Jolicloud is a really interesting project that just came out in public beta (er… “pre-beta”? I’m not sure what the deal is with that.) It’s a streamlined OS based entirely around cloud services and intended for netbooks. The UI is designed with these parameters in mind. Basically it’s really simple to use and gets you to your gmail, facebook, twitter, audio/video streams, pandora, etc, quickly and easily.
I just installed it on my beleaguered old Asus eeePC 701 (ie the 4G), and even on this very limited hardware and small screen resolution, it’s running great, and so far has been problem-free.
Of equal importance is the fact that the installation process was a total breeze. I’ve gone through the sheer hell of putting ubuntu on this thing before and so was wary to try anything new but this was a very easy experience. You create a USB booter on your main computer (in my case mac) and just boot right into the almost automated install process. Very smooth, and of critical importance for the Jolicloud team to get right. Great job guys.
If you’ve got a netbook or other secondary portable computer sitting around, I’d recommend giving this thing a shot, I think it’s going to be fun to use for the purpose it was intended for… easy cloud-based computing and other computing that doesn’t require a whole lot of processing power.
There’s a list of compatible devices here, though I wonder if it’s entirely complete, seems like you should be able to install this on a lot of hardware. Maybe it’s a driver issue.
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention one of the biggest advantages of Jolicloud: it’s FREE.
