Joli OS was an

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: ''Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All the ...

-based

Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...

created by Tariq Krim and Romain Huet co-founders of the French company Jolicloud (also the name of the operating system until version 1.2). Joli OS is now an

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

project, with

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...

hosted on

GitHub GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous ...

. On 22 November 2013, Tariq Krim decided to discontinue Joli OS, but keep the source code open. Jolicloud was discontinued on April 1, 2016.

History

The project was launched in 2008 by

Netvibes Netvibes is a French company that offers web services. History The company was founded by Tariq Krim and Florent Frémont in 2005. In August 2006, Netvibes closed a funding round of €12 million led by Accel Partners in London along with Index V ...

founder

Tariq Krim Tariq Krim (born October 25, 1972, in Paris) is a French entrepreneur, creator of Netvibes and the founder of Jolicloud, a personal cloud content computing platform and Joli OS, a free operating system based on the Jolicloud platform. In 2008, ...

and Romain Huet. Krim originally wanted to build a laptop using

environmentally friendly Environment friendly processes, or environmental-friendly processes (also referred to as eco-friendly, nature-friendly, and green), are sustainability and marketing terms referring to goods and services, laws, guidelines and policies that clai ...

manufacturing methods, but the two co-founders refocused the effort on building an operating system. After purchasing a few netbooks and renewing their acquaintance with Linux, they rented office space in the Montorgueil area of

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

and were later joined by another developer, Tristan Groléat.

Venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

firms

Atomico Ventures Atomico is a European Venture Capital firm headquartered in London, with offices in Paris, and Stockholm. Its founder and CEO is Niklas Zennström, a entrepreneurship, serial entrepreneur who co-founded Skype and Kazaa. History and investments ...

and Mangrove Capital Partners have provided $4.2 million in funding. Version 1.0 was released in July 2010 and version 1.1 was released on 7 December 2010. Version 1.2 was released on 9 March 2011.

Design, hardware compatibility

Joli OS was at the beginning built on top of Ubuntu Netbook Edition, and as with that Linux distribution, was tweaked for

netbooks Netbook was a commonly used term that identified a product class of small and inexpensive laptops which were sold from 2007 to around 2013. These machines were designed primarily as cost-effective tools for consumers to access the Inte ...

and other computers with limited

disk storage Disk storage (also sometimes called drive storage) is a general category of storage mechanisms where data is recorded by various electronic, magnetic, optical, or mechanical changes to a surface layer of one or more rotating disks. A disk drive is ...

memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...

, and screen size. Joli OS is now built on top of

with a customized kernel. Joli OS was designed for easy installation, with

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wave ...

bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...

, and 3G modem support all included. The operating system supports all the major netbooks, including models from Asus, Acer,

Dell Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...

, HP, MSI,

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

and

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

. Jolicloud claims the OS supports 98% of netbooks with out-of-the-box compatibility but also works on a very large number of other devices, up to 10 years old: laptops, desktops and tablets. Version 1.0 of the operating system incorporates a user interface built primarily with

HTML5 HTML5 is a markup language used for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. It is the fifth and final major HTML version that is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. The current specification is known as the HTML ...

that includes an application launcher, a library of compatible applications with one-click installation and removal, a display of all machines associated with a user account, and a social activity stream that enables users to compare installed applications. The launcher displays only those applications supported in the library, but the identical configuration can be viewed from any machine running Joli OS. Account management is available from any computer with an HTML5-compatible browser. Jolicloud's HTML5 implementation is through the

Chromium Chromium is a chemical element with the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in group 6. It is a steely-grey, lustrous, hard, and brittle transition metal. Chromium metal is valued for its high corrosion resistance and hardne ...

web browser, which serves as

middleware Middleware is a type of computer software that provides services to software applications beyond those available from the operating system. It can be described as "software glue". Middleware makes it easier for software developers to implement co ...

for Web rendering.

Version 1.0 reviews, response

Reviewers evaluating Joli OS differed in their appraisals, depending on whether they were writing for a user who is new to Linux or is more experienced with the operating system. Writing on a

Condé Nast Traveler ''Condé Nast Traveler'' is a luxury and lifestyle travel magazine published by Condé Nast. The magazine has won 25 National Magazine Awards. The Condé Nast unit of Advance Publications purchased ''Signature'', a magazine for Diners Club memb ...

blog, Mike Haney called Joli OS "an easy, free OS that you don't have to be a code-monkey to install and does everything you need your netbook to do, quickly. I put it on a

Lenovo Lenovo Group Limited, often shortened to Lenovo ( , ), is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, Personal computer, personal computers, ...

netbook this weekend that was running like molasses under Windows 7, and I'm a convert". While Joli OS is not the first operating system designed from Linux targeted at the beginning netbooks, "it's the first that doesn't feel like you're using Linux: no funky install procedures, no code, no accessing special directories to find more apps." He compared Joli OS in look and function to

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

, the operating system used by the Apple

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating s ...

(as well as the iPhone and

iPod Touch The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a music pl ...

), though with the folders and files of a conventional computer". In

Computerworld ''Computerworld'' (abbreviated as CW) is an ongoing decades old professional publication which in 2014 "went digital." Its audience is information technology (IT) and business technology professionals, and is available via a publication website ...

, Serdar Yegulalp wrote that Joli OS 1.0 "feels like a second beta, not a 1.0 release; it needs more work before it's truly useful instead of one step above a curiosity". Yegulalp reported problems launching some applications, including the

Google Chrome Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS ...

browser and the

VLC media player VLC media player (previously the VideoLAN Client and commonly known as simply VLC) is a free and open-source, portable, cross-platform media player software and streaming media server developed by the VideoLAN project. VLC is available for desk ...

, an inability to do peer-to-peer

mesh networking A mesh network is a local area network topology in which the infrastructure nodes (i.e. bridges, switches, and other infrastructure devices) connect directly, dynamically and non-hierarchically to as many other nodes as possible and cooperate wit ...

, the power button getting blocked by open windows, and no

hibernation Hibernation is a state of minimal activity and metabolic depression undergone by some animal species. Hibernation is a seasonal heterothermy characterized by low body-temperature, slow breathing and heart-rate, and low metabolic rate. It most ...

mode, even if the computer supports it. He noted comparable performance with

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...

but slightly faster boot times. But ZDNet reporter David Meyer disagreed with that performance assessment after running Jolicloud on a

Nokia Booklet 3G The Nokia Booklet 3G was a netbook produced by the Finnish company Nokia. It was announced on 24 August 2009. History The Booklet 3G was Nokia's first netbook. The company produced a series of personal computers in the 1980s called MikroMikko, ...

in order to take advantage of that device's unusual 720p

screen resolution The display resolution or display modes of a digital television, computer monitor or display device is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. It can be an ambiguous term especially as the displayed resolution is ...

. He wrote that the device's "lousy Atom Z530 processor...really struggles under Windows 7 Starter Edition utflies on Jolicloud....I'm struggling to think of a rival Linux distro that can be so easily picked up and run by an average user". In

Ars Technica ''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sci ...

, Ryan Paul wrote that "there are a lot of good ideas on display in Jolicloud ow Joli OS1.0, but the nascent product still feels incomplete". He saw no reason for Linux users, particularly

users, to switch. "Ubuntu's own Unity environment is more sophisticated and has much better integration between native applications and the underlying platform," though Joli OS might be a better choice for users interested in Web applications. Noting that Joli OS 1.0's foundation is Ubuntu 9.04, which is nearing the end of its support cycle by

Canonical The adjective canonical is applied in many contexts to mean "according to the canon" the standard, rule or primary source that is accepted as authoritative for the body of knowledge or literature in that context. In mathematics, "canonical example ...

, Paul wrote that "the real challenge will be continuing to expand the scope of Joli OS's differentiating features while...ensuring that Jolicloud users will benefit from Ubuntu's steady stream of new features". Tariq Krim defended the decision to stay with Ubuntu 9.04 in Joli OS 1.0, arguing that later Ubuntu versions have been less stable and have required user-initiated software installations to be fully functional. Examples where Jolicloud developers did additional work to ensure out-of-the-box functionality include support for

Poulsbo Poulsbo ( ) is a city on Liberty Bay in Kitsap County, Washington, United States. It is the smallest of the four cities in Kitsap County. The population was 9,200 at the 2010 census and an estimated 10,927 in 2018. The area was historically in ...

GMA500 The Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) is a series of integrated graphics processors introduced in 2004 by Intel, replacing the earlier Intel Extreme Graphics series and being succeeded by the Intel HD and Iris Graphics series. This series t ...

drivers,

touchscreens A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is often ...

and 3G. He said the company was "moving away from Ubuntu to a solution that could fit our user needs better. We are looking closely at what

Chrome OS ChromeOS, sometimes stylized as chromeOS and formerly styled as Chrome OS, is a Linux-based operating system designed by Google. It is derived from the open-source ChromiumOS and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user interfa ...

is doing".

Jolibook

In November 2010, Jolicloud shipped a netbook computer, called Jolibook, that ran the operating system out of the box. The computer was manufactured by UK-based Vye Computers and featured a 10.1-inch screen, dual core 1.5 GHz Intel Atom N550, 1 GB RAM and a 250 GB hard drive. Artwork on the lid included the slogan "fast, fun, connected". The machine was only available in the United Kingdom, selling for £280 via Shop.VyePC.com and Amazon.co.uk, and is no longer manufactured.

Version 1.1

Jolicloud released version 1.1 in December 2010. The new version was based on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid), with future patches planned from 10.10 (Maverick). Among the improvements claimed by the company were faster boot times of 10–20 seconds on most devices tested, 15 percent battery life improvements (tested on a Clevo M1100 netbook with an Intel Atom N450 processor and a three-cell battery) and support for all PCs, not just netbooks.

Version 1.2

Version 1.2 was announced in March 2011 and renamed Joli OS. The new version featured a new boot screen, auto and guest mode log-ins, a local file system integrated within the desktop, remote access to the desktop from any HTML5-capable browser, optional background updates, and support for the latest Chromium 10 browser and Flash 10.2. Version 1.2 also includes

Dropbox Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by the American company Dropbox, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, U.S. that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and Client (computing), client software. Dropb ...

integration, an app creation wizard, and a file browser to access local files, preview Dropbox files and edit using

Google Docs Google Docs is an online word processor included as part of the free, web-based Google Docs Editors suite offered by Google, which also includes: Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Drawings, Google Forms, Google Sites and Google Keep. Google Do ...

. It uses 2.2 GB of disk space when installed.

References

External links

*
Chrome Web Store

Help Center

Das deutsche Jolicloud Forum

Joli on the Mini

Tariq Krim in Interview with 99FACES.tv
{{Linux distributions Ubuntu derivatives Linux distributions used in appliances Cloud clients Computer-related introductions in 2008 Linux distributions