Jolicloud -Lightweight OS for Netbooks

             

               Netbooks are not like a fully powered Notebook and thus working with Windows on Netbooks could be irritating at times. There is a very light weight operating system designed specifically for the netbooks, called Jolicloud. We all know that Windows Vista didn't work well even on fulls-cale notebooks. One of the reasons most of the Netbooks comes with either Windows XP or some platform of Linux. It is quite slow for the low-powered netbooks alright.

Jolicloud may remind us of the smartphones because, it is application-centric. It comes with many applications already installed, like Facebook, Google Reader (must for bloggers), Times Skimmer, Google Docs, Gmail and even DropBox etc. If we want, we can also add any supported application in the blink of an eye.

 The architecture of Jolicloud consists of mainly three components. One is the kernel, next is the user interface which is quite an impressive one and finally the Jolicloud homebase. This homebase is actually free from the netbook and it helps one in linking up the notebooks together. It means, any update on your one netbook will automatically be made available in other linked netbooks.Jolicloud is based on GNU/Linux, Kernel.org, Ubuntu and Debian that has been optimized and extended for netbooks.

GMA 500 support was not optimal in Linux OS. The driver is developed by Tungsten Graphics, not by Intel, and the graphic core is not an Intel one, but is licensed from PowerVR. This led to an uncertain mix of open and closed source 3D accelerated drivers, instability and lack of support. Ubuntu is the Linux distribution that best supports GMA 500, through the use of the ubuntu-mobile. However, the installation procedure is not as simple as other drivers and can lead to many bugs. The Jolicloud has a driver for the GMA500 built in.PixieLive, a GNU/Linux live distribution optimized for GMA500 netbooks can boot from USB Pendrive, SD Card or HardDisk.

What Jolicloud did was that, it integrated the Ubuntu version 8.04 with the Jolicloud kernel and then integrated the Poulsbo DRI with the native kernel DRI alongwith inputting some libraries and packages. Finally Jolicloud was the standard distribution ISO that can support GMA 500 and also the DRI and DRM.

Contributed By : Swagata Nath, Class of 2010, CSE, MIT