This weekend I decided to take the Linux distribution known as gOS for a spin. The gOS is an Ubuntu 8.04.1 derivative that shows some promise with it’s integration of Web applications. Although they are not affilated with Google, gOS has incorporated many Google online tools into their desktop.

Like it’s Ubuntu Hardy base, gOS lets you boot your system off of live CD. It took a couple minutes to get to the desktop with my 4 year old Dell Inspirion 1150 Pentium 4 notebook. This is about the same with a stock Ubuntu Hardy boot. My notebook has a slower Celeron processor and not a lot of memory, so I didn’t expect a blazing fast boot time. Once the system booted it was pretty snappy.

Once you get to the desktop you are presented with a pleasant (in my view) varigated green theme. You are given a Macintosh like dock bar on the bottom of the screen with ten applications. gOs calls this bar the wbar. There is a wbar utility located in the Applications>Accessories Menu if you want to add/remove applications to the doc bar. Firefox 3.0.1, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Documents, YouTube, Pidgin, Skype, Open Office Writer, Open Office Spreadsheets, and Open Office Presenations are included in the wbar by default.

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