Flock Gloss Eco gOS And LXDE

Flock Eco Edition

A clutch of items have grabbed my technical attention over the past few days. The Flock Internet browser, a variant of the Firefox browser has launched two custom versions. One is Flock Eco aimed at accessing eco related information online and the other is Flock Gloss which is aimed at the maybe less worthwhile ‘Entertainment & fashion’ online offerings.

Flock Gloss Edition

Next on my radar is yet another version of the Ubuntu sourced linux variant gOS. Version 3 beta has quickly integrated the new lightweight LXDE lightweight X11 desktop. This makes it ideal for legacy low specification computers and emerging netbook and net-top computer systems. This time they’ve integrated Google gadgets into the offering. Downloading is very in demand at the moment and this is only a beta preview Live CD and not recommended as a full install.  A more complete installable version is expected sometime in September.

gOS 3

Parallel to this is UbuntuLite, another version of Ubuntu for legacy hardware and again based around LXDE. The 9Mb iso enables a lightweight install via a series of command line terminal instructions and the installer can then make a customised install. Worth investigating , again, for those of us who help refurbish pre loved computer systems.

Image copyright gOS -Official Flickr images here

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gOS Space Targets My Space Generation

Another version of gOS desktop has been released this time targeting the My Space generation and available pre installed on a small but powerful Everex PC or as a curiously slightly over sized iso that many will need to burn onto a DVD.Web applications feature heavily though this time the emphasis is on My Space applications though the usual Ubuntu desktop applications are still there albeit slightly hidden away in the top left menu with OpenOffice and gimp , add/remove programs and access to the AWN dock’s preferences and usual Ubuntu features available. This may go some way to answering critics the the previous enlightenment based versions.

This radical revamp is based on the Gnome linux desktop with Ubuntu origins and brings together the eye candy desktop effects of Compiz with the the AWN dock and a very OS X stacks look to the various web application launchers.

The DVD I burned ran fine booting direct from DVD on an intel Mac Mini and I was able to connect to a Webdav folder easily and write this post entirely with the live version.Installation to hard drive was easily available.

May of the TV and radio sites featured are not available to computer users outside of the US so there will be a reduced appeal outside of North America where these sites cannot be accessed.The desktop is clearly targeting a certain demographic and if you don’t feel that the Perez Hilton blog, Popsugar, ValleyWag, the Superficial or MTV news qualifies for iplacing in the ‘news’ desktop shortcut then without a little personal modification this desktop is not likely to be for you.

It’s another radical change of direction for the gOS desktop which is not the answer to the controversial Everex Cloudbook’s limited specification but certainly a much more complete desktop experience than any of the previous two public releases so far.

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gOS Rocket Finally Launches

gOS – the Ubuntu derived alternative free linux desktop OS that caused a bit of a splash a while back has finally released version 2 of their E17 modified desktop which continues to be focused around Web applications from google and others. The release was slightly delayed today and currently iso downloads are via BitTorrent only.This edition refines the existing desktop experience by adding Google gears technology for offline work and online storage provided by Box.net. Webcam support has also been added.Like many Ubuntu derived operating systems it can initally be run entirely from CD for assesment before deciding if you want to install permanently to hard drive.

Screenshots:

Click thumbnails to expand

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gOS On The Shelf

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As mentioned previously I decided to try the Ubuntu derivative gOS on some lower spec computers and have spent most of today using it to do most of the things I normally do . My impression was still quite good as gOS is still Ubuntu Gutsy underneath.

Multimedia
The default choice of Xine to handle multimedia rather than Mplayer meant that streamed content on the BBC news site (News 24 and real player content) had a greater chance of working without too much fiddling around ( I still had to add some non free codecs etc but while the world chooses proprietary formats that aren’t technically free then this kind of fiddling may always be necessary).

Shelf Life
My reservation centred around how easy it was to delete the shelf application launcher which concerns me as handing out donated machines I would usually lock applications to bottom configured panel in a Gnome configured Ubuntu whilst a gOS modified E17 desktop seems to have no way to lock them in a similar way. Loosing the shelf could confuse many average users in the same way that suddenly squashing up or moving the taskbar in Windows can prove, for many, beyond their knowledge to put back to its original configuration.

Having said that putting the shelf back was quite easy though I’m not sure how obvious this would be to a less technically minded user (I don’t mean that to sound patronising) and I preferred a slightly different shelf set-up to the default as I felt the scrolling shelf might be a bit confusing and was not ideal (it’s a shame the shelf doesn’t expand and contract the app icons in a more OS X way).

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Green OS Ubuntu Alternative

I was intrigued by the recent appearance of yet another Ubuntu derived linux flavour, GreenOS or gOS which has got some publicity due to being installed on a few super cheap desktop PC’s being sold by Walmart in America.

My interest was in how efficient this would be on older or lower spec hardware, its claimed main advantage and whether I could install it on some of the computers that I refurbish where I currently install Ubuntu variants anyway.

The interesting thing is how well configured the desktop is for applications that people would use rather than what geeks would use and the predominance of web application, particularly from Google and even including a Facebook link and Skype. I’ll try installing it on a few lower spec computers but in the short term I installed the closest thing available on an existing Ubuntu machine (see method used here) which merely gave me the gOS desktop and theme but not the same experience as the distribution itself.

I have to say that due to the lower memory overhead I saw the fastest loading of Gimp and Open Office that I’ve ever seen and the modified E17 desktop was easier to configure than the xfce based Xubuntu flavouring that I’d tried on a few low specification computers.

All I have to do now is donate a few computers with it on and see how well received (or not) it is when real people use it.

Both thumbnail pictures are clickable to reveal much larger versions.The first shows the main gOS desktop whilst the second shows the close approximation available to existing Ubuntu users.

The torrent for the live CD image (includes install option) is here (If you do download via this torrent method then please seed for as long as possible).UPDATE:gOS 2.0 ‘Rocket’ is here.

Further Update: gOS 2.0 has been changed for its inclusion on the Everex Cloudbook by been altered radically by being based around gnome rather than E17. This has not been made available as a download as of yet.

Even further update (6th April 2008): Gos space 2.9 is available aimed at the My Space generation which seems to feature a compiz-gnome and AWN dock affair married with My Space web apps which takes Gos in an entirely different direction altogether.Obviously this requires a better than basic spec for compiz effects which rather leaves the cloudbook out of the running yet again.See review.

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