I bet you've all noticed the news that Walmart has started selling 200-buck desktop machines equipped with a Linux distro called gOS, or Google Operating System. I found some of the reports to be pretty misleading, making people think this was actually an OS coming from Google itself.

This, of course, is utter nonsense.

The distro is based on Ubuntu and aims to provide a complete in-the-cloud experience (read: online). It's bear-looking and features a (OS X) dock-like bar which contains links to many of Google's services.

What do you guys think of this product (the desktop computer & the distribution)? Would you advise your mom to buy this?

Article at Lifehacker

I would just recommend Ubuntu. You will always see more changes from a Debian derivative than you will from an Ubuntu derivative. Most of the time it's Ubuntu with some different eye-candy and maybe some restricted codecs/drivers which you can install on Ubuntu anyway. ie Pioneer, Linux Mint, Xubuntu, Kubuntu, gOS etc etc

I wouldn't purchase it for myself, but I would advise anyone to consider buying it if all they could afford was a $200 machine and wanted to be on the internet. The thing costs less than many cell phones.

I'm also pleased to see that a Linux OS is being introduced to the "little old ladies with blue tennis shoes" market. Advances in that direction are great as it provides yet more competition for Microsoft and Apple.

I don't like this computer that much. If I ever bought one I would install Ubuntu on it.

At least it doesn't come with Vista already installed. It probably wouldn't be able to run on it anyway.

Hey, I always hit the pawn shops for goodies and or second hand stores to see if there is a pc worth grabbing. You can do a check on it to see the space, allocated or otherwise and anything that is on it you can find...,Most shops have them on so you can check them out. Well if you find one worth your lick for an extra toy you can just purchase it for a relatively cheap price and then run the distro of your choice on it, but Ubuntu would be a good start. I would rather do this than purchase a computer from walmart..unless there is at least a year or so warranty. Walmart is good on dropping the food item prices but some of the inventory it provides is pretty shabby in my experience, ya for that hit the pawn shops. Just me.

Sherri

No comment on the computer, but the gOS itself looks snazy. It's based off of Ubuntu 7.10 and it seems like Apple gone Linux (meaning, their aim is for the simple folk who just want a computer with a word processor and internet). It's interesting, to say the least.

I haven't looked at gOS in a long time. I think I'll give the live DVD a whirl as it seems to have improved out of sight.

The new version of the Everex PC is really nice. It's going to be interesting with Mozilla's Prism & Weave.