In the shop on my bench today I am working on Jolicloud
The main purpose of Jolicloud is to present a web enabled GUI. Under the hood, it’s based on the Ubuntu long term service release (10.04), and the front end is handled by a combination of the Chromium web browser and a full screen user interface that eschews overlapping windows.
I am setting it up on an older notebook to see what kind of user experience in terms of speed I can get. One of the claims is that using a cloud computer is even faster than simply installing Linux on the computer.
Since I last perused Jolicloud I find they now have a Chrome Web App available in the Chome Web Store for those who want to give the install a spin without seeing how it works on an older computer. You can also install it on a USB stick, although the install supports it heritage and will dual boot a windows machine easily and that would be the simplest and quickest path to testing. I assume you are multi-booting by now for evaluation at least.
So, what does Jolicloud offer once it’s up and running?
Everything you would expect for someone running in the cloud, a great deal of focus on the apps that one uses every day with the speed of a machine much faster than the one I was using. You get the identical desktop by installing the Chrome Web App.
Conclusion
I will be keeping Jolicloud on this old notebook as it makes it a bit more exciting and simple to use. It is as if someone has simplified and overpowered the device and made it very similar to a touchpad that I also have tested recently. Give this a try to see what the fuss is all about.