More reasons gOS is nowhere near ready for use by just about anybody

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.