Jolicloud 1.0 - Another Installation

I'm finally home again and have had time to install the Jolicloud 1.0 Final release on another netbook - my HP 2133 Mini-Note WXGA (1280x768) model. When I did the first two installations I was traveling, and only had the 2133 WSVGA (1024x600) and the dv2-1010EZ with me.

As with the previous Jolicloud installations, I wasn't able to do anything without the netbook being connected to the Internet. In this case that was mildly painful, because I could only make a wireless connection, I didn't have a wired connection handy. If your wireless key is non-trivial, as mine is, that can lead to some tedious typing and cross-checking, but it finally came up.

Once the Internet connection was up, the installation was fast and easy, as with the previous systems. I had to sign in to my Jolicloud account, after which it told me that I had other mobile devices previously loaded, and did I want to configure the same desktop and applications on this one. I said yes, off it went for 10-15 minutes, and the installation completed without problem.

Mildly irritating after the reboot - it had not saved the WiFi connection configuration on the installed system. That shouldn't have been a big deal, but because this was the first boot of the newly installed system, it insisted on having an Internet connection before it would come up. So I got to type the key in again... it sure would have been nice if they had saved it when they had it.

The "Please Identify Your Device" dialog has been significantly improved since I did the first two installations. There are more netbooks listed, there are more categories for other kinds of devices, and there is an "other" entry. That should take care of my previous complaint about this (except they still call mine a "Mini 2133", which is not correct, but close enough).

A minute or so after logging in the first time, Jolicloud told me there were applications to be downloaded (which I had previously selected on the other netbooks), and updates to be installed. Both went off without a hitch.

So, the only thing of significance to report here is that specifically on the HP 2133 Mini-Note, Jolicloud is by far the easiest and most complete Linux distribution I have installed. It has the graphic (VIA Chrome9) and WiFi (Broadcom 4312) drivers included in the base installation. None of the other distributions I have installed on it include both of those, and some don't include either one.

I won't be using it much, because "social networking" is not a significant part of my personal activity. But I will keep it in mind for systems I prepare for others. If you do use Facebook, Twitter, and such, and you want to use Linux, Joliclouc might be just what you are looking for.

jw 23/8/2010