Netbook Linux Reborn in Ubuntu-based Jolicloud

Linux on netbooks was a resounding failure because people wanted the familiar. So Jolicloud is giving them both, Linux and the familiar. It’s using Ubuntu Linux to create a netbook OS that looks and behaves more like an iPhone than your traditional operating system. Can they do it? Linux Planet finds out.


Jolicloud, a French start-up with a netbook-oriented OS by the same name as the company, has released the final test version of its operating system in advance of a roll-out it believes will be the first true netbook OS.

Netbooks have been big sellers, accounting for about 15 percent of total portable PC sales. When they first hit the market a few years back, Linux was the initial operating system of choice, but consumers found it confusing and unfamiliar, and Linux was quickly supplanted by Windows XP. Windows XP now accounts for more than 90 percent of netbook operating systems and is slowly being replaced by Windows 7.

Jolicloud is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu aimed at netbooks. So what makes the firm think it can succeed? Because it is not trying to provide the “operating system” experience, says founder and CEO Tariq Krim.

“What differentiates us is that we’re not trying to replicate the Windows XP experience. We wanted to go to the iPhone operating system and provide people that experience. We see ourselves as a service. We don’t see ourselves as an OS. The OS is just to operate a system,” he told InternetNews.com.



Read the full story at Linux Planet:


Linux on Netbooks Reloads With Ubuntu-based Jolicloud

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