While I was on holidays I received an email telling me I’ve been Joliclouded! I opened the email with great excitement since I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. After trying different operating systems for my Aspire One, including Moblin v2 Alpha, which I reviewed, Ubuntu Netbook Remix and Xubuntu, as well as the default Linpus Linux Lite, I haven’t found the right netbook OS for me, but Jolicloud seemed like the OS I was waiting for. I was wrong.

In a nutshell, this isn’t really a new OS, it’s just Ubuntu with a blue theme and a Jolicloud program, which quite frankly seemed like nothing but a pretty program installer. I was greatly disappointed… This wasn’t the wonder OS I was expecting. I was expecting to have all my social networks integrated into my desktop, one universal place to keep up with friends on Twitter, Facebook and others. But no, the only social network was the Jolicloud one, which is useless, coz then friends without Jolicloud can’t participate. I also expected to be able to launch my applications from the Jolicloud interface, but that was a no go.

Not all was bad though, the Prism based web apps work well, and Jolicloud adds nice high-res icons for each application, so your not stuck with tiny favicons, and the overall look of everything is nice. Boot time was quick. I can’t quite tell if it was quicker than Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.04 (UNR), but I think it was. The launcher interface from UNR has been tweaked to a solid black, with white borders, and seems to run faster. And My Jolicloud is a Prism app itself, and is quick enough to respond, although freezes up for a second here and there, as Firefox does on a netbook.

Overall, I think Jolicloud is not the OS I’ve been waiting for. Perhaps Moblin will turn out as I want it, or failing that Android will be properly adapted to netbooks. I might track down a build of Android for Atom netbooks (if there is actually any out there), and give it a go soon.