I downloaded gOS today because I was very curious about all of the hype. I read some positive reviews and felt like I should give it a try. I fired it up in VirtualBox and just played around with the live cd without installing anything. Of course one doesn’t need VirtualBox for this. Just burn the iso to cd and boot with it. It won’t harm your system if you don’t install it. This distro is based on ubuntu 7.10 and uses the Enlightenment desktop manager. Since it’s ubuntu based that means you’ll have access to the ubuntu repositories. If you feel at home with apt and synaptic then you’ll be able to install all the packages that you wish.

I must say that I thought the distro was really neat. It didn’t feel gimicky or tacky. It’s seemed like a very polished operating system. I was very impressed with the Enlightenment desktop too. That was the first time that I had used it. It seemed very responsive. In a way, it kind of reminded me of XFCE. I think  that I would feel comfortable using Enlightenment on a daily basis.

Also, I really liked the iBar. That’s the group of icons sitting at the bottom where one’s taskbar would most likely be. This works similarly to a Mac. Drag your pointer to slide the icons with a zooming effect. I could get pretty used to this feature. I would prefer it to be a little smaller. Perhaps that can be changed.

I really think that my kids would love this OS. They already use and love ubuntu and xubuntu. I may have to install it for them. Or…I could just wait and buy the $200 Wal-Mart gOS PC for them. Hmm…Christmas is just around the corner.

Check it out.