OS Name: ElementaryOS

Developer: Fabianthoma is by far the most active contributor. Also the project is open to the community.

Purpose: To replace Windows and Mac OS X

Recommendation: People who use OSX and want to try Linux. It is very similar to Mac OS X so it will be easy for them to learn. It's a good stepping stone into more advanced Linux, and you can stop using OS X.

Evaluation

We decided to test the Usability, GUI, Terminal, and the OS in general. We decided to evaluate these because every OS should be fairly easy to use. It should look nice, we are looking at you Windows 8. If people want to get into more advanced stuff then the Terminal has to be good enough. People also don’t want an OS if it is slow or hard to install or you can’t customize it at all.

For install we looked at the installation process, written below. For usability we looked at how easy it was to learn, if you can do what you want t do, the speed of it, and how easy it is to find files. We just went up and down the OS trying pretty much every default program and saw how easy it was to find saved files. When reviewing the GUI we looked at the Prettiness, user friendliness, the work spaces, and the software. For this we looked at the base OS without messing with it. We looked at the overall GUI and compared it to Windows and Mac OS X.. We based the GUI rating off of popular OSs.

For the Terminal we looked at the ability to work in it, process management, install commands, and customization. So we had our resident nerd, Gabriel Arimond, do this part. He put in various commands to see what they did.

 Finally for the OS in general we looked at boot speed, ease of install, included software, customization. For this we jsut tried to mess with the OS to see what we could do to it. We also timed to boot speed which took well over 30 sec. Then we just compared it to OS X and Windows to see how its included software compared. All this testing created our overall opinion of the OS and we saw how Windows and OS X compare and if this is a suitable replacement.

Installation: When we first booted up the os, after a tad bit of loading, we were presented with a very crisp ui. In fact everything in this os looks nice. Installation was very easy but not very customizable, however when we got to partitioning the drive we immediately hit a snag. Other than that installation was easy almost too easy.

Features: After we got it going the os reminded us of OS X, As we’ve stated earlier everything looked gorgeous. The doc was reminiscent of os x. It even attempted to guide us through anything complex. While many of the default programs were somewhat lacking many were better then we had expected.

Conclusion

Overall the OS was fine. Nothing really that special. It was lacking in default software and we ran into a few bumps while installing it. It is defiantly geared towards people who currently use OS X. The GUI is definitely designed to look like OS X, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The problem however comes when you combine linux and OS X. You get a mess. It lacks in software, it's really slow, and overall it just isn’t a suitable replacement. The GUI is very pretty but that's because it is based of of OS X which is a very pretty OS. So even though it is pretty it lacks in everything else. Further down the line it may get better. The developer may improve it. Currently however it just isn’t good.

Verdict: If you desperately want a non standard OS and for some reason haven’t downloaded ubuntu or fedora, or your family's life is on the line then download this. Otherwise just stick with Windows or OS X.