Jolicloud 1.0 Vs. Ubuntu UNR 10.04 FIGHT!
August 2, 2010 6:32 AM Subscribe
Jolicloud 1.0 or Ubuntu UNR 10.04 FIGHT!
Which is suggested for an Aspire One AOA-100?
I'm started to get unhappy with the way Canonical is going. They are having major regression issues (pets his netbook, happy it survived the Great SSD Crisis unscathed). Then they start making limiting decisions that can't be easily undone (like perma-locking the UNR interface panel, preventing me from changing out the battery status applet). Then there's their new angle - "It just works. Kinda." Between having to hand patch UbuntuOne code, to having to switch to the Proposed repository (at the behest of a Canonical employee) to get Gwibber to work, to waiting in line for U1 one to finally sync my contacts (which worked at one point, but doesn't now), whilst learning I could sync with my cellphone IF my crappy little phone supported such), and decreasing performance, my enthusiasm is waning.
However, I am leery of throwing away something that works (mostly) for something that doesn't. I have VirtualBoxed JoliCloud on my laptop, which, sad to say, is my only "real" machine (thus my missing all the MeFi Steam gaming goodliness as it won't game worth poo), but I am still unsure about JC for day to day usage.
Any suggestions or warnings?
I'm started to get unhappy with the way Canonical is going. They are having major regression issues (pets his netbook, happy it survived the Great SSD Crisis unscathed). Then they start making limiting decisions that can't be easily undone (like perma-locking the UNR interface panel, preventing me from changing out the battery status applet). Then there's their new angle - "It just works. Kinda." Between having to hand patch UbuntuOne code, to having to switch to the Proposed repository (at the behest of a Canonical employee) to get Gwibber to work, to waiting in line for U1 one to finally sync my contacts (which worked at one point, but doesn't now), whilst learning I could sync with my cellphone IF my crappy little phone supported such), and decreasing performance, my enthusiasm is waning.
However, I am leery of throwing away something that works (mostly) for something that doesn't. I have VirtualBoxed JoliCloud on my laptop, which, sad to say, is my only "real" machine (thus my missing all the MeFi Steam gaming goodliness as it won't game worth poo), but I am still unsure about JC for day to day usage.
Any suggestions or warnings?
Aren't Jolicloud and UNR pretty much the same thing, and won't you have the same issues in Jolicloud as you do with UNR -- Gwibber, Ubuntu One, battery status applet, etc.? In any case, I'd recommend installing a dual boot with Jolicloud and try living in it for a few days. If you don't like it you can always nuke the partition later.
posted by stennieville at 7:36 AM on August 2, 2010
posted by stennieville at 7:36 AM on August 2, 2010
So I'd been meaning for awhile to try Something New on my Toshiba NB205. UNR 10.04 ran just fine on it, everything worked out of the box (except the speakers, which is easily fixable) and I was pretty happy with the performance. But my netbook and I had decided together that we needed a change of pace.
A few weeks ago I read-up on Jolicloud, and downloaded the Pre-Release ("Robby") and ran it Live and was quite impressed. Like the idea, thought the execution was pretty darn excellent, and looked forward to getting my invite to upgrade to 1.0 . Which finally happened yesterday.
I was pretty unhappy with what I found. The UI felt a little too stripped down. And although I can appreciate that there's a bit of work needed in order to get apps ready to play nice in the Jolicloud world, I was aghast to find their installs of OpenOffice and Firefox to be so. damn. old. (3.0 and 3.6.3, respectively). Maybe there wouldn't have been a problem had I gone off and upgraded these on my own, behind the scenes, but if I'm having to do that in order to get the latest and greatest software that's easily available otherwise, then, what's the point?
My usage of Jolicloud was hardly thorough, so take this with a grain of salt. But I just don't see the point of going with a product / platform whose main (or 2nd most important) selling point is that all your data & user experience elements will be synched across multiple machines, and kept up-to-date in a hassle-free manner, if it's not going to extend that same benefit to your apps.
In the end, my netbook is now running Linux Mint (LXDE version) and I'm real happy.
posted by armoir from antproof case at 7:42 AM on August 2, 2010
A few weeks ago I read-up on Jolicloud, and downloaded the Pre-Release ("Robby") and ran it Live and was quite impressed. Like the idea, thought the execution was pretty darn excellent, and looked forward to getting my invite to upgrade to 1.0 . Which finally happened yesterday.
I was pretty unhappy with what I found. The UI felt a little too stripped down. And although I can appreciate that there's a bit of work needed in order to get apps ready to play nice in the Jolicloud world, I was aghast to find their installs of OpenOffice and Firefox to be so. damn. old. (3.0 and 3.6.3, respectively). Maybe there wouldn't have been a problem had I gone off and upgraded these on my own, behind the scenes, but if I'm having to do that in order to get the latest and greatest software that's easily available otherwise, then, what's the point?
My usage of Jolicloud was hardly thorough, so take this with a grain of salt. But I just don't see the point of going with a product / platform whose main (or 2nd most important) selling point is that all your data & user experience elements will be synched across multiple machines, and kept up-to-date in a hassle-free manner, if it's not going to extend that same benefit to your apps.
In the end, my netbook is now running Linux Mint (LXDE version) and I'm real happy.
posted by armoir from antproof case at 7:42 AM on August 2, 2010
@ stennieville , you may be thinking of EasyPeasy. The fresh default install seems different from UNR only in the window dressing. Jolicloud does run on a Debian / Ubuntu base, but is geared towards running apps "from the cloud" (or, at least, giving the user the impression that they're running off the cloud) as opposed to having everything installed locally.
Somewhat related, Peppermint Linux looks to be attempting to accomplish some of same goals as Jolicloud, and at first blush seems somewhat slicker (although I don't know whether they've got the extensive UE-infrastructure that Jolicloud does).
posted by armoir from antproof case at 7:48 AM on August 2, 2010
Somewhat related, Peppermint Linux looks to be attempting to accomplish some of same goals as Jolicloud, and at first blush seems somewhat slicker (although I don't know whether they've got the extensive UE-infrastructure that Jolicloud does).
posted by armoir from antproof case at 7:48 AM on August 2, 2010
Response by poster: Unfortunately, the dual partition isn't really a goer as I've only got a little SSD.
posted by Samizdata at 8:31 AM on August 2, 2010
posted by Samizdata at 8:31 AM on August 2, 2010
Response by poster: Say, never having gotten into Suse before, how's the packaging?
posted by Samizdata at 8:35 AM on August 2, 2010
posted by Samizdata at 8:35 AM on August 2, 2010
I've not been running it long enough to know. My suggestion was mostly based on the possibility that switching to something outside of the Ubuntu distribution community might help with some of your problems. To me SUSE appears to be more conservative than Fedora, and a bit less invested on insisting on the one true user experience via GNOME.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 9:13 AM on August 2, 2010
posted by KirkJobSluder at 9:13 AM on August 2, 2010
Response by poster: Well, I have my crappy WiMax chewing through the LXDE release ISO as we speak.
posted by Samizdata at 9:18 AM on August 2, 2010
posted by Samizdata at 9:18 AM on August 2, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 7:28 AM on August 2, 2010