2010 19
Jolicloud and Netbooks
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Micro with No Comments
The OS world can be a bit daunting and confusing. Most people use Windows because it’s the only OS they know, but there are alternatives like Mac OSx or Linux that work better and are easier to use. The problem is people don’t know about them.
Another one of these great alternatives is Jolicloud, an OS for netbooks. Jolicloud was created by my friend Tariq Krim, who is also the founder of Netvibes. Jolicloud is free, and because it’s Linux-based there’s no need for an antivirus! It’s a social OS with more than 300 free open source applications, created and shared by the Jolicloud community. All your data gets stored in the cloud so you can access it from any computer connected to the Internet. The very best thing about this OS is its speed; does your netbook draaaag trying to run Windows? Try Jolicloud and watch it fly!
In fact, it works so well in netbooks that the British IB School in Costa del Sol, Spain, installed Jolicloud in the 400 EEEpcs they bought for their students. Initially, the kids were confused with the new enviroment, but as soon as they learned to use it, they realized that it was easier, better and more versatile than Windows in most aspects.
I’m really happy for Tariq, and I hope Jolicloud continues to grow!
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rob mathieson on October 20, 2010 ·
I may have to bite my tongue having just looked at the new download process! I’m testing it now. 🙂
chris on October 20, 2010 ·
Difficult to install? what are you smoking? It’s easier than reinstalling Windows by a long shot! I guess I don’t understand your meaning here. What is difficult about installing Jolicloud?
download the image
burn to CD
insert CD
restart computer
hit ok ok ok yes yes ok yes
and…..it’s done. ??
that’s difficult?
rob mathieson on October 20, 2010 ·
Chris, your right! I looked a few months back and it was a lot more complicated.
I’m running through the install process today and its been good, so I eat my words!!!!
Glenn Blinckmann on October 20, 2010 ·
Jolicloud holds great promise, but I don’t know about being “better” than Windows. In using this for a while I found many limitations. If you want to use Skype when traveling, you’ll be on a very old 2.x beta Linux version instead of 5.0 for Windows. If you want to use Evernote for note-taking, you’ll have to use the web client with no off-line notes. Want offline GMail? Nope. No “Gears” support under Linux and Chromium. Want to upload photos that you just took? Well, even with a “supported” Acer Aspire One 533, you won’t get a driver for that SD card slot. You’ll have to carry an external card reader. And then the version of Picasa that you can get is an old 3.0 beta version running in emulation, not the 4.8 version that Windows is up to. So what makes an OS “better”?
That all being said, Jolicloud would be a much easier install than Windows if you were starting with a blank hard drive for both and you could get a thumbdrive with Jolicloud on it. Nothing beats a pre-installed OS. Configuration changes in Jolicloud even follow you from computer to computer. The UI is much better suited to a netbook than Windows is, too. It’s very easy to use. You will, however, run into major limitations if this is your primary netbook OS.
Glenn Blinckmann on October 20, 2010 ·
Oh, I should add that next month’s 1.1 release of Jolicloud should fix a lot of the driver issues (which I wasn’t expecting with a limited “supported hardware” OS). Many of the apps will be refreshed, but they can’t be any newer than what vendors produce for Linux.
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rob mathieson on October 20, 2010 ·
The problem with Jolicloud is that its a pain to install. I really want to use it, but the whole process of downloading, unpacking and deploying was just a joke. I would love to have a blast of it, but they need to make the installation of it more accessible to the general public first.
Please Jolicloud, make it easy for us. Ubuntu will actually send you the OS on a CD.