Jolicloud - The webOS Ahead of Its Time

French startup Jolicloud has created an operating system specifically designed for netbooks based on Ubuntu Netbook Remix. The distribution is characterized by extended integration with web-services: Mozilla Prism system is used to run web-applications outside the browser as independent dextop-programs. One of the venture funds allocated 4.2 million dollars for the development of this distribution. The distribution includes applications such as Firefox, Pidgin, BitTorrent client Transsmision, photo manager F-Spot and a standard set of GNOME utilities.

Jolicloud Linux features:

Ultra-fast installation that takes only 15 minutes.
The OS is tightly integrated with the web: user data and applications are automatically saved on the Jolicloud website, so you don’t have to worry about their safety.
The design of the user environment resembles the look and feel of an iPhone. Additionally, it is possible to quickly switch to the standard desktop environment and to the Ubuntu Netbook Remix interface.
This OS is one of the first Linux distributions based on cloud computing and technologies.
The distribution provides tight integration with social networks and web services such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr;
Jolicloud applications are written in HTML5/JavaScript and are able to interact directly with the OS.
The distribution supports about 300 (!) different netbook models from all manufacturers on the market.
A simplified network configuration interface is implemented, supporting VPN and more than 100 3G adapters.

Technical features:

Adaptation of the interface for low screen resolutions (800×480) and 7“, 9”, 10” screens;
Optimization of work both when installed on a hard disk, and when working with CD, USB Flash and SSD-drive;
Support for netbooks based on Intel Atom CPU, AMD and VIA C7-M processors;
Support for Intel 945GSE (GMA 950), Intel US15W (GMA 500), Intel GMA 3150, Nvidia ION and standard ATI and Nvidia graphics cards;
Full Bluetooth and WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n support based on Atheros (R242x, AR51xx, AR54xx, AR91xx, AR92xx), Broadcom (BCM4312), Ralink (RT2860, RT2870, RT3070, RT3090) and Realtek (RTL8187se, RTL8192e/se/su) chipsets;
The distribution uses Linux kernel 2.6.32.4, X-server 1.6.0, Gnome 2.24, Firefox 3.5.3 and Mozilla Prism 1.0b2 (for desktop web-applications);
Codecs supported out of the box: DivX, Xvid, MPEG4, H.264, WMV9; formats: MPG, AVI, MP4, WMV, DivX, MKV, OGM.

The distribution is free and its first release candidate can be freely downloaded from the company’s website (iso-image size 700 MB). The installer supports both standard boot mode and launching directly from Windows environment.