The Cloud OS I’ve Been Waiting For
There are times when you need a lot of computer power, and hence a strong and powerful operating system (OS for short), and there are times when you don’t. Like when you’re on the road and just want to read up on RSS feeds, maybe write a blog post, or browse the web like everybody else. When you’re doing that, there’s really no need for the OS to be as fleshed out as Windows, Mac OS X, or even most of the Linux distributions out there. The web browser is your OS, and the websites your applications.
That appeals to me, as you probably know by now. There’s so much bloat in all the operating systems today that just hogs your computer. I really do like OS X on my Mac Pro, and it is certainly necessary for me to have a fully fledged OS when I’m doing design work.
However, why should I wait almost a minute for Windows XP to boot up on my Asus Eee PC 900? Or Ubuntu Linux for that matter. There’s just no real reason.
Enter gOS, an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution that closely integrates popular web applications like Gmail and Zoho, blatantly ripping off the OS X dock and just tries to look good. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been all that good the past few years, and I’ve found no reason – besides visual appeal – to run it rather than the original Ubuntu distribution.
That might change early next year, when gOS Cloud launches. It’s basically a very lightweight Linux distribution that just runs a Google Chrome-ish web browser, with a dock linking to popular web apps. They’re promising a quick boot, in mere seconds you’ll be online, and you can choose to power up the full OS – be it Windows or Linux – whenever you like. Much like Splashtop and similar.
I like it. I look forward to it. I want it on my netbook, whichever it’ll be when gOS Cloud is released to the general public. For now, it’s just an informational page and a promise that it’ll end up in Gigabyte offerings in the future.
Here’s hoping this is a sign of things to come, for netbooks in particular, but also regular notebooks and laptops in general. After all, why should you boot up the full OS if you just want to browse the web, even on your MacBook Pro?