Goobuntu - Google goes Linux

Mr Bacon · Post by **Mr Bacon** » January 31, 2006, 2:36 pm

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/31 ... top_linux/

Google at work on desktop Linux
Search engine giant preps own version of Ubuntu
By Ben King
Published Tuesday 31st January 2006 13:46 GMT

Google is preparing its own distribution of Linux for the desktop, in a possible bid to take on Microsoft in its core business - desktop software.

A version of the increasingly popular Ubuntu desktop Linux distribution, based on Debian and the Gnome desktop, it is known internally as 'Goobuntu'.

Google has confirmed it is working on a desktop linux project called Goobuntu, but declined to supply further details, including what the project is for.

It's possible that it's just one of the toys Googleplex engineers play with on Fridays, when they get time off from buffing the search engine code or filtering out entries about Tiananmen Square.

It could be for wider deployments on the company's own desktops, as an alternative to Microsoft, but still for internal use only.

But it's possible Google plans to distribute it to the general public, as a free alternative to Windows.

Google has already demonstrated an interest in building a presence on the desktop. At CES Las Vegas this month, it announced the Google Pack, a collection of desktop software bundled together for easy downloading.

The pack includes many apps which compete directly with the Windows bundle, such as Google Talk, Google Desktop, Mozilla Firefox, the Trillian instant messenger client, RealPlayer, and Picasa photo management.

Going the whole hog and distributing a complete desktop software suite would merely be another step down the same path.

However, entering the desktop software world would be a huge step. Making Goobuntu as easy to use as XP will require a lot more development. It's unlikely to be ready for showtime any time soon, and it's possible Google itself hasn't finalised where the project should go.

Whatever Google's intentions, the input of Google engineers and developers, writing new features and fixing bugs, will be a huge boost to the Ubuntu project.

Ubuntu, funded by the South African internet multimillionaire and occasional cosmonaut Mark Shuttleworth, is already emerging as a leader in the desktop Linux world.

It has built considerable momentum in the Linux community, and is starting to appear more widely. Shuttleworth is seeking to persuade white-box PC manufacturers to start shipping machines with Ubuntu preinstalled.

It is top of the Distrowatch download chart, is installed on up to six million computers, and doubling every eight months, according to estimates from Shuttleworth's company, Canonical.

It has spawned a number of different offshoots, including Xubuntu, Kubuntu and Edubuntu (for schools).

The word Ubuntu means "humanity to others" in several African languages, including Zulu and Xhosa. It's one of the founding principles of post-apartheid South Africa. The origin of the word 'Goobuntu' is not clear, though it does not appear in online Zulu dictionaries.

The Goobuntu.com domain has been registered in the past couple of days, though presumably not by Google. It now redirects to a Cuban portal. Perhaps Google will have to think of a new name for the system before they launch it to the wider public. ®

Suddenly I'm interested in Linux.

archeiron · Post by **archeiron** » January 31, 2006, 3:44 pm

Rellix wrote:Suddenly I'm interested in Linux.

Why?

If you want an easy to use OS alternative to XP, then go buy a mac; they have a large established software base and teh sexy hardware. All they need is a port of DirectX to win at life.

I would love to see someone put a nice window client on the linux kernel that is every bit as good as osx, but all it looks like is happening here is that the Google engineers have yet another pet project.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » January 31, 2006, 4:07 pm

Besides which you can already get Ubuntu for free. I don't see why Google involvement should raise the interest level.

Mr Bacon · Post by **Mr Bacon** » January 31, 2006, 4:17 pm

Because I'm a suck up to anything with the google logo on it?

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » January 31, 2006, 10:18 pm

Google issued an official denial that this was happening.

It is too abd a major support level attached to a decent Nix distro would rock.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » January 31, 2006, 11:24 pm

Kylere wrote:Google issued an official denial that this was happening.

Where? I know they denied the Wal*Mart/GoogleOS rumour, can't find anything about goobuntu though.

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » February 2, 2006, 7:23 pm

archeiron wrote:
Rellix wrote:Suddenly I'm interested in Linux.
Why?

If you want an easy to use OS alternative to XP, then go buy a mac; they have a large established software base and teh sexy hardware. All they need is a port of DirectX to win at life.

I would love to see someone put a nice window client on the linux kernel that is every bit as good as osx, but all it looks like is happening here is that the Google engineers have yet another pet project.

maybe they dont want to pay twice as much for their hardware muscle =)

a viable Linux desktop might finally be on the horizon. interesing.

by the way RedHat Linux 7 was easier to install than Windows 2k - and faster

and better

noel · Post by **noel** » February 2, 2006, 7:29 pm

Voronwë wrote:a viable Linux desktop might finally be on the horizon. interesing.

Totally agree.

by the way RedHat Linux 7 was easier to install than Windows 2k - and faster

and better

With all due respect (and I mean that), this is only relevant if you actually used this as a primary desktop in place of a Windows Desktop for everything you needed to do after you installed it.

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » February 2, 2006, 8:10 pm

Zaelath wrote:
Kylere wrote:Google issued an official denial that this was happening.
Where? I know they denied the Wal*Mart/GoogleOS rumour, can't find anything about goobuntu though.

http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.a ... 9650A54C33

http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?s ... 1000000VX1

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060131-6087.html

I typed Google Ubuntu and hit search

Mr Bacon · Post by **Mr Bacon** » February 2, 2006, 9:04 pm

Thanks for pissing on our parade.

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » February 2, 2006, 10:28 pm

Don't shoot the messenger, I thought it was a damn cool idea, and was only irked they picked a lame arse distro like Ubuntu instead of FC.

I look forward to the distro wars, fucking OS wars are old.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » February 2, 2006, 11:30 pm

There's my problem, I googled on Goobuntu which yesterday only had the rumours and a link to the source (the Ubuntu bloke). But on careful reading of the originating article I don't think he says anything about Goobuntu being a release.

Thanks for the update

I think these google rumours need a fark/mythbusters cliche response:

I work at Google...

So I am really getting a kick out of most of these replies.

Some of you guys are very good at making it sound like you know what you are talking about.

But trust me.... You don't.

I think you just want to make yourself sound smart, when in reality you dont know what you are talking about.

This is how bad info gets passed around.

If you dont know about the topic....Don't make yourself sound like you do.

Cuz some VVers believe anything they hear.

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » February 3, 2006, 12:24 am

Other than games, linux has been a perfectly acceptable desktop\office OS for 6 or so years for your average office worker.

noel · Post by **noel** » February 3, 2006, 1:37 am

I reject you totally.

I 1000% agree that various Linux distros have the ability to perform that function, but the reality is that for the last 6 years, Windows and the MAC OS/Solaris or another UNIX variant have dominated the desktop scene for the majority of large companies. That isn't to say that Linux hasn't had a place in certain organizations, but for the most part it's being used as an alternative server platform, a development platform, or as a workstation operating system for someone who also has a windows box nearby.

Mr Bacon · Post by **Mr Bacon** » February 3, 2006, 3:04 am

If the third line ("Google has confirmed it is working on a desktop linux project called Goobuntu...") wasn't in the article, I wouldn't have made this thread.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » February 3, 2006, 4:31 am

Rellix wrote:If the third line ("Google has confirmed it is working on a desktop linux project called Goobuntu...") wasn't in the article, I wouldn't have made this thread.

That's still actually true. The leap to calling it a distribution is where the problem lies.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » February 3, 2006, 4:38 am

noel wrote:I reject you totally.

I 1000% agree that various Linux distros have the ability to perform that function, but the reality is that for the last 6 years, Windows and the MAC OS/Solaris or another UNIX variant have dominated the desktop scene for the majority of large companies. That isn't to say that Linux hasn't had a place in certain organizations, but for the most part it's being used as an alternative server platform, a development platform, or as a workstation operating system for someone who also has a windows box nearby.

Single biggest reasons for that:

1) People are fucking idiots, it's hard enough to get them to use MS Office correctly and once you've done that the idea of migrating them to Open Office is simply not worth saving $500/desktop. Not even close, and I've been involved with people that at least gave it a shot, and actually still 95% use OOo, but there's always someone in middle management that tantrums until they get MS Office installed and you end up supporting multiple platforms.

2) Everyone else uses MS Office, so OOo has to read Office documents, which it does an admirable job of attempting, but it ultimately fails on (say) 10% of Word documents and apparently 99% of Excel spreadsheets. Plus part of your re-education efforts in point 1) has to be making people export to PDF to send to clients/etc that don't have OOo.

I hate people.

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » February 3, 2006, 8:10 am

noel wrote:I reject you totally.

That's nice. Assuming that was aimed at my post, what does it have to do with it?

Being acceptable for use vs. actual use are two different things.

Edit -

Rellix wrote:Because I'm a suck up to anything with the google logo on it?

Rellix: "My name is Rellix and I'm a Googleholic"
Audience: "Hi Rellix!"

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » February 3, 2006, 11:25 am

I don't see Linux ever taking anything in the marketshare until all these open source developpers start working on a single, unified distribution and work on making it better.

Right now, the Linux community is stuck in a rut of almost perpetualy re-inventing the wheel purely for the sake of just doing it. And judging for how far along they have gotten, this is an amount of man hours that MS could probably never hope to match. Unfocused passion, while admirable still winds up wasteful at the end of the day.

noel · Post by **noel** » February 3, 2006, 11:53 am

Aabidano wrote:
noel wrote:I reject you totally.
That's nice. Assuming that was aimed at my post, what does it have to do with it?

You stated that Linux was a perfectly acceptable desktop operating system. I rejected that thought entirely for reasons which were pointed out in Zaelath's most recent post.

Zae:
I doubt there's anyone in the planet that is more aligned with you on the 'people are fucking idiots' statement than I am, however I would submit the following:

1) As many problems as it would solve; people shouldn't have to be intelligent to use a computer.

2) If I chose to, I could replace my primary desktop with Linux. I would enjoy lower costs, better customization (to say the least), and much better security (If I had a brain). The fact is, I can't be bothered. Everytime I attempt to use Linux in my workplace, I find it to be far more trouble than it's worth. I don't think a lack of desire to tinker with my OS makes me unintelligent, but I'm sure there are people who disagree with me.

Voronwe:
You mentioned that the Red Hat installation was easier than the Windows 2000 installation. I think it's important to point out that a Linux installation can be as simple or as complex as you'd like it to be, and the simple installation is not always what you actually want.

Psyloche · Post by **Psyloche** » February 3, 2006, 12:04 pm

noel wrote:I think it's important to point out that a Linux installation can be as simple or as complex as you'd like it to be, and the simple installation is not always what you actually want.

Tell them to install Gentoo, that sounded fun.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » February 3, 2006, 12:11 pm

noel wrote: 1) As many problems as it would solve; people shouldn't have to be intelligent to use a computer.

2) If I chose to, I could replace my primary desktop with Linux. I would enjoy lower costs, better customization (to say the least), and much better security (If I had a brain). The fact is, I can't be bothered. Everytime I attempt to use Linux in my workplace, I find it to be far more trouble than it's worth. I don't think a lack of desire to tinker with my OS makes me unintelligent, but I'm sure there are people who disagree with me.

1) While I agree, I don't find "The ability to follow basic direction, use a help system and/or work out where the option to change a page to landscape layout" is a measure of intelligence. These same people will happily enrol in a tertiary course to, jesus christ, learn how to use Word and Excel. Idiot is really a misnomer, in fact, I'd rate some of them smarter than I in a lot of areas, they're just lazy, stubborn, whining, bastards.

2) I think OSX shows what you can do with a *nix backend if you really want to put time and money into focused development. There's a few things I think are anti-intuitive and just damned annoying about the OSX interface (like.. if I click the maximise button, how about you maximise the window... what's this bullshit with leaving an inch of space down the side ot the screen?!) but I still like using my notebook more than my Windows desktop. Honestly, I should buy a console, give up the drudgery of MMOs and get a Mac desktop =/

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » February 3, 2006, 12:27 pm

noel wrote:Everytime I attempt to use Linux in my workplace, I find it to be far more trouble than it's worth. I don't think a lack of desire to tinker with my OS makes me unintelligent, but I'm sure there are people who disagree with me.

That's in a primarily MS enviroment I'd assume. It wouldn't be much different if you were the one person running WinXP, and everyone else running another OS.

In a corporate enviroment, ease of install is pretty much a moot issue. Do it once, set it up, lock everything down, then ghost all the remaining systems just like you'd do with 2k or XP.

Your users will still be stupid, but won't have the ability to do quite as much collateral damage when they do something they shouldn't. And honestly shouldn't have the ability to.

noel · Post by **noel** » February 3, 2006, 1:11 pm

Zaelath wrote:Honestly, I should buy a console, give up the drudgery of MMOs and get a Mac desktop =/

I think the Mac integration with UNIX is perfect. I wish I could justify the cost of a Mac for personal use.

That's in a primarily MS enviroment I'd assume. It wouldn't be much different if you were the one person running WinXP, and everyone else running another OS.

But a primarily MS environment is what Linux is up against. If it truly wants to gain desktop share, it shoud take a page (and has for the most part) from MS's playbook against Novell when Netware was the server OS of choice.

In a corporate enviroment, ease of install is pretty much a moot issue. Do it once, set it up, lock everything down, then ghost all the remaining systems just like you'd do with 2k or XP.

Totally agree.

Your users will still be stupid, but won't have the ability to do quite as much collateral damage when they do something they shouldn't. And honestly shouldn't have the ability to.

A properly integrated MS environment can accomplish the same thing (at a n obviously higher cost).

I don't want to give the impression that Linux as a whole is bad. The point I'm trying to make is that it's still not ready for primetime.

Nylith · Post by **Nylith** » February 3, 2006, 2:06 pm

For most people who just use a computer to check their email and surf the web, Linux could do fine for them. Ubuntu is very easy to setup and use for surfing the web, you can use Firefox, Thunderbird, or Evolution (another mail client) right out of the box. You can't run MS Office unless you pay for something like Codeweavers Crossoffice, but OpenOffice is getting better all the time.

As for ease of installation, I'll argue that Ubuntu is quite easier / better than XP/2k. My sound, network work without me having to find the CD that came with them, something I really hate about installing XP.

Noel's right, Linux can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. For some people, it may be to complicated. Its a matter of finding the right balance of what you want out of the operating system, and what you want to put into it in time to learn and setup. For some people that balance isn't there yet for linux, for others it is.

I run Ubuntu as my primary desktop at home. I play wow in it using Cedega. I have the option to boot into Windows, but I only do that for LAN parties because some games aren't supported by Cedega. For me, Ubuntu offers enough features that its worth my time tinkering with it. Some things are definitely a little rough around the edges, but playing with stuff like that doesn't bother me, and I enjoy not having to run an anti-spyware, anti-virus, and firewall program in order to feel secure.

Linux is all about choice, and its certainly your choice if you want to use it or not. Its not ready for everyone, but it is viable as a desktop for some people. I've got a bachelors in Computer Engineering, so you may consider me an outside case, but after seeing me run linux several of my friends have decided to try it themselves, and are running it now too.

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » February 3, 2006, 6:26 pm

Linux has always reminded me of Christianity. A great idea with shitty implementation and too many sects to really be effective. But that does not stop me from believing in A god. Just not the one anyone else defines for me.

Tenuvil · Post by **Tenuvil** » February 8, 2006, 3:41 am

Zae's comments on OOo are interesting. I'm using v2.01 of OpenOffice.org and I haven't had compatibility issues with any of over 100 Office documents I've brought into OOo. In fact for loading large files I find OOo far more stable than Office 97/XP.

And you linux purists might dis Ubuntu as a lame distro, but that one there will probably finally become the alternative PC desktop for the masses. Driver support is awesome in Ubuntu, far better than FC or any other distro I've used. Installing the "breezy badger" Ubuntu release a few weeks ago was the first time in too many linux installs that all my PC peripherals worked on install without tweaking.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » February 8, 2006, 3:57 am

Tenuvil wrote:Zae's comments on OOo are interesting. I'm using v2.01 of OpenOffice.org and I haven't had compatibility issues with any of over 100 Office documents I've brought into OOo. In fact for loading large files I find OOo far more stable than Office 97/XP.

Two questions:

1) Are you talking just Word documents? The worst stuff I saw was Excel/Calc craziness, like the spreadsheet formatting would be totally squiffy when opened, yet look 90% OK in print preview, but just not quite right so far as adding extra lines/breaks because the text didn't want to fit in the same size fields.

2) Is the machine "clean" or did it have a copy of MS Office on it at any point in the past? (basically a ninja font install question)

That said, I think they do an amazing job of converting MS format docs. Just some people manage to make life a little more difficult for them than the average. Which also means unless the 100 docs are from 100 different sources it represents a very small sample size, even if it was all different sources, still on the small side.

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » February 8, 2006, 7:55 am

Kylere wrote:A great idea with shitty implementation and too many sects to really be effective.

Every single one of them is the same at the core. Other than install routines the differences are almost completely cosmetic.

Tenuvil · Post by **Tenuvil** » February 8, 2006, 2:28 pm

Zaelath wrote:
Tenuvil wrote:Zae's comments on OOo are interesting. I'm using v2.01 of OpenOffice.org and I haven't had compatibility issues with any of over 100 Office documents I've brought into OOo. In fact for loading large files I find OOo far more stable than Office 97/XP.
Two questions:

1) Are you talking just Word documents? The worst stuff I saw was Excel/Calc craziness, like the spreadsheet formatting would be totally squiffy when opened, yet look 90% OK in print preview, but just not quite right so far as adding extra lines/breaks because the text didn't want to fit in the same size fields.

2) Is the machine "clean" or did it have a copy of MS Office on it at any point in the past? (basically a ninja font install question)

That said, I think they do an amazing job of converting MS format docs. Just some people manage to make life a little more difficult for them than the average. Which also means unless the 100 docs are from 100 different sources it represents a very small sample size, even if it was all different sources, still on the small side.

1) 50/50 mix of Word and Excel stuff. Mu colleagues and I tended to go easy on wacky formatting, excessive font use, etc, so maybe that's why I'm having an easy go of it.

2) My primary machine did have Office XP installed on it previously. In addition I have a font library that I have nurtured over the years and install on any new build.

VeeshanVault

Goobuntu - Google goes Linux

Goobuntu - Google goes Linux

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Re: Goobuntu - Google goes Linux

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