In search of the best netbook operating system (OS). Win7, WinXP, Ubuntu NR, Jolicloud, Moblin – all here!
Netbooks are an interesting phenomenon. Every day I see people purchasing them for both notebook replacements and the novelty factor, not to mention those simply upgrading from their 10 year old desktop just looking for the cheapest portable available! Although many are able to succeed at replacing their notebooks with a netbook, many are not – their limited performance (stemming from the weak specifications) coupled with the lack of an optical drive fumbles many people up; they wind up returned to the place of purchase.
While I had been contemplating the purchase of a netbook since just before my trip to Hungary in May, I did not actually wind up buying one. Although the purchase for the trip’s sake would have been a practical use, its usefulness following that would be purely novelty, and the $350+ pricetag was not justifiable. Recently I was able to avoid that downside altogether! Just last week I won a draw from a local self storage company which consisted of an HP Mini 1035nr as its first place prize – and thus the search began.
I used my new HP for about a day with Windows XP and constantly felt the creaking of the old operating system’s bones. After a quick search for netbook operating systems, I proceeded to download and install Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.04.
Ubuntu Netbook Remix
Ubuntu NR has a nicely laid out home screen, making it easier to find and launch apps than does vanilla Ubuntu. With your application categories in the left column acting like tabs, a large middle column to show a grid of apps within the selected category and a right column for common folders like Documents, Pictures and Music, it’s got everything available for easy access.
One of the greatest features of using Ubuntu NR is that is is basically just Ubuntu with a Netbook optimized app launcher skin. This means that I could install any Ubuntu compatible software with relative ease! So I loaded up Synaptic (the Ubuntu package manager) and went searching for apps, such as Skype and a Twitter app: results – 0. Perhaps I just didn’t try hard enough, but I could not get Synaptic to work as an app store, essentially what I thought it was supposed to be for. This is going to be a major hindrance for your average user of a netbook OS – the software search needs to be as simple and straightforward as possible, and this was not.
Having used Ubuntu in the past, I knew I could simply fall back on apt-get, so I proceeded by doing exactly that. Launching terminal and running a simple `sudo apt-get install skype` did the trick. I also searched for a few other apps and found Twitux and gTwitter to install with just as simple a command as was the Skype install. Why I couldn’t do this through Synaptic, I don’t know and I really didn’t feel it should have been my responsibility to go looking for a solution – the OS is supposed to take care of these things for me. This is one of those things that Jolicloud was built for – skip ahead to the Jolicloud section to read more on that.
Another complaint I have about Ubuntu Netbook Remix is the icons. Someone on the Ubuntu dev team decided that it would be a great idea to show larger icons than what I would assume to be the default standard icon size. While I didn’t look into the exact size difference, I can easily tell this is the case because many of the icons were ‘blocky’ and clearly had been enlarged from a normally smaller size. I do not disagree with the decision to use larger icons – I think it complements the netbook OS by making things look clean and simple. Or at least it would look clean if the icons weren’t so ugly because of their resizing! Those that came with native large-sized icons looked beautiful, those that did not were hideous. Now, I’m not expecting all third party apps that I install through apt to natively support all icon sizes – especially considering some have not been updated in quite some time, but at the very least all of the applications that come with the distribution should match the system default icon size.
One last issue I had came in the form of window sizing. Some applications had windows that were not meant to be maximized, but were forced to be by the Ubutnu NR window manager. I think Pidgin’s contact list was fine, but some (perhaps older?) apps like one of the Twitter apps I tried was forced to be fullscreen, which was unnecessary and downright intrusive – why should a twitter feed need to take up an entire screen? I’m not sure if the app developers need to update their applications to be fully compatible or if the window manager got a little overzealous, but someone needs to put a bit more time into window management on this OS.
I saw the screenshots of Ubuntu NR 9.10 and it looked so much cleaner and sexier than 9.04 does, however when I downloaded the ISO it was not easily imageable (I dd’d it over to my USB drive like all others and it did not work), so I did not get a chance to try it firsthand. Thus I cannot include it in this review – perhaps something for a followup review.
Jolicloud
Having heard rumours of this Operating System nearly (or over?) a year ago now, I already had a good feeling and high expectations prior to installing it. I remembered watching a video of it in action and thinking that it was a really nice looking OS, but not being clear on exactly how it worked. So my next attempt at satisfying my netbook OS craving became Jolicloud. I downloaded the torrent and installed it and was a bit disappointed to find Ubuntu Netbook Remix with a different – in my opinion not as nice – skin. So what more could I gleam from this than Ubuntu NR? It turns out nothing… the fancy UI from the YouTube video and all the hype was showcasing a web-based Jolicloud application of sorts, and I did not have elite access! As soon as I booted into the OS for the first time it wanted me to sign in with my 1337 c0dez, which I did not have.
I wound up wiping Jolicloud and installing another couple of Operating Systems (their respective reviews follow this one) but re-installed Jolicloud (dual-boot style) afterward. Why? Because I received my elite membership codes by email, and there was no way I was going to avoid taking that sexy OS for a spin!
So on it went again, but this time I was able to peer beyond the veiled curtain that was previously blocking my way. I finally got to see that rich UI filled with translucency and dozens of applications with high-res icons (unlike my old friend Ubuntu). But what exactly was this Jolicloud webapp? How did it work and how was it different from its core Ubuntu-based OS?
First to explain what I mean by Jolicloud webapp. From what I can tell Jolicloud is basically just a website running in Mozilla Prism. That’s not to say that’s a bad thing or a simple thing – the webapp is very fully featured and quite functional. When you load Jolicloud it is not a fullscreen app, it runs like any other app runs in Ubuntu Netbook Remix by filling most of the screen, but leaving the taskbar at the top of the screen so you can see your battery status, wifi, bluetooth, etc, along with the currently running apps, open windows and the lovely Home button to take you back to the Ubuntu Netbook Remix homescreen I described above. Thus it does not take over the entire user experience like Boxee, nor is it meant to (yet).
The Jolicloud webapp is essentially a really beautiful looking package manager (remember how terrible I thought Synaptic was?). It goes beyond just installing native Ubuntu apps by bridging the gap between native apps and webapps by putting them all into one place. It’s as if Apple had taken their webapp catalogue and merged it with the iPhone’s app store so that the only identifier to tell you if the app you’re installing is a native app or a webapp is a single line denoting it as such. While I believe this to, generally, be an excellent move on their part, it is not exactly what I was expecting.
I was expecting a beautiful new OS and got a package manager with some cool new qualities. To make matters worse, once I got an app installed (be it the Twitter webapp or the Skype native app), I still had to go back to the comparatively ugly Ubuntu NR interface to launch it. I hear that the Jolicloud folks eventually plan to make their own – likely matching – skin for Ubuntu NR, which would be great, but until then we’re stuck with a not-so-nice UI. The worst part about it is that most users only spend the initial set-up stage in the package manager getting the apps they want installed, then move on and only need to launch them and switch between them – leaving the uglier UI to the most use.
The webapps themselves also launch in Mozilla Prism, so they’re not native and not necessarily fast if you’re using a 3G internet device for web access. This can be a great thing and a not-so-great thing. It means that webapps with a great fullscreen UI like GMail and Google Calendar work very nicely, but it also means that we miss out on some of the key advantages of native apps. Although I did not spend a huge amount of time in Jolicloud I didn’t once get any sort of notification of Twitter updates or Facebook updates – I always had to launch the web app and manually retrieve them. All or most native Twitter apps do this by default. Another problem is one I already mentioned regarding bandwidth usage and speed on limited connections, though this may already be remedied by caching in Prism (I did not test the theory).
Another potential problem with webapps is that they do not have a unified OS design theme. This shouldn’t be an issue for those coming from Windows as I find that most app developers for Windows don’t seem to care about making their apps fit in – they just do whatever they want. Coming from OS X, this is a whole other story. Because of Interface Builder – an app that is part of Cocoa Development tools for OS X – many of the OS X developers use the built in UI widgets since they already look quite nice and are very functional. I’m used to apps that all have common UI elements resulting in an elegant simplicity to using applications on OS X – this cannot be had with webapps unless they’re an entire suite like Google or MobileMe. This is not a direct flaw or problem with Jolicloud, but really just a setback for those who have an eye for consistency.
Overall, I love the concept of the Jolicloud package manager, first because Synaptic annoyed me and also because of its webapp integration. I look forward to a completely re-done and matching UI for Ubuntu NR so that we can be taken out of Ubuntu mode and transported into a world filled with lots of lovely eye candy, which I’m known for being suckered into. If you’re looking for an OS that smoothly and easily integrates your social media sites and other web-based tools into one system, then Jolicloud is for you. If you need your social media to come to you with notifications, then read-on – Moblin may be the netbook OS for you!
Moblin is essentially what I thought Jolicloud was going to be – an OS entirely integrated with social media, contacts, and everything that keeps your life in order. It also has this really hot UI with great little animations throughout and a totally re-thought layout for a portable computer OS. It’s a bit overwhelming to describe, so I suggest taking a look at the video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsCpIeLLoT8
You basically set up Moblin by providing your Twitter account, Last.fm account and other social media sites (more plugins coming – including Facebook), as well as a place to get your contacts, calendars and todos and give away your IMAP email settings and it takes care of everything for you.
Moblin’s home screen, myzone, is really neat. It shows three columns, the first contains upcoming appointments from your calendar, upcoming todos and common applications. Next up is your recent history across media and web browsing – a neat mixture. Then comes the coolest part – your Twitter feed appears in the third column. I assume Facebook status updates and Last.fm stuff will appear there too, but the Facebook plugin isn’t available yet and I only have a couple friends on Last.fm. My problem with the status updates is that I can’t tell who wrote them, nor when they were posted until I mouse over them. I was surprised to find that, since other aspects of the UI are so intuitive and well integrated. A user’s status update is virtually useless unless you know who posted it and when it was posted, and it takes a fair amount of effort (that does not need to be required) just to mouse over them to find out.
The next tab over shows your statuses on all accounts, including Twitter and your IM accounts like MSN, Yahoo, AIM and Gtalk. While I love the concept, there were two big problems for me. First, every time I changed my status, it would duplicate the status entry for that service, causing me major confusion and annoyance. [This was fixed with some updates!] Second, there appeared to be no way to set your status message across all protocols simultaneously. Perhaps I’m spoiled by the feature rich IM client Adium for OS X, but it seems like that should be a standard feature!
Then you get your contacts tab (including all contact pics showing as thumbnails), web pages (your browser history and a new page launch tool that’s pretty neat, although a bit slow), the media player, pasteboard, applications, and zones.
The media player was quite slick, but the only (working) source was my local hard drive, which makes little sense considering this is a netbook – I shouldn’t expect to have room for all my media on the local hard drive. It also has built in support for network shares according to the website, but despite installing all Samba related packages, I could not make it read my network hard drive connected to my time capsule (which Windows and OS X see with no trouble). It would be been fantastic if it could access iTunes shares and even better, it would be really neat if you could install a small app on OS X, Windows or Linux for your home computer that would allow you to stream any media to Moblin wherever you are! Sadly this is not a feature and I’m not sure if it’s even in development.
For those wondering, the network error is: Could not display “smb://networksharename:445/”. The file is of an unknown type
The applications were available in well organized categories under the apps tab. There were smooth animations and all the icons were high-res and looked great! My first problem with the section is pretty minor – whenever you expand a category, it sometimes would slide open off-screen, so that you had to expand and scroll to make it visible. It should auto-scroll for you every time. The second one is pretty big. There are about 4 applications for dealing with the installation of and management of applications. There is a favourite apps button (to control what shows on the myzone page), an add/remove applications button, a repository manager button and another one which I cannot recall what it was for. I believe these should all have been merged under one common app for simplicity for the end user.
The final tab and feature is Moblin’s Zones. Zones are basically virtual desktops, each of which contains a single application – often with multiple windows for that app. The zones tab allows the user to see all your zones so you can switch between them easily. It’s like Mac OS X Expose or more accurately what happens when you click on the Spaces app in the dock. Generally this was really well done, with a smooth animation and effective app switching. I had a case where terminal launched in another app’s zone, and I found it difficult to manage, but other than that, this was a major benefit to keeping your window management clean.
Right off the bat I got my Twitter feed hooked up and my contacts imported through Google Sync, but that was the extent of what I could do easily. Sadly, the only sync protocol supported is SyncML, a supposedly outdated protocol. Google supports CalDAV for calendar syncing, but Moblin does not. I wound up having to sign up for a 3rd party service – GooSync to make it work, which I was not too pleased about. On the plus side, once I did so, data sharing worked quite smoothly.
A possible problem for many users stems from the fact that the founders, and many of the current developers of Moblin, are Intel employees. This meant that getting my Broadcom wireless card working was a struggle. That is, until I signed on to #moblin on Freenode and asked – my problem was greeted with an immediate response, linking me to this solution which worked great! My previous post here also consists of these steps. Since Ubuntu NR notified me that the Broadcom wifi driver it was using was not open source, I assume this is something the Moblin folks could also do, however chose not to, due to their Intel heritage. Hopefully we’ll see a change on this in the future, but for now, at least the workaround is available.
If there’s any one thing Moblin does really really well, it is notifications. MyZone easily shows you everything up-to-date with a quick glance. On top of that new instant messages appear in a neat black bubble that fades in quickly and instantly switches you to the zone with the message window when you click on it to reply.
Although pleasantly surprised by the efforts of the development team for Moblin with regards to its UI design, social media integration and overall ‘netbook experience’ intelligence, the bugs were enough to keep me from using it as my primary OS. I also found limited 3rd party app support since the core of Moblin is not truly Fedora compatible (although very loosely based on it). Once 3rd party app developers start writing Moblin plugins and the bugs and feature-oddities I mentioned above are worked out, Moblin will surely be a competent competitor to Jolicloud and Ubuntu Netbook Remix.
Windows 7
Windows 7, although a fully-fledged PC OS, also makes for a great netbook OS. It runs very well with only 1GB of memory and has a completely redesigned taskbar for better window and application management. Amazingly, the HP’s battery life while running Win7 was equal to that of Ubuntu NR and just under that of Moblin.
There are clearly many applications available for Windows 7, since the majority of Windows Vista apps work great with 7. My problem with the existing applications is that none of the ones I used seem to take advantage of Windows 7’s new taskbar notifications (that would be so very handy for a Twitter app). This includes Mozilla Prism, which would allow me to do exactly what Jolicloud does for webapps on Windows 7, albeit with a bit more work to set each app up. It would be great if I could load Facebook in Prism and have notification badges appear on the taskbar icon, but sadly I could not make this happen.
My second complain about Windows 7 applications is that they haven’t yet worked to make their system tray icons match that of the 7 icons – flat white and elegant. This attempt to unify the user experience is part of what makes me enjoy using Windows 7 so much. So much, that the OS surprises me with little features and subtle changes in features ranging from UAC to the new WiFi connection pane. Not to mention the big changes like the entire taskbar and performance improvements – including during file transfers.
Conclusions
I’m currently dual booting Windows 7 and Jolicloud and I am excited to try out Moblin again sometime in the near future to see how much progress they have made. I’ve found most of my time to be spent in Windows 7, perhaps because I really wanted to try the OS out in a limited resources environment, and perhaps because of the consistency of the new UI. I think I’ll await Jolicloud’s UI updates to the underlying Ubuntu NR before I start using it more.
If you’re looking for a beautiful UI throughout the OS and want basic functionality like notifications of calendar updates and Twitter feed integration with the OS, along with the potential for some of the best social media integration ever found in an OS, go with Moblin.
If you’re more of an enthusiast with a bit of Ubuntu (or any *nix) background, you might try out Ubuntu NetBook remix as you can add your own repos and switch to the standard Ubuntu desktop whenever you wish. You can also install pretty much any Linux app available with a simple apt-get command in terminal.
If you’re trapped in the middle between those types of users or you simply love the Facebook website, Twitter website and all your other useful web apps, then definitely sign up for Jolicloud.
If you want most of your existing Windows apps to work and don’t mind paying a bit for an OS, wait for Windows 7 final (and try any of the other ones out while you’re waiting). You’ll be pleasantly surprised with the changes from Vista and certainly overwhelmed by them if you’re coming from the (now) horrid Windows XP.
If you have any other operating systems specifically for netbooks that I should try or suggestions or corrections for my comments/complaints write it up in the comments!