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Software Good OS Enters the Cloud With Latest OS
Michael Barkoviak - December 4, 2008 10:11 AM

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26 comment(s) - last by WTFiSJuiCE.. on Dec 7 at 8:49 PM

Good OS enters the cloud with a new OS that really isn't an OS

Good OS, the company best known for pre-installing its gOS Linux for systems sold at Wal-Mart, announced a new OS that works specifically in the cloud.

gOS, designed specifically to work around Google services, included a Web browser and multiple free desktop applications.

The new OS, Cloud, is just an internet browser operating on top of a condensed Linux kernel, with access to rich client applications, and complete control of the PC straight from the browser. The OS boots in seconds, which gives users immediate access to the internet.

Cloud will offer similar one-stop shop access to Skype, YouTube, Google Docs, Gmail, and other popular products used by consumers. The OS also has a tab that launches Microsoft Windows XP when pressed -- other operating systems can also be launched.

It seems Cloud is better suited to complement an OS, not necessarily try and replace it. Technologies such as Cloud could help force Microsoft to increase boot times of future versions of Windows and Internet Explorer, which some users have complained take too long.

During the Netbook World Summit conference, Good OS showed live demos of Cloud operating on a Gigabyte Touch-Screen netbook.

"We are excited to preview the Gigabyte Touch-Screen Netbook with Cloud and Windows together," a Good OS spokesperson said in a statement. "With Cloud, Gigabyte Netbooks will power on to the Internet in seconds, while still supporting killer applications together with Windows XP."

Good OS will show off its latest operating system during the Consumer Electronics Show next month in Las Vegas. Gigabyte, the first of likely a few companies, will release the Cloud-powered netbook on Jan. 8.

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Article Wording, Boot Times, and Monopolies (Oh, My!)

By DaveLessnau on 12/4/2008 11:53:07 AM , Rating: 1

quote:
Technologies such as Cloud could help force Microsoft to increase boot times of future versions of Windows and Internet Explorer, which some users have complained take too long.

I'm pretty sure you mean DECREASE boot times, not INCREASE them. Also, is there still a valid complaint about OS boot times? From things like this:

http://lifehacker.com/5082336/windows-7-vista-and-...

it looks like a normal Vista startup time is on the order of 30 seconds (similar to mine before I set up a RAID-ready system in the BIOS -- that just about doubled my startup time since it seems like the machine is looking for RAID disks). Thirty seconds seems pretty decent to me.

<sarcasm>Oh, and according to all the "news" stories, isn't Microsoft supposed to have a monopoly on operating systems? Surely, there aren't any non-Microsoft operating systems in existence?</sarcasm>.

RE: Article Wording, Boot Times, and Monopolies (Oh, My!)

By The0ne on 12/4/2008 1:12:38 PM , Rating: 1

Some people like me can't understand or find why Windows XP or Vista, over a period of time, begins to take longer and longer to boot. And for some, it affects their desktop usage as well. Thus we have famous "might as well do a fresh install to clean everything." :)

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RE: Article Wording, Boot Times, and Monopolies (Oh, My!)

By mmntech on 12/4/2008 1:35:03 PM , Rating: 1

Smart Defrag is a god send. Microsoft really does need to dump NTFS for a journaled file system though.

As for gOS, I've used it and it's pretty clunky and limited. I guess it's fine for grandma but not for everyday computing. Distros like Ubuntu or OpenSUSE are far better suited for that. I'm still not 100% sold on the cloud concept yet.

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RE: Article Wording, Boot Times, and Monopolies (Oh, My!)

By Spivonious on 12/4/2008 1:45:09 PM , Rating: 3

What exactly is "everyday computing" for the majority? Web surfing, email, playing music, maybe some light document editing? gOS sounds perfect for this.

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RE: Article Wording, Boot Times, and Monopolies (Oh, My!)

By rdeegvainl on 12/4/2008 3:23:46 PM , Rating: 2

How something is idealized and how it works are different things. If you re-read the post, you will see he is basing his statement off of his experience with gOS, and not what someone else says it's all about.

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RE: Article Wording, Boot Times, and Monopolies (Oh, My!)

By Spivonious on 12/5/2008 9:57:33 AM , Rating: 2

I inferred from his Ubuntu comment (which is horrible for "Grandma") that he wanted to do more than what gOS is designed for.

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RE: Article Wording, Boot Times, and Monopolies (Oh, My!)

By sprockkets on 12/4/2008 4:08:52 PM , Rating: 3

Buddy, ntfs is a journaled files system from day 1, back even when called the HPFS. FAT is not journaled. But since journaling writes what it is going to do before it actually does it, that is twice the amount of work needed to be done, but at a worthy cost: no loss of data when say the power goes out.

Ntfs has other means not implemented in FAT to reduce fragmentation to negligible means.

And btw, defragging has been shown to do little to nothing on modern hard drives for speed anyhow. And if you don't believe that, SSD's inherent nature will kill this defrag crap forever.

Want to know the more likely cause of windows rot? Accumulation of registry entries that have to be processed, each and ever time you boot or even when you click the start menu.

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RE: Article Wording, Boot Times, and Monopolies (Oh, My!)

By PrinceGaz on 12/4/2008 2:24:40 PM , Rating: 2

The one thing that made my XP installation take longer to boot was when I added Vista on another partition and made the PC a dual-boot setup.

I'm not talking about the time added by the Vista loader or choosing which OS I want to load. What I mean is the ~20 seconds delay after choosing XP, where the XP splash-screen appears with the hard-drive light lit continuously and the progress indicator running perfectly smoothly but it is clear that Windows is doing nothing (because once it starts loading studd, the HD light flickers and the progressindicator moves intermittently).

Either Vista imposes a deliberate delay to XP to discourage the use of XP, or just possibly it makes XP think the page-file needs recreating so it is having to rewrite it on each boot (2GB on each of two seperate physical HDs), which would explain a long delay with the HD light constantly lit.

Either way, Vista is the main reason XP takes a long time to boot on my box.

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RE: Article Wording, Boot Times, and Monopolies (Oh, My!)

By masher2

(blog) on 12/4/2008 1:46:10 PM , Rating: 3

> "Thirty seconds seems pretty decent to me"

That's an eternity for many consumers. The goal is to have PCs work like most other appliances -- instant on.

Can you imagine if people had to wait 30+ seconds to turn on their radio or television? Ultimately, PCs should be in the same time bracket.

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RE: Article Wording, Boot Times, and Monopolies (Oh, My!)

By DaveLessnau on 12/4/2008 2:28:52 PM , Rating: 2

I guess I can see your point. From a "consumer-appliance" point of view, it should be push the button, see the screen (though, I'm seeing pretty close to that now with Sleep mode). From a more technical point of view, I can't see how anything with gigabytes of operating system is going to cold start instantly unless the OS is stored in ROM (or RAM, aka "sleep"). You mention televisions. Yet, my television takes about 10 seconds to warm up and display the picture (old, tube technology). More to the point, doing a reboot on my TiVo takes minutes.

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RE: Article Wording, Boot Times, and Monopolies (Oh, My!)

By Dreifort on 12/5/2008 10:39:47 AM , Rating: 2

HP is working on their own software shell OS that will sit on their netbooks/minibooks that will allow the user to have the "instant on" feel for use of some fuctions (DVD, CD). They eventually will have the ability to have their own platform be able to boot 10x faster than Vista and give users access to more functions including email, internet, etc.

HP is aware of this demand and is working on their own solution outside of Microsoft. HP also has their own 'cloud' network up and running atm. Buy a new Windows Live enabled HP notebook and you get instant/free access to their network storage... so you can have coloaborated work projects sitting on HP's server (or photos, personal items, whatever you want).

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RE: Article Wording, Boot Times, and Monopolies (Oh, My!)

By Dreifort on 12/5/2008 10:41:39 AM , Rating: 2

forgot to mention that HP's OS shell currently sits on top of Vista. So you can boot to HP's interface or boot to Vista...or open HP's interface from Vista.

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sounds interesting.....

By Souka on 12/4/2008 10:47:32 AM , Rating: 2

is it free? torrent? Going to go look for a download now.

RE: sounds interesting.....

By GeneralJohnson on 12/4/2008 10:57:21 AM , Rating: 2

sounds to "lite" for me. I loveeeee my Vista <3 and my chrome and Google hmmm maybe i will look for it.

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Liked it

By majorpain on 12/4/2008 5:01:30 PM , Rating: 3

very nice looking, and its quite easy to use.
Beeing based on Ubuntu made it more easy to use too.

Great idea

By Spivonious on 12/4/2008 11:23:53 AM , Rating: 2

Most people only use the computer for browsing now anyway, so I can see this being very popular if they market it right.

I could definitely see an "Internet Appliance" (remember that phrase from the mid 90s?) using Cloud.

Moving backwards and celetrating?

By gochichi on 12/5/2008 3:21:04 AM , Rating: 1

I don't know if yall have noticed but desks are pretty productive places to do work... and desktops are nicer than laptops when they are on desks. So we move backwards there and put crappy computers in slim boxes.

Then we move to crappier slimmer computers called netbooks ... then we want to slow things down even more by putting basic apps on "the cloud". This final step is as ridiculous as it gets.

We're so "busy and productive" that we need to computer while we urinate? Or are we so distracted by the technology and so addicted to it that we feel ansty not being "connected"?

Nobody is willing to arrive at the next levels of actual advancement (as opposed to performance and application regression and minituaruzation as we've seen over the past few years). You can't sell people a fantastic desktop system for $500.00 anymore b/c everybody needs the overgrown pda with 4 second boot times and absolutely no usability. Seriously, iPhones sell for $300 + $100/mo. Yes you can browse the web, but what a crappy device to lock yourself into.

Vista and other respectable OSes take time to load because it's complicated and meant to harness powerful hardware. Meaning, add a convenience layer so that you can actually use the quad-cores the 8GB of RAM and so on.

There's a whole generation of people that don't even know what good desktops are like. They equate desktops with 15" CRT and Windows 95. They also equate PCs with the same... everyone wants a MacBook Air. (And it's desirable don't get me wrong on that). But seriously, desktops to me mean 24"+ screens, if not that, at least LCD screens. 4GB+ RAM, 2+ cores, and so on. There's no way an OS can make the best of today's equipment with a three second boot time.

By the way, that's what sleep mode is for. My laptop takes about four seconds to come back from sleep mode in Vista. Now some PC manufactures don't work out the kinks in their laptops so the sleep mode doesn't work appropriately.

Between sleep modes and under 1 minute boot times (i know i know, 1 minute, your time is so amazingly valuable and you're so productive.) it just doesn't leave much to be desired.

I do desire more, but the question here is... if you can't wait 30 seconds, do you really need to use a computer.

I see people want to use a calculator to divide 7 over 7... what's next? You have to use google to remember your name?

When you desperately need 3 second boot times to a junky OS, you know you're way over due for a camping trip.

Long before boot times, I would ask what's the matter with system stability that you need to reboot so much, then I would ask, what's wrong with your computer's energy saving modes. If you really polish system statibility and sleep modes... it could take 10 minutes to boot for all I care.

Good for us!

By zaxxon on 12/4/08, Rating: -1

RE: Good for us!

By inighthawki on 12/4/2008 11:50:24 AM , Rating: 2

By increase im assuming you meant DECREASING boot times? and yes, with every version of windows microsoft makes a little bit more of an attempt at optimizing the startup. Of course, sometimes older versions do boot faster, but then you take into account exactly whats necessary to load and such, and that answers why.

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RE: Good for us!

By geddarkstorm on 12/4/2008 12:39:53 PM , Rating: 2

The article originally said "increase" instead of "decrease" so it isn't the OP's fault.

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RE: Good for us!

By omnicronx on 12/4/2008 1:53:31 PM , Rating: 2

Half the problem with users is that they think they can have 4 HDs, 15 network drives and however many other components and still have their computer boot as fast as a basic 1 HD PC.

Another example is raid configurations, add 15-20 seconds at least if you have a raid setup regardless of which OS you use.

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RE: Good for us!

By inighthawki on 12/4/2008 3:32:34 PM , Rating: 2

windows 7 + raid 0 SSD drives = faster than a basic 1 drive computer ;)

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RE: Good for us!

By Jimbo1234 on 12/4/2008 8:59:06 PM , Rating: 1

Newer OSs boot faster because the hardware available at their release is much faster than with previous releases. Install Win95 or Win98 on modern hardware or a virtual machine and watch it boot in a few seconds.

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