Good OS, a company well-known for it gOS linux distribution and their $199 Walmart computers has announced a new OS called “Cloud”. Good OS described their new Operating System in a press release “Cloud uniquely integrates a web browser with a compressed Linux operating system kernel for immediate access to Internet, integration of browser and rich client applications, and full control of the computer from inside the browser.”
gOS boasts a fast boot-up of the “Cloud” Operating System that enables users to get on the internet or use some basic applications which are yet to be revealed. One of the attractive features of this OS is its ability to boot into Windows or Linux if the user wishes to do more than just browse the internet. Cloud will come pre-installed along side Windows XP in GIGABYTE touch-screen netbooks early next year.
More details about Cloud and GIGABYTE Touch-Screen Netbooks will be released on January 8 2009 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The hardware requirements are very modest and it takes up only 35 MB in hard-disk. The feature list is not too impressive but the browser does come with flash and MP3 support, hence it opens up the possibility of numerous webapps.
The concept of this Cloud OS reminds me of the “SplashTop Instant-on Linux” by DeviceVM.
Just like splashtop, I can’t find any code or download links for this… :/
[edit] ack, maybe I’ll find it next year
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Edited 2008-12-02 03:42 UTC
Is it just me or is Google Chrome shown running on that thing? I mean, no doubt it’s a mockup but did they manage to get it running and are waiting to let people know? Last I heard Chrome didn’t run on Linux yet.
After thoroughly reading that article, I realized that “Cloud OS” is just a web browser running on top of Microsoft Windows (NOT LINUX!). Even worse, it appears to be Google Chrome with a dock a the bottom of the screen! WTF?! You call this a new OS?
Yeah taking another glance it seems like this comes with both Linux and Windows pre-installed, defaulting to a quick-loading Linux system for general web and internet usage and a switch to boot into Windows for Windows apps. Hmmm…
It’s important to note however that it’s talking about Cloud having a “beautifully designed browser”, not Windows, so I dunno what they could be doing other than slapping a pretty skin on Firefox. It was mentioned elsewhere that there is an unofficial Chrome port but I wouldn’t think it worth including since you lose the speed with Javascript that is Chromes strength. I must say this product seems rather disappointing, as it posits Cloud OS (Being the Linux-based portion) as a quick solution to getting online and doing simple things, offering Windows XP for “more powerful desktop applications”. Somehow I doubt the hardware specs will allow for much more than what a Linux-based system can do just fine, I don’t think people are going to be gaming or doing anything like audio/video editing.
An official port of Google Chrome is slated for the first half of 2009.
Chrome does run on GNU/Linux using Wine. Plus there is a unofficial port by Codeweavers.
Yeah but the unofficial port from Codeweavers incurs a significant performance penalty, making it less than ideal for its killer feature: V8.
This really reminded me of the BeOS that tried such similar concept called “Boot to browser”. Let’s hope this one fare better than BeOS
For truly Cloud computing experience perhaps they can include a RDP or Citrix client so that user can really run rich fat client Windows apps regardless of the client OS
You can also built your own cloud using ThinServer XP
http://www.aikotech.com/thinserver.htm
Quoi?
I have not idea what you are talking about. I have been using BeOS from 1999 and BeOS itself never had operated that way.
If you are about the Be_Appliance then that was just a few lines in the boot script that invoked the system browser NetPositive. But BeOS never ran inside a browser to my knowledge.
There was a shell that Be Inc. developed for BeOS that basically had the browser and everything integrated into the shell. It was for the BeAppliances. If you ever had the Beta Dan0 installed on your system they had the program in the System folder if I remember correctly.
I miss my old BeBox with das blinken lights.
You mean instead of invoking/running the browser after/during booting a regular BeOS, that they replaced Tracker with the browser?
“Cloud is my favorite gOS product yet,” said David Liu, Founder and CEO of Good OS.
What, really? Well I never.
edit: Unicode, do you speak it?
Edited 2008-12-02 08:21 UTC
Unfortunately, no, we don’t. Yet.
I want to give you a +1, but for some reason OSAlert won’t let me.
I’m pleased to say that I’ve been promoted to editor and hope to provide good service and articles. It’s a shame if you can’t moderate me, I feel I should always be held accountable for my comments, and moderated accordingly, lest I should feel like I can get away with crap comments which just riles up the userbase. That’s certainly not my plan.
Sorry, I didn’t want to post this here…
Edited 2008-12-02 08:34 UTC
This is a cool idea. As I read it, Good OS will boot within seconds after turning the machine on. From within Good OS, you can use a get online and surf (possibly using Chrome but it might end up being Firefox) and use apps like Skype etc. When/if the need arises to use a Windows app, you then click a button on the UI and it boots Windows.
This is a very futuristic concept that is betting on the future going more and more towards the cloud computing ideal. The addition of Windows XP is a short term stopgap to satisfy the “but I need this windows app” crowd.
I have no idea what Good OS actually is, but you’d have to suspect some kind of Linux / Unix foundation, as there’s just no way in hell any windows variant is going to boot in “seconds” and I don’t think Chrome will be running on Amiga OS4 any time soon, though that would be heaven.
Edited 2008-12-02 11:49 UTC
You have got to be kidding, aside from the fact I can boot BeOS and get into NetPositive inside 25 seconds (and most of that time is the BIOS boot).
Any cleaned up Windows XP or Linux can also boot in seconds and invoke a browser.
The key work here is ‘clean’, once the user starts downloading stuff (notable anything that also tries to advertise) the system slows down.
The partitions will need to be locked down solid, downloads go elsewhere and the user boot into another partition to use the download material.
Actually, I believe they are talking about booting in < 10 seconds, not in 30. To this day I have never seen a clean install of windows do that. The fastest boot I’ve ever seen is Xandros on the eee.
I think (I’m merely speculating) the idea is to have some sort of flash ROM that boots into Linux in a matter of seconds, and then optionally boot into a hard-drive contained (why not SSD?) Windows XP system.
Kinda similar to what ASUS did with integrating a Linux-based OS within their motherboards’ ROM.
I think it’s more like “recover from standard hibernation image in seconds”
sounds like splashtop to me.
well… a lot like splashtop except for that they seem to be positioning it as more of a general-purpose OS. splashtop has its limitations. inability (if i remember correctly) to download files, installing new software, etc. i wonder how ‘cloud’ compares, in that regard.
as far as i know, the only outfit really supporting good os is everex. what’s their install base outside of gPC buyers? and, with cloud’s similarity to splashtop, who are they really targeting? with asus’s deep support of splashtop, can they really compete in the instant-on niche?
my guess is, they’re going to try to peddle this to OEMs as a “me-too” alternative to splashtop. time shall tell.