I’m always willing to try something new and exciting in the world of Linux, and I couldn’t let gOS Gadgets pass me by. Mainly because I’d never used the LXDE window manager, but also because its lure of low system requirements and netbook-oriented design seemed to suit my ageing ThinkPad X22 quite nicely.

So I’ve installed it, using my USB guide (which works very well if I do say so myself!), and I’ve been playing with it for the past few days. By no means is this a full review, but here are some of the thoughts I have about gOS from the point of view of a long-time Linux user and enthusiast.

First up, the installation process is very easy. All hardware was detected successfully and no configuration was required beyond the usual username/password stuff. This distro is based on Ubuntu 8.04.1, and it looks like they managed to keep Ubuntu’s legendary ease-of-install and compatibility without any problems.

The default look-and-feel, however, is not such a good story. It’s downright hideous, and one of the first things I did upon first booting the system was to go on the lookout for a nice new theme. Fortunately the LXDE window manager uses GTK, so it was very easy to find something, although I did just end up going with Human, the default Ubuntu theme.

Unfortunately, it seems like parts of the window manager can’t be tweaked, and I couldn’t change the colours on any of the themes I tried. Also, the positions of the buttons in the title bar were in the Mac OS position (top left), and although I do use OS X on a regular basis, I would’ve preferred to be able to move them over to the right. Perhaps there is a way to do this, but I couldn’t work it out.

On a slightly more positive note, this is the first time I’ve used Google Gadgets and I have to say that I was impressed. Obviously these could be installed under any distro, but having them ready and preconfigured is a nice touch. They look nice and work well, and by default we get a good selection fo useful tools – a battery monitor, wireless network monitor, localised weather reporting, news feed, and calendar.

Even on this old PIII 800 with 256MB RAM Google Gadgets don’t impact performance at all, which is impressive.

On the subject of performance, gOS is a very mixed bag. It boots very quickly, and at time feels very snappy. A lot of the time, however, it can seem to be doing nothing at all for a long time before springing to life, even seeming painfully slow compared to Xubuntu on the same machine. I am hoping that these issues are due to its beta status and will be sorted out before the final release.

Prism is an idea that is interesting in theory, but I’m not quite sure what’s so special about it. Essentially, it can open Google Calender, Mail, etc. in special browser windows which supposedly make them appear as desktop apps, however it really is just a case of opening a browser window without the toolbars at the top.

It’s kind of handy, but doesn’t really seem to offer any advantages over opening them in new tabs in Firefox. I’m guessing that netbook users with less screen space ned to save every pixel they can, so there may be a small advantage there.

So, just a quick summary.

gOS isn’t a terrible operating system, but it’s not particularly great either. Although it worked well, the performance issues and inability to tweak the UI were enough to put me off for now. I’ve decided to go with OpenSUSE 11 and XFCE for now.

Of course we’re talking about a beta release here, and I’m hoping that gOS will get those minor issues sorted out before the final release. If nothing else, gOS certainly shows a lot of promise and vision, and should turn out to be one of the more interesting distros out there once they get the minor problems fixed.

Download gOS Gadgets here.

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