by 'Good OS LLC',
a Los Angeles-based corporation.

The company advertised it as "An alternative OS with Google Apps
and other Web 2.0 apps for the modern user."

This first version gOS (1.0.1_386) was based on Ubuntu 7.10 and the Enlightenment Windows manager E17.

On January 7, 2008, a test version (2.0.0-beta1) of gOS, intended to demonstrate the CloudBook and named "gOS Rocket",
was released at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show.
This version too was E17 based.
However, the definitive second version of gOS debuted end February 2008, together with the launch of Everex's new CloudBook, the gBook laptop, and a new, second version of the gPC, the "encore".
This version was called gOS V2 Rocket, and was completely rewritten and now based on the GNOME windows manager, Compiz fusion,
and the Avant Window Navigator.
It was not publicly available at that time, just installed on these systems.

On April 6, 2008, Good OS launched a new publicly available version of gOS, called gOS 2.9 "Space", intended for the gPC mini, this version is especially geared towards MySpace users.
And is also based on Compiz fusion, Gnome,
and the Avant Window Navigator dock manager, but it also uses E17 code.
It has a Dock with a "stack" very much like the "fan view" of Mac OS X v10.5.

gOS is based on the Ubuntu 7.10 distribution and a GUI
largely imitative of Mac OS X Leopard.

The earlier versions (1 and 2-beta) used the Enlightenment 17 window manager instead of the usual GNOME or KDE desktops, to create a desktop that had similar usability to Mac OS X.
This was possible because of the flexibility of Enlightenment.

Enlightenment acts both as an X window manager,
and as a desktop environment.
Therefore early versions gOS worked on systems as low end as a 350 MHz Pentium II with 196 MB of RAM.But a typical gOS system would have used as a minimum a 1 GHz Pentium III with 256 MB RAM.
After gOS2-beta the later versions of gOS abandoned the use as Enlightenment as desktop manager (although some E17 code still seems to be used), in favour of using Gnome, with Compiz fusion and the Avant Window Navigator.
This increased the need for memory to values similar to normal Ubuntu.

Based on the idea of cloud computing, all versions of gOS lean heavily on on-line applications built on Web 2.0 and AJAX technology so they also do not use much hard disk space for applications.
The whole gOS-1 system fitted comfortably in less than 2 GB.
Also many of the documents created with gOS, such as Google Docs documents, can be saved on Google servers instead of on the local hard disk, so gOS can work with very small hard disks.
In gOS V2 Rocket, Good OS introduced the use of Google's "Google Gears" technology which promises to make Google's web applications usable without an internet connection.
Currently, Google Reader is the only Google application that is supported, though other web applications such as Remember
the Milk have added Google Gears functionality.

gOS Rocket's primary features included a Mac OS X-like Dock called 'the Launcher', containing icons to launch the following programs: Firefox web browser, Rhythmbox audio player, Xine video
player and Skype for Internet telephony.
Other programs could be added to the Launcher as well.
The first E17 based version of gOS used another
Dock-style interface called the iBar.

There were also icons to launch Firefox to specific web-sites and web applications for Google Mail, Google Talk, Google News, Google Calendar, Google Maps, Google Docs, Google Spreadsheets, Google Reader, Google Product Search, Blogger, YouTube, Facebook, Meebo, Box.net to online chat with Yahoo! Messenger and .NET Messenger Service users and Wikipedia.
The rightmost icon was for Faqly, a system developed for Rocket to offer a built-in online community based help system.

Other installed programs can be started through menus, among the most important were the photo and picture editing program the GIMP, the document viewer Evince, and the OpenOffice.org office suite. More programs can be installed using the built-in Synaptic Package Manager.

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