Brief Look at Jolicloud OS and Pros and Cons

Here’s a brief look at the Jolicloud OS on my ASUS Eee PC 1005HA netbook.

Jolicloud is an upcoming and very promising Linux based OS that’s designed for netbooks. It’s key feature would be it’s focus on cloud computing / social networking, though in the current Alpha release only the framework is there, not the actual functionality.

I didn’t have any time to mention the pros and cons in the video, so I’ll list them here:

Pros

• Firefox optimized out of the box for the small netbook screen.
• Maximized windows have more real estate than their Windows counterparts or standard Linux windows.
• Very nice presentation of application “store”.
• Excellent choice of hand-picked apps available.
• No need for an anti-virus program.
• Out-of-the-box, easy access to Windows networks (this use to be a huge pain in Linux)
• Wi-Fi, brightness, sound works out of the box.
• Processor scaling to save battery life - much like the SHE program for Eee netbooks.

Cons

• Some websites don’t work well as apps since you lose web browser functionality (back button, right click -> open new window)
• Hardware compatibility issues: My Bluetooth mouse stopped working at some point, most likely due to one of the updates. Wired LAN doesn’t work on the 1005HA. No multi-touch touchpad. Touchpad on/off button doesn’t work. My printer is not supported.
• I miss the EeeCtl function for increasing brightness (on some rare occasions using it outside)
• No support for GMA 500 netbooks (until the next version)
• Firefox 3.5 is unbelievably slow and painful to use on Linux / Jolicloud - Google Chrome OS is great though.
• VLC player is messed up.

For those who have tried Jolicloud, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it and whether you switched back to Windows or another Linux distro.