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Fox
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Location: Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
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 Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 7:18 pm Post subject: |
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| scooper wrote: | A timely subject. 
I installed gOS 3 Gadgets on my Asus 1000H over the weekend. It was acting really flaky so I took it off and put Ubuntu 8.04 on the partition. gOS 3 would basically crash after installing new software from the Add/Remove program. It also wouldn't shutdown right. ... Aside from some of the pretty icons, that's about all you get with gOS 3. Perhaps gOS 2.9 Space is more stable. I just didn't feel like playing around anymore. |
I looked at this one too, again on a virtual machine. (I don't want to mess with my MSI Wind installation until I'm sure it's worth installing.) I didn't have any of the problems that you did, scooper; it worked smoothly, installation of other software was as easy as with regular Ubuntu, and it shut down without incident.
Overall I liked it. The wbar dock is in my mind much better for a netbook than avant-window-navigator because the latter requires Compiz effects to be enabled and thus it slows down any system with a minimal video card. The theme is very nice; somewhat of a hybrid between OSX and Linux. The one thing I didn't like is the window control circles on the left of the window. This is Mac-like in configuration, but the close window button behaves like Linux/Windows, closing the window but not quitting the program. I found that disorienting, though I'm sure I could get used to it.
Other than the wbar dock, I'd have to say that all other differences gOS 3 offers from Ubuntu are cosmetic. Ubuntu Netbook Remix seems to bring more than strictly-cosmetic changes; the windowing system operates differently and more like a tabbed browser. Google gadgets are also something different that gOS 3 brings, but I suspect that these can be enabled in any distro. Some were worthwhile, but for me they're more cosmetic than anything else.
Does all this mean that Ubuntu Netbook Remix is worthwhile on a netbook and gOS isn't? Not necessarily. Both make using a netbook easier and each has some advantages over the other. I'll keep playing with gOS on my virtual machine, and once someone can assure me that installing the Remix files on Ubuntu on my netbook can be undone without harm, I will go ahead and play with that for awhile.
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Aquafire
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Joined: 19 Sep 2007
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Location: AUS-USA
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| Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 8:58 pm Post subject: |
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| hackersmovie wrote: | I really like gOS 3. That distro is really coming along nicely. The developers seem to really be working hard to make a main stream distro for the masses.
I run it in VMWare Fusion on my Macbook. I love it. |
Hackers.
Mate, I have to say I it's beginning to lose its shine with me.
I have given gOS a number of tries over the last few months. The latest being this past week. ( gOS 'Gadgets' )
So far, every Beta version (inlcuding this latest release) has either crashed or refused to install properly...(loop set up) / or when running / has refused to log out...(command line prompt end run \ exit now)
Damm nuisance.
Also, they seem to be having a few issues with their download site.
Probably due to server overload...
In anycase, I just wish they'd iron out all the bugs...
It's getting to be a pain in the proverbial... 
Aqua
In the meantime, have a look at this site...
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/
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Fox
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| Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 9:56 pm Post subject: |
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Hmm, I wonder why hackersmovie and I have had no trouble with gOS 3 and Aqua has? Both hackers and I have tried it on a virtual drive and if anything, I would think that would create more problems than one would experience as a main operating system. (This was certainly the case with Ubuntu Netbook Remix for me, albeit on VirtualBox rather than VMware.) Aqua, you're the King of Linux on 123Macmini - maybe the difference is that you actually use your Linux installs rather than just experiment with them.
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dungeon92
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| Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 10:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: | | Hmm, I wonder why hackersmovie and I have had no trouble with gOS 3 and Aqua has? Both hackers and I have tried it on a virtual drive and if anything, I would think that would create more problems than one would experience as a main operating system. (This was certainly the case with Ubuntu Netbook Remix for me, albeit on VirtualBox rather than VMware.) Aqua, you're the King of Linux on 123Macmini - maybe the difference is that you actually use your Linux installs rather than just experiment with them. |
I never had issues with gOS, wasn't thrilled by it, but is was very stable (then again I don't have issues with Ubuntu either so it makes sense). Usually when Linux doesn't work something is wrong with a driver since gOS probably doesn't have the same driver support as regular Ubuntu and Apple may use restricted firmware parts.
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Going to Missouri S&T!! |
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Aquafire
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| Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 10:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: | | Hmm, I wonder why hackersmovie and I have had no trouble with gOS 3 and Aqua has? Both hackers and I have tried it on a virtual drive and if anything, I would think that would create more problems than one would experience as a main operating system. (This was certainly the case with Ubuntu Netbook Remix for me, albeit on VirtualBox rather than VMware.) |
Fox,
From what you and Hackers are experiencing, then I'd have to conclude that the current problem I am experiencing, lies with running gOS as a live distro .... without emulation.
Dungeon : You may be right about the drivers. But if that were the case, then the other ubuntu based installs that I have run, (including the latest Ubuntu beta), are all working perfectly fine...either when live or as installs to my spare HDD.
The current situation involves the bootloader at startup. It goes into a looping sequence. I ran a checksum and it was perfect.
My experience with past gOS beta tests (all carried out on a Compaq) show that there are various bugs in the log out sequence. I can't phathom whether this is due to an introduced code error by the gOS team, or is it sitting in the Ubuntu base that they are using.
But since I don't use Ubuntu or gnome much ( I just test them for the sake of keeping up to speed), I am not too bothered.
( I know that may sound slack, but I'd prefer to direct my energies to the KDE enviroment as below ... ). 
BTW : Thanks for the compliment...Fox
But I prefer to see myself as a kid with his head under the hood of a car, loving the smell of grease and oil, but still wondering what all the parts are for... 
Cheers
Aqua
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ghostdawg
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| Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 12:53 am Post subject: |
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Me personally, I've come to learn there are only 5 linux distros worth using. Debian, Slackware, Fedora, Mandriva & OpenSuse.
They've been around since the beginning and with some tweaking at the beginning & after installation, you're have a much better experience using linux. Most other distros are actually based on these 5.
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Fox
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| Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 5:30 am Post subject: |
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My experience with Ubuntu has been entirely positive, with one exception - on my PowerBook where I had no major issues, but pre-boot video had strange colours and Mac-on-Linux wasn't working. But Canonical hasn't supported the PowerPC platform since version 6.06LTS, so minor problems there shouldn't count against them. As ghostdawg rightly points out, Ubuntu is built on one of the older distros (Debian), but they have established a strong team and a strong support structure on their own.
I wonder if the problems Aqua had with gOS have to do with a bad driver? The one thing you don't have to worry about when running a distro on a virtualization (not emulation) program are the drivers, since the host system looks after this.
I'm going to keep playing around with gOS 3, and if I like it enough, I'll risk an installation on my MSI Wind.
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Aquafire
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| Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 6:19 am Post subject: |
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Dear Fox,
I have an Update for you...
I decided to run gOS a third time...(what do they say about third time lucky )
Anyway, the long and the short of it...
This time, it booted flawlessly. 
Recognized the soundcard...even though it's an ancient Intel job. So all in all, it did remarkably well. (Despite my experience and previous misgivings)...
The similarity to OS X is uncanny (Sorry Ben_Tex ) but otherwise, it handled everything I threw at it with the appropriate sort of Googlish... 'coolness a forethought'.
Cheers
Aqua
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Fox
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| Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 7:26 am Post subject: |
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I'm glad to hear that it worked this time for you, Aqua. Knowing you had trouble gave me misgivings, even though it seems to work for me. Now that you have it working, will you be giving it a thorough test?
Speaking of which, I played with it this morning, trying to view a YouTube video on - running gOS on an MSI Wind. To my surprise, it coldn't run because FlashPlayer wasn't installed. This on an installation that includes YouTube??? Of course it offered to connect me to the Adobe site, but the gz Linux version wouldn't install. Eventually I figured out how to make YouTube/Firefox work and it involved using Software Install rather than letting Firefox get the files from the Adobe site. But a newbie might not have figured that out and would be very disappointed with the lack of user-friendliness of gOS. Not what you would expect from a distro set up with all the google apps and widgets.
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Aquafire
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| Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 6:09 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: | | I'm glad to hear that it worked this time for you, Aqua. Knowing you had trouble gave me misgivings, even though it seems to work for me. Now that you have it working, will you be giving it a thorough test? |
Probably, although at the moment I am spending a lot more time with Backtrack-3.
| Fox wrote: | | Speaking of which, I played with it this morning, trying to view a YouTube video on - running gOS on an MSI Wind. To my surprise, it coldn't run because FlashPlayer wasn't installed. This on an installation that includes YouTube??? Of course it offered to connect me to the Adobe site, but the gz Linux version wouldn't install. Eventually I figured out how to make YouTube/Firefox work and it involved using Software Install rather than letting Firefox get the files from the Adobe site. But a newbie might not have figured that out and would be very disappointed with the lack of user-friendliness of gOS. Not what you would expect from a distro set up with all the google apps and widgets. |
Well Fox, that is dissapointing to read.
Similarly, when I started up Picasa, it froze to the point that it left the Picasa splash screen locked in place, on the desktop. No matter what I did to quit the damm thing, it simply refused to budge.
Turns out, this is a known problem.
Getting back to your problem, it brings to mind a technique for downloading Youtube files. As such its simply a matter of replacing the name "youtube" in the address and placing the word 'voobys' in its place.
Then, by pressing enter, it takes you to a voobys page that asks you if you want to download the youtube file that you want to watch.
Interestingly, it also asks if you have abobe flash player.
For example...change the adress accordingly....
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4kWvwAwFyE
Simply replace youtube with voobys.
http://au.voobys.com/watch?v=Z4kWvwAwFyE
From there, it's just a matter of changing the downloaded file's extension to .flv
It should then work...on gOS....fingers crossed of course...
Aqua
BTW :
You may already have this, but here is the flash adobe link for Linux.
http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash&P2_Platform=Linux
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Fox
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| Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 7:06 pm Post subject: |
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Aqua, that's where Firefox sent me when I tried to play the YouTube. It downloaded all right, but it wouldn't install. At any rate, the problem was solved by going through Software Install. I typed "Flash" into the search box and several things came up. I downloaded the ones that looked right and everything worked the next time around. As I noted before, not a big problem for me but a newbie would rightly be teed off about this, and doubly so when he/she is sent to the Adobe site and couldn't install the Linux version.
BTW, what is Backtrack-3?
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Aquafire
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| Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2008 3:03 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: | | [BTW, what is Backtrack-3? |
I think you may have missed my post..of a few days ago..
http://www.123macmini.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=139630#139630
Cheers
Aqua
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Of the four X systems in the world.
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Fox
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| Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2008 6:40 am Post subject: |
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I did read it earlier, but forgot the name of the "distro" (?)
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