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).