Jolicloud is a Linux-based netbook OS that is built on top of Canonical's Ubuntu Netbook Remix. It uses Mozilla's Prism environment to make Web applications accessible outside of the browser.

Linux distributions designed specifically for use on netbooks is nothing new. Canonical produces the Ubuntu Netbook Remix version of Ubuntu for these small-sized devices, Intel has their Moblin distribution that is very fast and offers an attractive interface, gOS has their own netbook distribution, Linpus has QuickOS, and the list goes on.

Jolicloud 1.1 is the latest stable release of Jolicloud, the cloud-based, Ubuntu-based distribution. Other than being a cloud-based distribution, the most distinctive feature of Jolicloud is the netbook-optimzed interface, which is one of five netbook-optimized interfaces available on Linux and BSD distributions.

We have seen plethora of Linux variants based on Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch and so on. The people behind JOLICLOUD, a Linux OS say that we, the netbook owners will soon be ‘Jolicloud-ed’. But, is being Joliclouded beneficial at all?

This weekend, I installed Jolicloud on Leslee's netbook. Jolicloud is currently in private alpha. Wow, Jolicloud is phenominal.

The fact that the current most popular OS for Netbooks is a stock install of Windows XP tells us that there is a need for a netbook OS that doesn't suck. Windows is fine on a desktop or laptop, but it just wasn't made to be scaled onto a 9" screen, much less a keyboard. Jolicloud promises to be that netbook OS that really works.

No sooner had I written my blurb on Netbook Linux than I came across another alternative, Jolicloud. I had a quick look at their web page, it makes a good first impression, and the descriptions on it sound promising, so I decided to give it a try.

If bookmarking a site in your web browser sounds like rocket science to you then you're probably the perfect candidate for Jolicloud, which dumps a bunch of shortcuts for social networking sites and such onto your netbook screen.

MEPIS and Mandriva are testing new releases of their Linux distributions, and French project Jolicloud has posted a screen (pictured) from its upcoming netbook distro. MEPIS posted SimplyMEPIS 8.0 RC2, and Mandriva released its second alpha for Mandriva Linux 2009 Spring.