David M Williams
Monday, 26 January 2009 18:26
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 3
Out of nowhere, an independent software developer has produced his own fast and fancy netbook operating system. It promises lightning boot times, an iPhone-esque icon-studded interface, modern cloud apps. The secret ingredient is Linux.
Netbooks are a way of life. Who'd have thought even just two years ago that what punters really wanted was low-cost dinky little laptops? Yet, since the release of the original 7” ASUS Eee just before Christmas 2007 the market has exploded.
Sure, the desktop market is still pounding down the door for multi-core multi-bit massive-capacity hardware, but the trend to more power hit a surprising roadblock when low-powered netbooks began flying off store shelves.
Yet, here's the thing: pretty much every netbook has a sucky interface in some way. First, you have the Linux bunch – the ones that kicked the market off. Each of these, including ASUS' Eee as well as models by other vendors, all shipped with a custom distro.
On the one hand, these custom distros made sense; the units were for the general public and while power users could change things around and fire up a command prompt, there was a real need to have a simple look and feel which would launch programs, manage documents and so on.
Yet, on the other hand, each of these were different to the other. That also makes sense; they were produced by different vendors specifically for their own products and Linux comes in a rich variety of releases anyhow, so even without modification they were fairly dissimilar anyway.
Linux experts generally put on their own distro of choice so the software that shipped didn't bother them. This then leaves those who aren't as familiar continuing to use the out-of-the-box software.
Here's where Microsoft Windows came in. Just when Linux advocates like myself were touting 2008 as the year where Linux became mainstream thanks to netbooks the situation got all topsy-turvy.
Let me tell you about it - and then about Jolicloud, a new OS which looks set to turn the tide. More overpage, and a real live screenshot on page 3.
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