AmericanAnDerTU

I’ve been using Jolicloud for almost exactly a year now. I first came across this wonderful little OS while browsing for a cheap, instant-on type OS. There were the few that were loved by the hardcore Linux fans on the various netbook forums (Puppy and its variations, Xandros, Ubuntu Netbook Remix, etc.). The problem with all of those was that they either required a lot of configuring to do and as I was quite the virgin to Linux at the time or they were clunky and nonfunctional in most situations. During my search, Chrome OS from Google had just come out as a Beta and was quite enticing, but I didn’t like the fact that it lacked a lot of basic functions that a normal OS would have and it was still very much an unpolished OS. Then I came across Jolicloud while looking through old tech blog articles and it got rave reviews back when it was an Alpha build. I looked up the website and found that it had moved into a proper Beta and supported a plethora of netbooks right out of the box, had a beautiful GUI and had a very small hard drive footprint (I wanted to install it on a 4GB partition on the second SSD of my EEE PC 900).

Setting it up was an absolute breeze. There is an installer EXE that you can use right from within Windows but I found that did not work so well for me as my computer kept hanging. The other option was making a bootable USB key using the ISO and utility provided by the magicians of Jolicloud. I did this and the install process went perfect. Once I had the OS loaded it ran perfectly, I couldn’t complain. Installing apps was a piece of cake using the app market that Jolicloud had provided for its users (no messing with packages or the terminal - just point and click!) and it even worked with my old Huawei 3G dongle from my mobile provider. What more could a Linux newb ask for? More polishing and improving what was already there, nothing more was really needed. That’s exactly what Jolicloud’s team of developers did over the next year.

The updates flowed perfectly. Every time there was a new update, the computer got faster, the battery life better. I couldn’t believe it. In the year I’ve had Jolicloud, I think I have booted into XP maybe only a handful of times, and usually only so that way I would update XP to make sure it was always ready should Jolicloud ever fail me. How naive I was. The past year has been dream-like, almost too good to be true. It wasn’t a dream, though, and it only kept getting better.

A few weeks ago Jolicloud has finally moved out of being a Beta and into a proper OS, ready for the masses. Gone are the old traces of Linux, using HTML5 and a beautifully polished interface you would never know that the OS was riding on a modified Ubuntu kernel. The app market is still there, everything ready to be installed via a point and click interface. Lots of webapps are here to be found, too. Jolicloud has become the perfect compromise between a cloud-based operating system (like Google Chrome) and a proper desktop operating system (like all the other choices). If I want to have a full word processor and not need an Internet connection to do it, I can have one. I can also sync my Jolicloud across other computers I have that also run Jolicloud. No problem. This feature I have not personally tested, but from what I have read, it works like a charm.

What has really changed since 0.9 in the new 1.0? Not too much, in all honesty. Anyone that has been using Jolicloud 0.9 and previous versions can navigate their way through the menus quite easily and anyone that has never touched Jolicloud can do the same. This is like a full desktop-capable version of Apple’s iOS in the form of its “anyone can use it” presentation. You don’t need to know what a CPU is, what Linux is, or even what an app is. I could put anyone in front of this machine and as long as they have first grade reading skills, they could use Jolicloud without any problems whatsoever. In fact, if I had an old woman here that could speak English, I would do just that and film it as proof. Alas, the only old woman I know is 93 years old, barely speaks proper German and is quite senile. Shame. So for the uninitiated, I’ll give a quick rundown of what you can do in Jolicloud 1.0.

First up, how to install an application onto your machine. Simply click on the button marked “Add” from your dashboard and find the app that you like. They’re all beautifully arranged in their proper categories and have nice descriptions to tell you what each one does. The web apps are also marked with a clear symbol (not that it really matters at all). Once you’ve installed an app, you’ll find it on your dashboard. Anyone familiar with iOS will see that Jolicloud’s developers have clearly taken a few of Apple’s design ideas and implemented them here. Hey, copying is the shearest form of flattery. It works and looks great. What’s to complain about? 

Along the top of the dashboard you’ll also find your various sections of the OS you can access. You have your friends section, marked with the satellite dish to communicate with fellow Joliclouders. The folder is for your drives and folders (duh). The cog on the right is then your settings and your Jolicloud account information. The cog section also has a tab for “Legacy Apps”. Here are all of your utilities that you can use to monitor the OS, change your actual settings, etc. Here everything is also clearly laid out. For a normal user, however, there would really never be any need to venture here unless you need something like a calculator or a text editor. There is one interesting icon marked Local Apps, but only a power user would ever be interested in what lies behind that door (access to the terminal and other more nerdy things). The boys and girls behind Jolicloud have done such a wonderful job, however, that you will never need to go here. Ever. At all. Unless you’re just curious or have bad eyesight and can’t make out the buttons on the dashboard you’ll never know what the backend of the OS looks like. It’s just as pretty as the rest, though, I can assure you.

In the top left corner you’ll see a small blue cloud. What is this you might ask? This is your Jolicloud. Clicking it will return you to the dashboard and the center of your OS. To the right of the cloud are the icons for your apps that you have open. Simple and clean. In the far right you have your notification area along with your clock and calendar. In the notification area you will also find your Network Manager applet. Here you can connect to a wireless network, a wired network or a 3G modem if you have configured one. Right clicking the applet opens a drop down menu that will allow you to manage your connections. Here is where you can configure your 3G modem (a bit annoying in any Linux distro, to be honest, but it usually goes easily enough) or play with all the nerdy things like DNS servers, IP addresses and the like. Normal users need not venture here. The other notification applets are relatively straight forward and easy to understand (as long as you know how to read pictures, you’ll be fine).

I hope that I’ve covered all the high points in the OS. I was personally having some problems with it earlier today until I realized that I could not update my machine because I had uninstalled the Adobe AIR installer that comes prepackaged with the OS and is on your dashboard. Everytime I saw I had an update, it would start updating, never make it past the first part and then just go away. I kept wondering why I always had 13 updates until I found the update manager in the Legacy Apps section and tried updating there. I was also having a number of other problems with the OS in regards to my 3G modem and mounting drives. After attempting a manual update here I received an error code telling me to input a specific command into the terminal. Once I did that the update ran perfectly and all my problems with mounting drives were over and my 3G modem was working. That actually brings me to another important point: the support from the Jolicloud team.

The support I’ve had over the past year has been nothing short of phenomenal. I wish Apple or Microsoft could be this good. They could only dream of being this good. Jolicloud has a Twitter account called Jolisupport (INSERT LINK), a Get Satisfaction page managed by developers, a Wiki and a Feedback section that is monitored by developers. Via all of these lines of support you are guaranteed to find the answer to your question and you will get a response from someone that knows the OS very well, not just a lacky who has a few preprogrammed answers that he gives based on standard questions. Real people, real technicians and they’re always willing to help (much thanks to Zak (INSERT LINK) for helping me with my initial problems and who sometimes always manages to be the one who responds to my email inquiries).

To the folks at Jolicloud, keep doing the great work you have been doing. I’d love to see the next netbook I buy already have Jolicloud preloaded onto it (or even desktop PCs). For the rest of you, if you haven’t seen this OS before, give it a shot, you will most definitely not be disappointed. This is the BEST OS for a netbook, nothing else even comes close to being this good. It’s also a Linux OS and that means power users can take it further for their own personal uses and it’s so polished and user friendly that anyone can pick it up and never have to use the command line.

I’m personally going to do some testing over the next couple of days and see if the battery life really has improved very much over the Beta version of Jolicloud. I also will make either a write-up or a video of how to configure a 3G mobile connection (it can be quite annoying in Linux).