Install gOS On Ubuntu 7.10

Ever want to try the Web 2.0 web apps and don't want to mess up your computer? You could repurpose an older machine, or you could just install the latest gOS. As more and more full-featured web applications look to replace traditional desktop applications, the concept of a web-based operating system has gained a lot of momentum. Since Wal-Mart began selling a $199 PC running a free Linux distribution—called gOS with a hearty dose of webapp integration, we're getting closer.

gOS is actually running on a standard Ubuntu core with a paint job in the form of the Enlightenment window manager. You still get access to the rest of the wealth of Linux applications available. The main difference is the focus of gOS, and that's webapps. More specifically, Google webapps. According to the founder of gOS, It's not an official "Google PC" or "Google OS", it is what I think one should look like, though.

The gOS distribution is based on the Ubuntu 7.10 distribution. It uses the Enlightenment 17 window manager instead of the usual GNOME or KDE desktops, allowing for lower memory and speed requirements. Therefore gOS starts to work reasonably well on systems as low end as a 1GHz Pentium III with 256MB RAM. Due to the fact it leans heavy on on-line applications built on Web 2.0 and AJAX technology it also does not use much hard disk space for applications, the whole system fits comfortably in less than 2 GB of hard disk space.

Open your sources.list file add the gOS Repositories

For Ubuntu Users

gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

For Kubuntu Users

kdesu kate /etc/apt/sources.list

For Xubuntu Users

gksu mousepad /etc/apt/sources.list

Enter these lines

# gOS Repositories

deb http://packages.thinkgos.com/gos/ painful main
deb-src http://packages.thinkgos.com/gos/ painful main

Import the key

wget http://www.thinkgos.com/files/gos_repo_key.asc

sudo apt-key add gos_repo_key.asc

rm gos_repo_key.asc

sudo aptitude update

Install gOS on Ubuntu

sudo aptitude install greenos-desktop xorg

Remove gOS on Ubuntu

The following will then remove the entire Environment for you.

sudo aptitude remove greenos-desktop

The gOS environment will be available from the Sessions menu at login. Give it a spin, it may be taking over the world soon. Especially with the advent of those cheap super light laptops.