Recently in gOS Category

I've done this sort of thing before, but luckily somebody else is comparing the Xfce environments of Debian Lenny and Xubuntu/Ubuntu.

Results are not surprising and are in line with what I found over a year ago when I did a major comparison of everything from Xubuntu and Debian to Slackware and gOS, as well as Wolvix and standard Ubuntu.

Back then, Slackware and Debian with Xfce are indeed very, very fast systems. And while I didn't test them at the time, I expect ZenWalk and Vector with Xfce to perform as well or better.

That said, I've always liked the look of Xubuntu (especially in the 7.04-7.10 era), but it does run a good deal slower than other Xfce-equipped systems — and in fact didn't do much better than Ubuntu with GNOME in my test. Thus I've pretty much just used Ubuntu when I want it, although I did have some issues with crashing on my Gateway laptop that appeared at the time to be solved by adding Xubuntu to the install and running Xfce instead. (Since then, we've been running Ubuntu with GNOME — version 8.04 — on the Gateway, and it has been running very well.)

Despite all of this, I still have two Ubuntu 8.04 installations running right now. Sure Debian and Slackware are faster, but I'm quite happy running GNOME, and I find performance in Ubuntu more than acceptable. But what keeps me running Ubuntu is the ease of installation, configuration (I'm running with no xorg.conf — and perfect video out of the box — on both installs) and patching of the system. Despite all the talk of Ubuntu shipping before everything is "right," I can't remember suffering from a broken app or feature in recent memory. And it seems that even if a new app isn't available for some reason in the Ubuntu repository, the developers behind it are quick to create a package that's designed to run in Ubuntu (even though I prefer to run what's in Ubuntu's own repository).

All things being equal, I prefer Debian, but since Lenny all things have not been equal on my Gateway and Toshiba laptops (both made around 2002-3), with which I've had unsolvable video issues in both Lenny and at least on the Gateway in Slackware as well. No amount of tweaking xorg.conf, installing new drivers, etc., would make Debian Lenny play well with the Intel video in the Gateway, and when a quick Lenny install on the Toshiba brought up the same issue, I ran quickly to the welcoming, trouble-free arms of Ubuntu. Of course OpenBSD 4.4 is running virtually trouble-free on my second, identical Toshiba Satellite 1100-S101 laptop, and if OpenBSD can get xorg running perfectly with no configuration (and no xorg.conf needed), you'd think that Debian and Slackware could do the same.

In all fairness, I haven't tried Slackware again since 12.2 came out, so maybe things have changed, and I also haven't tried Lenny since it went stable (my experience was during the three or so months leading up to that point). Put simply, Ubuntu worked, so I use it.

And as I've also said before, many of the replies to requests for help in the Ubuntu Forums might be less than helpful, but the sheer volume of those messages means that finding the answer to your question/solution to your problem not just for Ubuntu but also for Debian is easier than you might think.

Chief technology officer Earl Malmrose of the Berkeley, Calif.-based ZaReason and I didn't just talk about the Everex Cloudbook.

Also on display were a $299 desktop machine and a few laptops (beginning at $899), all running Ubuntu 7.10, which ZaReason preinstalls and configures for its customers.

Why buy from ZaReason? I thought they just took off-the-shelf laptops and slapped Ubuntu on them, but they in fact have the computers made for them by ASUS, with final assembly and tuning taking place at their Berkeley headquarters.

And they're doing the entire thing with 5 employees -- final assembly, support, shipping. Earl said business is growing, and the company is set to open a site in in Germany to take care of its European Union customers.

Things are getting even more cozy for the company, which is close to the Fremont-headquartered Everex and now to gOS, which recently gave up its Wilshire Boulevard digs in Los Angeles for Berkeley to be closer to Everex.

Earl also told me that ZaReason is committed to rolling out its machines with the latest version of Ubuntu. When 7.10 ships in April, that's what will go on ZaReason's computers immediately.

So if you're in the market for a new desktop or laptop computer and want it to "just work" out of the box, and you like the idea of a 1-year warranty backed by some pretty nice people, ZaReason is a great company with which to do it.

I've been as critical of gOS as anybody, maybe even more so. The Ubuntu-derived OS that first ran the $199 Everex desktop offering that sold through Wal-Mart and a few others was a distribution that was far from ready for prime time, as they say.

At the ZaReason booth, the company, which sells Everex in addition to Ubuntu-friendly desktops and laptops, had an Everex Cloudbook running. Sure it's small, but the screen looks great.

The gOS desktop was as green as ever, but something looked different. Earl Malmrose, the CTO of ZaReason told me that the version of gOS on the Cloudbook includes the GNOME desktop and all the GNOME tools. It's still green in hue, still has that toolbar across the bottom for all the Web 2.0 applications that gOS is built around, but with GNOME instead of Enlightenment, doing any kind of configuration will be much, much easier.

I don't know who's whose idea this is, but whoever it is, we're thinking alike.

My lack of enthusiasm for the gOS Linux distribution notwithstanding, the Everex Cloudbook -- a light, small and relatively cheap laptop running the aforementioned gOS -- is coming to a Wal-Mart near you on Jan. 25.

It sure looks nice. Main competition? The ASUS EeePc. WARNING: don't click on this last link unless you enjoy annoying Flash-heavy trainwrecks). If you value not being annoyed by Flash, just go to Amazon, which is selling the ASUS for $399.

I thank Linuxdevices.com for the link, and for cluing me in to Everex's own site (I already know about the gOS Web page).

Here's everything Everex has to say about the laptop:

Think CloudBook

Experience the Ultimate in Mobility
9 Inches, 2 pounds, 5 hours of battery life. Surf, email, blog, IM, Skype, compute. Cloud computing makes it simple and easy for everyone.

Based on the latest gOS Rocket operating system, the ultra-mobile Everex PC comes with popular applications from Google, Mozilla, Skype, OpenOffice.org and more.

Find your $399 CloudBook at Walmart.com beginning 1/25/08.

Additional Preinstalled and Linked Software
Mozilla Firefox, gMail, Meebo, Skype, Wikipedia, GIMP, Blogger, YouTube, Xing Movie Player, RythemBox, Faqly, Facebook and OpenOffice.org 2.3 (includes WRITER, IMPRESS, DRAW, CALC, BASE)

Hardware Specifications
1.2GHz, VIA C7®-M Processor ULV, 512MB DDR2 533MHz, SDRAM, 30GB Hard Disk Drive, 7" WVGA TFT Display (800 x 480), VIA UniChrome Pro IGP Graphics, VIA High-Definition Audio, 802.11b/g, (1) 10/100 Ethernet Port, (1) DVI-I Port, (2) USB 2.0 Ports, (1) 4-in1 Media Card Reader, (1) 1.3MP Webcam, (1) Headphone/Line-Out Port, (1) Microphone/Line-In Port, (1) Set of Stereo Speaker, (1) Touchpad, (1) 4-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery

Curious aside: Both the Everex and ASUS notebooks feature an 800 x 480 screen. Hmmmmmm......

Personally, that's not enough screen for me. I'm chafing in 1024 x 768 and positively cramped in 800 x 600. I've read that the Xandros Linux OS in the ASUS has been optimized for the screen size. Given how unpolished gOS is right now, I can't believe they're going to do nearly as well.

I haven't linked to Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols of Desktoplinux.com in awhile, and he had a great opinion piece today about the $150 PCLinuxOS box and other cheap computer solutions called "How low can you go and still run Linux?"

He does a good job of going through the distributions and recommending many low-spec software solutions for hardware of less than current vintage. He mentions many of my favorites, including Damn Small Linux, AntiX (which I haven't tried in awhile ...), Zenwalk, plus another I really should try: the PCLinuxOS "Mini-Me" spin.

He also talks up gOS, which is going from version 1 to 2. I booted into gOS today to see if Synaptic would magically do this upgrade for me. It did not. I got a couple dozen Ubuntu updates, but nothing indicating anything new or improved. And gOS is still as much of a dog as it ever was. On my hardware anyway, Ubuntu runs way better.

And I'm disappointed that Vaughn-Nichols didn't mention Slackware derivatives Vector or Wolvix (the latter being my current favorite distro), or even Slackware itself. He could've also put in a word for Debian and even Ubuntu.

One thing I've learned is that whatever anybody says about how fast or slow a particular Linux distribution is, a little experimentation on your own hardware is in order before settling down with any one setup. I recommend creating a partition for /home, which you can keep intact (and backed up) while rolling different distributions in and out of there. That's what I'm starting to do; my New Year's resolution is "less dual- and triple-booting, more separate /home partitions." See, I'm setting the New Year's resolution bar very low -- then I'll be sure to succeed (unless I'm caught triple-booting anytime soon).

Anyway, I'm still using Wolvix Hunter 1.1.0 and Debian Lenny on the Gateway Solo 1450. I'm packing the Lenny install with a whole lot of software, including lots of educational stuff for our 4-year-old.

I have Wolvix using a separate /home partition but not Debian. I might change that in the weeks ahead and see if they can share /home. I still can use Puppy 3.00 as a live CD -- I have a pup_save on the Debian partition. For me, this is total, complete stability, the likes of which I haven't seen in the past year.

I still have Debian Etch with Xfce on the Compaq Armada 7770dmt, with Damn Small Linux 4.0 as a live CD. I'm thinking of trying Wolvix Cub on it, but with 64 MB of RAM, it could be a little dicey. What I need to do there is bump up the RAM to 144 MB (maximum of this circa 1999 laptop).

Since Puppy Linux uses local time, I had reset my test box's clock for the now-aborted Thin Puppy Torture Test II (we've had even more power outages lately, and I'm glad to stop where I did but keep writing about Puppy just the same). But now that I'm back in gOS, I needed to reset the clock to UTC. I'm perfectly capable of opening a terminal and using the command line to set the clock, but I can't believe that the casual, new-to-Linux user with gOS has no other way to set the time. No GUI, big problem.

It's just plain wrong. Ubuntu has a GUI time-setting utility. gOS should have one, too.

Already there's no way to set a static IP in gOS except by opening a terminal and either using the command line or editing the relevant configuration files. And I've already complained extensively about gOS' lack of a GUI text editor; it wouldn't have killed them to throw Gedit or Mousepad on the thing. Instead, you have to run nano or Vim from a terminal. I can use both of these editors, although I'm more rusty in vi/Vim than many. But I still prefer to use a GUI editor when working in X -- it's nice to be able to easily copy and paste in X, and I shudder to think of someone who's never seen a terminal program or text editor before in their entire lives having to use xterm and nano, or even worse, vi.

Again, it's sloppy, and it's wrong.

Assuming that everybody has a dynamic IP is one thing, but assuming that the clock will set itself? Unbelievable.

I just did an update on gOS -- 47 packages, and I had hoped that some of these issues would be solved. But not one was. And I've already had X crash once today, and GRUB isn't working so well, either. That could be due to Ubuntu 6.06 LTS not getting the configuration right for gOS (those long Ubuntu disk IDs -- not quite sure what they are or why they're used -- screw it up often). At one point in the boot, I get to a console and hit ctrl-alt-del, at which point the gOS boot continues, finally leading me to the GUI where I can log on.

The average gOS user is NOT dual-booting, so it's not a huge deal, but it's just another example of general messiness (and more of a warning against dual-booting on any critical systems).

But overall, the more I get to know gOS, the less I like it.

Anyhow, if you came here via a search because you're frustrated with gOS, here's how to set the time (this also works in Ubuntu, which can do this with an easy-to-use utility, but if you're a glutton for punishment, by all means do it this way):

Left-click on the desktop and navigate to Applications -- System Tools -- UXterm

UXterm -- gOS' terminal program -- will load when you click on it.

Once you get a prompt ending in $, you must click on the window to make it active (another bug in gOS that's just plain annoying).

The Linux format for setting time and date at the command line is somewhat arcane, but not overly so. This is how to set the time and date for 10:15 a.m. Dec. 27, 2007. Times must be in 24-hour mode; i.e. 1:15 p.m. would be 13:15. You begin using the date command. The 12-digit format for the date command is month (01 to 12) date (01 to 31) hour (00 to 23) minute (00 to 59) and year (generally 2007), Type the following after the $ prompt (and enter your password when asked for it). Don't forget the double-quote marks (not two single quotes, but the shift-quote key):

$ sudo date "122710152007"

Enter your password when needed (as in all sudo commands)

Then you need to set the hardware clock (make sure the double-dashes are spaced properly, which means they need to be attached to the words they proceed):

$ sudo hwclock --systohc --utc

Enter your password again when asked.

To check the clock:

$ date

For the software clock

$ hwclock

For the hardware clock

Both should output the proper date and time:

Thu Dec 27 10:15:00 PST 2007 (or whatever time it happens to be)

Again, users of gOS SHOULD NOT be made to do this. But they have no choice. Personally, I'd slap Ubuntu or Xubuntu on my Everex box ASAP.

gOS sounds like a great idea ... until you actually start using it. At that point you gain a new appreciation for all the work that has gone into such relatively trouble-free LInux distributions as Ubuntu, Debian, Slackware (yes, even Slackware), Red Hat/CentOS, Fedora, Suse, Puppy, Damn Small Linux, PCLinuxOS .. in fact, I could name just about every distribution I've tried over the past year (at least a couple dozen).

Again, if the CEO of Wal-Mart asked me how to clean up this mess, I'd tell him to move the Everex to Ubuntu immediately. The hardware can handle it, and it's ready in a way that gOS most certainly is not.

I'm writing this review on Google Docs in Firefox while running gOS 1.0.1, the Ubuntu-based distribution that steers users toward Web-based applications whenever possible -- mostly those under the auspices of Google -- and which powers the Everex Linux PC being sold for $199 by the truckful at Wal-Mart.

I'm getting more comfortable with Google Docs all the time, but there are times when you need a traditional text editor. Yet there is no GUI text editor to be found in the gOS distro. There is the entire OpenOffice suite and the GIMP image editor, a smattering of games, Rhythmbox for music and Xine for video, but no stand-alone mail client (you're encouraged by the iconography on the gOS desktop to use Gmail ...). Luckily there is a terminal program, which is named UXterm but looks suspiciously like plain ol' xterm, and with that you can bring up Vim or Nano, but that's pretty much it. Come to think of it, without a terminal in the GUI, and a console text editor, gOS would be in a heap of trouble, so it's good that they included one. But every gOS user's life would be a whole lot easier with a GUI text editor. Since you can add anything in the Ubuntu repositories, holes in gOS are easily filled.

But the more I used the new, green OS, the more I wondered whether the Everex (and everybody else) would be be better off with Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Debian ... or just about anything. While the Everex, with its 1.5 GHz VIA processor and 512 MB of RAM is underpowered when compared to most modern desktops, I regularly run Debian and Ubuntu -- both with GNOME -- and even Slackware with GNOME and Xfce on a machine with similar power but half the memory. And as I found out, the speed and lightness on resources that the Enlightenment window manager promises are just not there.

One thing I do like about gOS -- and this may be a feature of Ubuntu 7.10 for all I know -- is that when you're in a terminal and try to run an application you don't have installed, the terminal outputs what you do need to do to get it.

For instance, I tried to run the Joe editor:

$ joe

and I got the following:

The program 'Joe' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
sudo apt-get install joe
bash: joe: command not found

Whenever that message comes from, it's a very nice touch and is more than enough to get even a novice user going with apt.

But sheesh, at least give me Leafpad, Mousepad, Gedit ... whatever. Normally I would just add the editor I want, but for this evaluation of gOS, I pledged to stay with Google Docs; that's what they want you to use, so I'll use it. In the past, I've even gone as far as automatically posting a Google Docs item to one of my Blogger blogs, but that feature, in my opinion, is pretty much useless. Why not just write directly in Blogger? And since you can only auto-post from Google Docs to a single blog, the write-to-blog feature won't work for me. However, the post-to-blog feature does work with WordPress and LiveJournal blogs, plus a few others I've never heard of. That makes it more useful, but what I need is for Google Docs to act as more of a "dashboard" app for my various blogs -- I'd like to be able to publish from here to more than one blog (actually about six, and therein lies my sickness).

Update: I was all set to complain about Google Docs' browser-printing problem, but I just printed a document from Docs on my Windows PC, and what Docs did was turn my document into a great-looking PDF, which opened in Adobe Reader and was easily printed on paper. I'm not sure how seamless this integration is in Linux systems, but I plan to find out soon. Printing on actual paper seemed like the weak link in the whole Google Docs scheme, but it looks like they have that problem solved very well -- I may never use a traditional word processor again (especially if the promised offline extension of Docs is ever released).

Google Docs is a whole lot better than many people let on. I never need to insert tables or pictures into my documents. I write stuff. Stuff with words, and if I need to insert photos, I'm generally already in a blog post or on a printed page that I'm dealing with in a publishing program that is a whole lot bigger and more complicated than Google Docs. But Docs CAN insert images, tables, links and more. And it's not a bad HTML generator either. You can look at the HTML source at any time and copy/paste it into your Web content.

For the everyday writer of articles for publication, Google Docs is pretty kick-ass. When not connected to the Internet, or for those who don't want Google to see their documents, there's always the option of using OpenOffice, though I think AbiWord and Gnumeric are more in keeping with the lightness touted by gOS.

Getting back to gOS ... almost: Even though this is supposed to be about gOS, the bare-bones Linux distro relies heavily on the Firefox browser and links to various Web tools like GMail, Google Docs, Wikipedia (see, they're not all Google), Facebook, Blogger, YouTube, Google Maps and Picasa. So any review of gOS must take heavily into account the browser experience.

Since I work on four or five separate computers a day, working with docs online and using Web-based (or IMAP-delivered) e-mail is a must for me. I could add a standalone mail client to gOS as easily as I can with any Ubuntu or Debian system, but for now I won't. Even so, a user with gOS can pretty much make it do anything they could do on Ubuntu. Or they could wipe gOS from the drive and replace it ... or perhaps dual-boot.

One of the most attractive things about gOS and the Everex PC is that the combination promises full power management, making for a more green PC than most anything else out there on the desktop, so if you have the Everex PC, making gOS work the way you want it becomes a more attractive option. Hopefully Linux, as it matures even further, will include better power management for all motherboards.

More mail: I'm divided about the use of mail clients anyway. Most of the time, a Web portal is fine for me, especially if the entire session takes place in a secure connection (thanks, DSL Extreme). And I suspect that the vast majority of computer users have never heard of a mail client -- they barely know what Outlook is -- and have been accessing e-mail through the browser as long as they've had e-mail access, so gOS is going in the right direction there.

Gmail tip: To keep your Gmail session secure throughout, start out in your browser with the following:

https://mail.google.com

Note the "s" for a secure connection. You can also type https://gmail.com. Unsecure e-mail, particularly over unencrypted wireless connections, is a real problem, and it makes me reluctant to use Yahoo Mail because only the password is sent over a secure connection. The rest of your e-mail is right out there for others to intercept and use for ill.

Speaking about the greenish gOS desktop, the Enlightenment window manager isn't that bad. I think gOS could've been done just as well with Xfce -- maybe even better -- but I know that some Enlightenment developers are behind the project, and I'm always happy to see any desktop environment taken to the next level. At least it sets gOS apart from the dozen or so Xfce-based distros out there. But speedy, it's not.

One of the first things I did in gOS was add some virtual desktops; it's one of the best features that Windows doesn't offer, and I think the gOS people should ship the OS with more than a single desktop showing. I like the traditional four, so I left-clicked on the mouse and went to Desktop -- Virtual -- Configure Virtual Desktops. I could've added more than four, but I didn't. Switching between desktops is done with the usual ctrl-alt-arrow keys. You can't tell in gOS which desktop you're on, but at least they're there.

One feature I turned on in Enlightenment that I've never seen before in any other window manager (although I'm pretty sure it's there in most window managers) is the ability to switch or "flip" screens by moving the mouse pointer to the left or right edge of the screen, effectively scrolling to the next desktop. It's kind of neat. I don't know if I need it (I discovered it by accident after forgetting that I set it), but it may just be something that gOS users will grow to like. I had to turn the feature off because I kept triggering it by accident -- I like my Firefox windows to fill up the screen, and more than once I found myself on the next desktop when I didn't want to be there just yet. Ctrl-alt-arrow is good enough for me. But if you like the "flip screen" feature, you can make it look even more groovy with "animated flip."

One successful install, one less so: Both my regular test box (the VIA C3 Samuel-based Maxspeed Maxterm converted thin client) and the $0 Laptop (Gateway Solo 1450) are very Ubuntu friendly, meaning installs of Ubuntu-based distros generally go well on both. gOS installed like a champ on the thin client, but it won't install at all on the Gateway. On the latter, the live CD environment comes up fine (and the graphics are much snappier than on the Maxspeed), but when I do the install, I enter all the relevant information, and about six seconds into the actual install, the program crashes -- and that's it. Since I recently did an install of Ubuntu 7.10 on this very same laptop, it's curious, indeed, that gOS will not install. It's regretful, but at least I got gOS on one box. Hopefully the bug, whatever it is, will be squashed in future editions of gOS.

Potential problem: I'm running top in a terminal window on one of my four desktops, and it consistently shows Enlightenment using 9 percent to 12 percent of my CPU and 12 percent of my 256 MB of memory ... at idle. That's not exactly light. I'll have to go back to Ubuntu and Xubuntu and see how much CPU and memory GNOME and Xfce take up. I don't think it's this much. That said, gOS seems to be running as well as anything else, but not radically better. I'm able to switch windows in Firefox fairly quickly and do the same with my virtual desktops. Again, I'd have a better feel for how gOS compares if I could install it on my Gateway laptop.

So I decided to install the next distro I'm testing -- Wolvix Hunter 1.1.0. In case you haven't heard of Wolvix, it's a live CD based on Slackware that runs the Xfce and Fluxbox window managers. It can be used as a live CD, or put on the hard drive as a frugal install or traditional hard drive install. I opted for the traditional hard drive install.

The Wolvix installation process is excellent. I already had partitions set up, but the Wolvix installer offered to start up Gparted and make some or modify those I have. I also had the option of designating separate partitions for /home and other directories (I declined but would have configured a separate /home if I planned to use Wolvix long-term). The installer also gave me the option of booting Wolvix at the console or in a GUI (I chose the GUI), and it offered to put GRUB on the master boot record (I accepted). It also detected gOS, which allowed me to dual-boot. If whatever I install on the remaining partition messes up GRUB, I can easily reinstall it from Wolvix without having to geek out too much. (Note: Wolvix didn't do so well on GRUB, I instead used the gOS install disk to reinstall GRUB, and it recognized gOS perfectly).

I ran top in a terminal in Wolvix Hunter running Xfce, and at idle, with the Firefox window open on another screen (just like in gOS), the top running process was X at between 2 and 4.6 percent CPU and 7.6 percent memory. In short, a whole lot lighter than Enlightenment.

Maybe Wolvix isn't the best distro with which to compare gOS, but the Xfce vs. Enlightenment comparison is more than valid. Is it possible that the Everex PC could perform better with Xubuntu instead of gOS? (The answer is yes.)

Anyway, since Wolvix includes Fluxbox, I decided to go further and check top again. I opened Firefox, opened this document, switched to another window, opened a terminal and ran top. X was still the top running process and veered between 0.3 percent and 1.7 percent of CPU, and 6.1 percent of memory. Again, much better than Enlightenment in gOS.

To provide an even clearer picture of the performance of gOS and Enlightenment, I tested the load times of Firefox and OpenOffice Writer in a variety of Linux distributions and window managers. (Note: Slackware 12 doesn't include OpenOffice, and I haven't bothered to add it, so times are provided for KOffice's KWord -- which is generally quicker to load than OO). Load times were checked twice for each setup, since the second load of each of these two applications often happens much more quickly than the first.

Other variables that may have affected the times: Ubuntu 6.06 uses Firefox 1.5. All others used variants of Firefox 2.0. OpenOffice versions ranged from 2.0 in Ubuntu 6.06 to 2.3 in gOS.

The distros and window managers tested on the Maxspeed converted thin client (1 GHz VIA C3 processor, ECS eveM motherboard, 256 MB RAM) were:

gOS 1.0.1 (Enlightenment)
Ubuntu 6.0.6 LTS (GNOME)
Wolvix Hunter 1.1.0 (Xfce and Fluxbox)
Slackware 12 (KDE, Xfce and Fluxbox)
Ubuntu 7.04 (GNOME)
Xubuntu 7.04 (Xfce)
Debian 4.0 Etch (Xfce)

To sum up before the results are given, gOS was the slowest of the bunch -- even slower than Slackware under KDE -- and also slower than Ubuntu. It may be surprising, but Ubuntu with GNOME compares somewhat favorably to other distros running Xfce; you don't lose much speed by running GNOME as opposed to Xfce. Slackware and Debian with Xfce were another story; both were extremely fast when it came to loading applications. I didn't include Debian Etch with GNOME in the test because I didn't have it installed on one of the thin client's drives. But Debian compared very well to Slackware when both used the Xfce desktop environment. Curiously, Xubuntu -- Ubuntu's Xfce variant -- was slower than Debian with Xfce; in fact (as I already mentioned), Xubuntu didn't provide much of a speed advantage over regular Ubuntu.

I expected Wolvix to be the fastest, or at least as fast as Slackware. but it was buried by Slack. Not surprisingly, when Xfce was chosen for the window manager instead of KDE, Slackware was the undisputed winner, with a first-load time for Firefox of 8 seconds. That said, Ubuntu was slower, but not overly much, so if you prefer Ubuntu and GNOME to Slackware and Xfce, it's not like night and day in terms of application load time; it's more like noon and 2:30 p.m. -- a difference, but not so much as to make the slower of the two unusable.

The reason I even did this test was that from a "desktop feel" standpoint on my underpowered test box, gOS lacked the quickness of most of the other distros, including the Dapper and Feisty versions of Ubuntu.

And while Ubuntu has made some performance gains between 6.06 and 7.04, compatibility with hardware and desire for (or lack of interest in) more up-to-date apps should govern users' choice of the LTS vs. regular releases of the distro. For instance, on the converted thin client, hardware recognition is great in both versions, but on my Gateway laptop, ACPI and touchpad configuration work better in 7.10, and almost as well in 7.04. But ACPI management of the CPU fan only works with the kernel provided in 7.04.

Another aside: I saw practically no difference in application load times between Xfce and Fluxbox. So if you prefer Fluxbox, go ahead and use it, but you won't be gaining any performance over Xfce, at least in 256 MB of RAM. On the $15 Laptop (Compaq Armada 7770dmt), which only has 64 MB of RAM, I ran Debian with Fluxbox for months, and it runs just as well now that I have Xfce on it. And the superior tools included in Xfce put it ahead of Fluxbox when it comes to usability on the desktop.

The Slackware KDE vs. Slackware Xfce numbers are the most startling; using Slack with Xfce will save considerable load time on slower systems.

On "modern" PCs, however, much of this is moot. With a dual-core processor and 512 MB to 1 GB of RAM, everything loads so quickly that for desktop use, personal preference for one window manager or another holds more sway than load times, which will be acceptably short in just about any desktop environment. And for those who like all the bells and widgets of KDE, if you have enough power to enjoy them, it's probably worth it. Just Konqueror alone, with its ability to function as a Web browser, file manager, file viewer, FTP client and configuration portal, makes KDE very attractive. If only I could get X configured properly in Slackware on my Gateway Solo 1450 laptop.

Here are the test results:

gOS 1.0.1 (Enlightenment)
Firefox 2.0.0.10 1st load: 30 sec.
                 2nd load: 15 sec.
OpenOffice 2.3   1st load: 56 sec.
                 2nd load: 21 sec.  

Ubuntu 6.06 (GNOME)
Firefox 1.5.0.13 1st load: 21 sec.
                 2nd load: 10 sec.
Open Office 2.0  1st load: 44 sec.
                 2nd load: 26 sec.

Wolvix Hunter 1.1.0 (Xfce)
Firefox 2.0.0.6 1st load: 19 sec.
                2nd load: 12 sec.
OpenOffice 2.2  1st load: 37 sec.
                2nd load: 23 sec.

Wolvix Hunter 1.1.0 (Fluxbox)
Firefox 2.0.0.6 1st load: 22 sec.
                2nd load: 12 sec.
OpenOffice 2.2  1st load: 42 sec.
                2nd load: 23 sec.

Slackware 12 (KDE)
Firefox 2.0.0.8 1st load: 24 sec.
                2nd load: 14 sec.
KOffice         1st load: 19 sec.
                2nd load: 16 sec.

Slackware 12 (Xfce)
Firefox 2.0.0.8 1st load:  8 sec.
                2nd load:  8 sec.
KOffice         1st load: 15 sec.
                2nd load: 13 sec.

Slackware 12 (Fluxbox)
Firefox 2.0.0.8  1st load: 9 sec.
                 2nd load: 9 sec.
Koffice         1st load: 15 sec.
                2nd load: 13 sec.

Xubuntu 7.04 (Xfce)
Firefox 2.0.0.10 1st load: 18 sec.
                 2nd load:  9 sec.
OpenOffice 2.2   1st load: 36 sec.
                 2nd load: 22 sec.

Ubuntu 7.04 (GNOME)
Firefox 2.0.0.10 1st load: 17 sec.
                 2nd load: 10 sec.
OpenOffice 2.2   1st load: 40 sec.
                 2nd load: 18 sec.

Debian 4.0 Etch (Xfce)
Firefox 2.0.0.8  1st load: 10 sec.
                 2nd load: 10 sec.
Open Office 2.0  1st load: 17 sec.
                 2nd load: 17 sec.

As I say above the biggest thing to emerge is the speed advantage of Slackware and Debian, especially with Xfce. The relative slowness of Slackware 11-based Wolvix was puzzling. And while I didn't have OpenOffice installed in Slackware, and KOffice is pretty much a quicker program, I included its load numbers for comparison's sake. I did first and second loads of all apps because the second load is often -- but not always -- much quicker. Times for office suites were the number of seconds it took to open up a new OO Writer or KWord document.

While I didn't expect Debian to be slow, I also didn't expect it to be so comparable to Slackware. That's good news for Debian users.

But the biggest thing to come out of this test is that standard Ubuntu pretty much crushes gOS. The new, hot distro may be green in color, but it's incomplete and slow.

That said, the idea of doing most work in the browser and drawing on Web-based portals for not just e-mail and "social networking" purposes, but also document creation, photo editing and storage is becoming more attractive and viable all the time. In this realm, gOS is making a big "idea" contribution to the OS game, but in terms of sheer performance, polish and basic tools, it has a long way to go.

The average user -- even newbies -- would be better off with Ubuntu or Xubuntu on the Everex. And as these tests show, the Xfce desktop environment, in most instances, provides more bang for your MHz.

I wanted gOS to be great, but when it comes to Linux and BSD distros, greatness only comes with time and painstaking effort. After all the hype over the gOS-Everex-Wal-Mart effort -- some of it even generated by yours truly -- I didn't expect to see gOS beaten by every single established distro I threw at it. I don't usually do extensive time tests, but the sludginess of gOS drove me to it.

And while I expected Slackware and Debian to acquit themselves well, I wasn't prepared for out-of-the-box Ubuntu to best gOS. It wouldn't make as great a story -- "Wal-Mart chooses Ubuntu" -- but it would be way better for those buying the $199 box from the world's largest retailer.

Ars Technica lives up to its usual standards with the best Asus Eee PC (yep, it runs Linux) review I've seen.

It's long -- just keep hitting the "next page" button to see all six pages.

Writer Ryan Paul sums up:

The Asus Eee PC offers outstanding value for Linux enthusiasts and good value for a mainstream audience. The laptop brazenly defies the conventional standards of portable computing and delivers extreme mobility at an appealing price.

...

The hardware is impressive for the price, and the sheer portability of the system is mind-blowing. Despite the quality of the hardware, the cramped keyboard will be a deal-breaker for many consumers. ... The low screen resolution is also disappointing, but virtual desktops and font customization make it easier to tolerate.

...

The fact that the Eee lacks an optical drive might turn off some potential buyers, but I found that network file transfers and the SD card slot were more than sufficient for my needs. ... The bundled software is mostly pretty good, but the poor performance of OpenOffice.org is frustrating. Abiword provides a solid alternative, but it isn't officially supported by Asus on the Eee.

...

The Eee PC will likely have a noticeable influence on future mobile computing development. Companies are increasingly adopting Linux in the mobile space, and Linux developers and distributors are embracing this trend and accommodating rapid development.

...

The Eee PC is a stunning example of what a hardware maker can accomplish when mixing a highly compact form factor with a custom open-source Linux platform. With the Eee PC, consumers can get a taste of the future today.

My question: What else is coming into the Eee space? Everex is planning to release a $399 laptop based on the gOS variant of Ubuntu (I'm not so impressed with the OS ... review forthcoming). If only somebody can get a similar device priced at $300, then we'll be talking. And of course there's the Classmate PC from Intel and the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) ... but who knows if or when any of these will come to the legitimate market.

Ars Technica writes about it:

(The Cloudbook), which will be available for $400 next month, is equipped with a 1.2GHz Via processor, 512MB of RAM, a seven-inch screen, a 30GB hard drive, and a 1.2 megapixel camera. The laptop will ship with gOS, the same Linux-based operating system that is featured on Everex's gPC.

I believe Linux Devices broke the story.

I haven't actually seen the Everex desktop PC, but I have spent a bit of time using its gOS operating system, and I'm not all that impressed with its speed or features. I think plain Ubuntu, or preferably Xubuntu (or even Debian) would be a better choice.

My gOS review prompted a thorough investigation of what, exactly, is faster than the billed-as-fast distro's Enlightenment window manager (so far just about everything), and that led me to explore Xfce-based Linux distributions in general, and on the $15 Laptop in particular.

The $15 Laptop is a Compaq Armada 7770dmt, circa 1999, with a Pentium II MMX processor at 233 MHz, 64 MB of RAM, a CD-ROM drive and an Orinoco WaveLAN Silver PCMCIA wireless card as its only networking device.

Here's the scorecard (not all Xfce):

Puppy runs pretty well. I had one fixable glitch: Puppy doesn't configure the Orinoco wireless card if it's plugged in before booting. A quick Web search clued me in to this. The solution is to boot puppy, then plug in the Orinoco PCMCIA card and then configure it. Worked immediately. Also, the parameters generated by Puppy 2.13's Xorg configuration helped me get X properly configured in other distributions (Debian, Zenwalk). I had to use Xvesa in Puppy 3.00, but maybe using 2.13's xorg.conf will fix that problem (or I can just run Xvesa, which Damn Small Linux and Slackware do by default).

Puppy update: Making a pup_save file in 2.13 and upgrading to 3.00 resulted in a non-working X configuration. I couldn't even ctrl-alt-backspace out of it.

Damn Small Linux 4.0 runs great. It's probably the best choice for this particular system. And I can't say enough about how nice the new JWM-based DSL desktop is. I had a DSL 4.0 review in the early stages, but I inadvertently erased it in one of my many installs. ... One thing I recommend: keep Knoppix, DSL and Puppy live CDs around and try all of them on every PC you come across.

The Xfce install of Debian Etch (type tasks=xfce-desktop at the boot prompt of the netinstall disc) is very promising. Debian and Slackware, under Xfce, blew away everything in my lengthy speed test, and Debian is just so damn easy to use. But ... the Xfce install is VERY barebones. No Synaptic, no network manager, pretty much none of the things that Zenwalk or Xubuntu bring to Xfce. I really don't need all that stuff, and as I say, Debian with Xfce is damn fast. I'm very comfortable with apt, and with a wireless card, it's not like I have a lot of heavy network configuration work to do ... I might stick with it. And the X configuration was fine ... once I booted Puppy 2.13 and tweaked Debian's xorg.conf appropriately (hint: use one of Puppy's two drive-mounting tools to get at /etc/X11/xorg.conf on your Debian install).

Zenwalk, as mentioned above, makes Xfce easier to tweak. The ZenPanel, in my opinion, is the "killer app" among Xfce-based distros. That said, I couldn't seem to turn the frame-buffer feature off, and my console sessions were, shall we say, wavy. Once I got X working (again, with Puppy's help), the menus didn't seem as responsive as Debian's.

I tried Xubuntu. I had an alternate install disk for 6.10 lying around, and the install wouldn't complete. Yes, I checked the CD's integrity. It just didn't want to go all the way.

Slackware 12. I'm installing it now. I only have a 3 GB drive.-- otherwise I'd just do a full GNOME install of Debian and then add xfce-desktop after the fact -- and so in Slackware I opted not to install KDE. The install went pretty well. Without KDE checked off, I barely had any apps, although I did get Seamonkey and Thunderbird in addition to Firefox. Debian, in contrast, has Iceweasel (renamed but otherwise exactly the same as Firefox) but no mail client at all. Not that it would be a problem to add one to Debian. In this Slack install, there isn't any office software. I'd have to add Abiword and maybe OpenOffice ... except that I'm getting very close to running out of disk space. I could probably start removing packages and steal some space back, though. On my other Slackware 12 install, I used the Abiword package from Robby's Slackware Packages, with all dependencies also on Robby's site, and that worked great. He also has OpenOffice.

I was surprised at how great OO Writer worked in the Debian Xfce install. Remember, this is 64 MB of RAM and a 233 MHz CPU. I could probably get rid of the other OO apps that I never use (just about all the rest).

And as far as video configuration go, Slackware 12 was one of the few to correctly set the X parameters for the Compaq. I still had the wavy framebuffer console (gotta figure out how to turn that off), but X works fine.

And now that I figured out how to make Puppy's wireless work (the plug-the-card-in-after-booting trick), I have both of my favorite live CDs (Puppy and DSL) at my disposal for this laptop.

I get the funny feeling I'm going to end up with Debian. I like the idea of being able to keep the same setup for a long, long time, updating it easily with apt. Slackware would last longer, since support seems to go on and on. I could also go back to having a separate /home partition to make swapping out distros easier if and when I start to pile some files into this thing.

The better thing to do would be to bite the bullet and get a reasonably sized hard drive and dual- or triple-boot for awhile. And I've got to max out the memory. It might cost too much to get the 1 GB of PC-133 laptop memory for the $0 Laptop (old memory costs between double and triple what new memory costs ... so buy it NOW people), but the 128 MB of EDO laptop RAM for the $15 Laptop will only set me back a few bucks.

But I can see ending up with Etch on the hard drive, augmented by DSL and/or Puppy as live CDs.

Preliminary findings in my gOS vs. the world test indicate that Enlightenment uses more CPU -- and seems slower -- than Xfce and Fluxbox.

I'm not even prepared to say that Enlightenment is lighter or quicker than GNOME.

Let me repeat: Enlightenment looks nice, is different but is not easy on CPU, memory or graphics.

gOS installed successfully on the Maxspeed Maxterm converted thin client -- yeah, it took all day -- but the install has failed twice so far on the $0 Laptop, the Gateway Solo 1450 that currently dual-boots Ubuntu 7.10 and Debian Etch 4.0.

It freezes during the early part of the install. So Ubuntu Gutsy installs fine, but the Gutsy-based gOS does not. I will try again in a few days.

My recent experience with gOS has taught me a few things:

-- There is no way to configure a network connection, except at the command line.
-- Very few apps come with gOS. The system is built around the Firefox browser and icons that serve as Web links to mostly Google-owned sites. The concept is simple and smart.
-- You can add as many Ubuntu apps as you want through Add/Delete Programs, Synaptic or apt.
-- I like the Enlightenment window manager; I'd like to test it against Xfce and Fluxbox at some point.
-- gOS is at release 1.0.1. It's nowhere near as polished as the Ubuntu system on which it's based. That means there's room for improvement.

gOS is a different Linux distribution, no doubt about it. Some would call it stripped down, others might say streamlined. But is it more appropriate for novice users? I'm not so sure. Is it a better choice than Ubuntu, Xubuntu or Debian? Again, I'm not sure.

It took all day, literally, to get gOS on my test machine. I used the Gparted that came on the live CD, and it's the version of the partitioning utility that takes forever to scan the drives. I repartitioned the entire drive, leaving space for gOS and two distros to be named later. I figured out how to set a static IP while in the live CD environment, and the settings surprisingly stuck after the install. They didn't work, however. I had to comment out all the other interface information in /etc/network/interfaces and then restart the network.

Way too hackish for Ubuntu. And way, way, way too hackish for a OS designed for people who've never used Linux before. I've never had to get this deep into the console with a Ubuntu install. Of course, if you have a dynamic IP, you'll escape all of this.

Now I'm doing the first software update -- 55 items. I'm gonna let it run and get the hell out of here. It's Friday after Thanksgiving, after all.

The folks who are developing gOS -- the Ubuntu-derived Linux distribution for the $199 Everex PC being sold at Wal-Mart -- have a few things to fix.

It's very clear that gOS and the Everex are meant for home use with an Ethernet connection. I haven't tried it with wireless since I don't have a wireless-capable box that it would work on, but I do have to set wired static IP address regularly at the Daily News.

But in gOS, there's no GUI or text-based utility for network configuration.

Not a good thing.

But since I've set a static IP at the console about a dozen times lately, I'm growing accustomed to it. Will the new-to-Linux user be able to do this? Or want to? Hell no.

At any rate, if you need to configure a static IP in gOS 1.0.1, here's how. Start with this n.great Ubuntu Geek explanation.

I usually do the commands individually, but editing these two configuration files is a better way, I think:

You need to use a terminal window and text editor. And since root is not enabled in Ubuntu, you also need the sudo command to invoke rootly privileges. Vi is always available, but most systems -- Ubuntu and gOS included -- also offer nano. Remember, in nano you save your file by hitting F3 and then Enter. To exit nano, hit CTRL-x.

(I tend to use nano because it's easier than vi, and if I spent six hours a day at the console, I'd probably use vi, but since I don't, nano matches the way I work in a GUI that much more.)

Back to the configuration. First edit /etc/network/interfaces:

To open a terminal in gOS, right-click with the mouse and go to Applications - System Tools - UXterm

That opens a terminal window.

At the $ prompt (it may consist of different words but will end in $) type:

ubuntu@Ubuntu:~$ sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

Find your network interface. If you've ever configured an IP address in Linux before with a GUI interface, you probably know what your interface is called. My Ethernet interface is eth0. Chances are yours is, too, but it may be different.

In gOS, go to this part of the file:

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

Comment out the second line by putting a # in front of it. That makes your system "ignore" the line. You can always remove the # sign later and comment out the OTHER lines if you need to change back to a dynamic IP (the kind you usually have with a home DSL modem).

auto eth0
#iface eth0 inet dhcp

Now add a new line after the commented-out line (the one with the #) and add the information for your static IP connection, which you might know from previous configurations, your ISP (if you have a static IP connection, of course) or from the geek who administers your network. Remember, these numbers are for demonstration purposes; add the numbers provided to you by your network administrator (or which you already know), or it won't work:

auto eth0
#iface eth0 inet dhcp
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.9.200.200
netmask 255.255.255.0
broadcast 192.9.200.255
gateway 192.9.200.254

(Note: the original tutorial from which I adapted this calls for a "network" address in the configuration. That's a parameter I don't need, so I didn't include it here. Also, the "broadcast" address might not be needed, either, but in my case I know it, so I included it here. Your configuration may vary, but this is definitely the place it lives in Debian, Ubuntu and all those distros derived from them).

We still have one thing to do: setting the nameservers.

It's in another configuration file -- /etc/resolv.conf -- that we can access from the terminal with a text editor:

ubuntu@Ubuntu:~$ sudo nano /etc/resolv.conf

I don't seem to need a search address, but it you have it, you can put it in the file along with the addresses of your DNS servers. Add these lines to /etc/resolv.conf:

search search.com
nameserver 192.9.200.7
nameserver 192.9.200.4

Save the file (F3 and Enter in nano) and exit (CTRL-x).

Then restart your network:

ubuntu@Ubuntu:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

If you need more information (and who doesn't?), here's a great tutorial -- probably better than this one -- on how to take a Ubuntu box from dynamic IP to static IP. For more complicated setups, this page may help. Hey, that nixCraft site is pretty good.

Editorial commentary: Ubuntu has a great utility that lets you configure dynamic or static IPs and quickly switch between them -- say if you have a laptop and use it at home and at work (like I do). Why gOS doesn't have this utility (or why I can't seem to find it) is beyond me. The developers should add it -- or something even easier to work with -- at the earliest opportunity. I know "real geeks" always configure their networking from the command line, but nobody should have to, especially in a distribution that's meant for first-time Linux users who aren't necessarily technically savvy. I know that Windows doesn't make configuring a static IP any easier than your average Linux distro, but a GUI app like those in Ubuntu or Debian, or the great netconfig utility in Slackware is a MUST. All you really need to do is add in the network configuration utility from Ubuntu. Just get it done, gOS people.

I didn't know that gOS -- the free Ubuntu Linux-based operating system that runs on the $199 Everex box available at Wal-Mart -- is made by a Los Angeles-based company. I will be calling on them.

And for those who've been trying to download an ISO of gOS, either in its full form or as a bit torrent, now there are a few mirrors taking the pressure off of the overwhelmed gOS server. As a result, I'm downloading it now. I don't know if I'll be here long enough to actually burn the CD (it's the day before Thanksgiving, if you must know why), but I'll soon be doing a test like this one from Extreme Tech: gOS Unboxed: Should Microsoft Worry?

Also on the gOS Web site, I don't know who Faizon Love is, but they're making a big deal out of this YouTube video:

Since I'm also making a big deal out of it, I can't really say much.

Update: Faizon Love is an actor.