SubscribeSo I got my invite for the ever-so-hyped JoliCloud [linkage] – if your saying to yourself “But Chuck, I have never heard of this?! What is it?!” well <insert name here> – it’s a new custom breed of Ubuntu Linux for most of the ever popular Netbooks floating around right now (you know, netbook, those mini-laptops). Well owning a EeePC 1000 – I figured I would sign-up for a invite, and got it a few days ago. I must say so far, pretty pleased.
If your not a linux person and got your netbook with Windows XP or Xandros build of Linux – you may not be used to the wonderful world of Linux – however working on Linux servers and desktops for a few years, it’s a comfortable spot for me, not to mention you can do some great tweaks to speed up Netbooks [linkage], I must say though like it’s counter part the NBR (Netbook Re-Mix) Jolicloud throws in some elements like Mozilla Prism [linkage] to take most modern “Web 2.0″ sites/apps and bring them as easy to access icons from your launcher interface – it’s quite nice, but as some have noted “Not hard todo from NBR/Other linux distros” – but this is about ease of setup/launch/creation.
As part of the OS you get “My Jolicloud” which has a ever growing collection of Apps, Sites, Tools which are handy for Netbooks, not to mention a optimized kernel for Netbook hardware – which is a nice speed increase to say the least from say a stock Ubuntu kernel which is based traditionally around Desktop/Server hardware, not a smaller ATOM based process which most netbooks tend to utilize – so having something geared for your hardware – very nice indeed.
When I started testing I had a custom kernel, and stock Ubuntu NBR on my EeePC – it worked good, with some tweaks from Tombuntu’s site for SSD’s and snagging FF3.5 – it worked pretty well, but I wanted to get the full experience, and since my /home partition (for Windows/Mac users – think of /home as “Documents and Settings” or the folder with the “home” icon on it) – I kept that on the 1000’s second larger SD and simply re-formmated the primary SSD with Jolicloud – all done from my 2GB thumbdrive, the process was quick, easy, and shortly there after the usual quick Q&A to build your account, I was ready and running.
The build is pretty much still a work in progress (it’s an Alpha release, so early on) but even then it shows promise making popular websites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter etc. easy to click icons which look like standard applications from the launcher – but to that end it also has some easy to install desktop applications like VLC, Firefox, the Developer version of Chrome, etc. a lot of cool things you can find in a normal Linux distro, but making it even easier than using a package manager – so really geared more towards the person who has never used linux, which is a plus as Netbooks are affordable alternatives for College Students – give them a easy interface to work with, very productive.
My netbook is quickly becoming my hub for one of my new website projects, I am working on getting a lot of resources together to manage a few writers, community managers, and advertisers, Jolicloud is not exactly what I am looking for but it feels a lot faster to me than stock Ubuntu – sure sure I could put XP on the laptop, or even OSX – but sometimes both of those OS’s can be overkill and I just need a simple browser for some web based GTD and site management tools.
So my hats off to the Jolicloud crew, a great setup, currently going to remain my primary OS on the netbook for the time being! Looking forward to even more enhancements coming soon!