Before we get into this, for the sake of full disclosure, I will say that I am a 100% Windows user and I have no intention of moving to Linux. Having said that, I like to dabble in Linux just for... well... fun lol.

Anyway, my only experience of Linux so far was a brief try of Ubuntu 12.04. I quite liked it. Now I'm looking at Joli OS as a possible OS for an old Desktop PC I have and I was wondering if anyone here can give me any useful info on it and/or if you use it yourself and your experiences with it.

Also, considering Joli OS is a, shall we say, *semi* cloud based OS, is it still worth using if I don't happen to have internet access 24/7?

Lastly, I heard (from a random person) today that the Devs of Joli OS are no longer supporting it. However, the site is still fine, I can still download the ISO and it does seem to have been updated (to version 1.2.1) since the last time I looked at it. Can anyone shed some light on this please?

Any info anyone can give me on Joli OS or Linux in general (pertaining to my situation) would be very much appreciated. Thanks. :)

If I were you I would start with Linux Mint or Ubuntu.
Those are probably the 2 most user friendly (read beginner) versions available.

That's not to say they aren't good. They're awesome and probably give you the best experience out of the box.

LoL, I did not even know it existed. From very briefly looking at it, seems kind of like ChromeOS from Google. How useful these things are really depends on a user's needs. Seems like it has a live cd image. Make a bootable flash disk, stick it in the old machine and try it. See how it fits.

This handy-dandy tool should help you:

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/

Well, I can tell you that the developers are still kind of working on it, the latest version is 1.2.1, which is based on an old version of Ubuntu. Although the OS itself is quite old, updates are regular and everything works fine. The biggest change is that developers are focusing now on the Jolicloud desktop (an app that integrates your cloud/web services from your browser in any computer) instead of the Joli OS.

In previous versions of Joli OS the user interface actually ran inside of the Chromium web browser, and this version is no different. However, now the user interface of the whole system is exactly like the interface in the Jolicloud desktop. You can try this interface in Windows to see if you like it. The Joli OS interface is basically the same, although it also allows you to browse through your files, install programs, do some minor configuration of the system, etc, so you can definitely use it offline.

However, I don't know if it's a good idea to use it for an old computer, it depends on how old. I was using it before on my netbook (Acer Aspire AOD260) and it was very fast, much faster than Windows 7 and than most Linux distros I tried. However now with the new interface it became slower even if it looks nicer, so I switched to Lubuntu and I'm very happy with it. I'm also not a 100% Linux user, I basically just use it in my netbook because Windows sucks in netbooks.

So my recommendation is if you like the Jolicloud desktop and yout computer can handle it, then go for Joli OS, if not, try Lubuntu or Xubuntu, both are very fast and very easy to use for non Linux users.

You'll have an easier time getting help with popular distros.

Ubuntu
Debian
Linux Mint (I strongly recommend the pure Debian or the MATE versions)

Most of these have the ability to handle cloud stuff and you can easily "try before you buy".

Distrowatch is a great site for information on the different linux distros: http://distrowatch.com/

I like Mint and Lubuntu the best, they are the most user friendly.

If I were you I would experiment on Virtualbox https://www.virtualbox.org/ or booting the distro up on a live CD or USB drive (assuming the distro allows for live bootup) to see if it works for you since everybody has their own way they like to compute. You may have to change the boot order in the bios before it'll boot into it if you try the live medium.

Thanks for the info everyone. I actually installed Joli OS on my old desktop (2.4Ghz Pentium 4, 1GB RAM, Geforce 2) just last night and I have to say, I was pretty impressed with it. It runs pretty well, it's sluggish with the horizontal scrolling on the menus but that's the only issue I noticed in my brief time with it.

It played vids (with VLC) from a flash drive of mine without any problems. It picked up the sound card fine and my USB headset worked fine aswell.

All in all, I liked using it. So much so in fact that I'm considering also installing it on my netbook as a dual boot with Windows XP (XP runs fine on my netbook). However, the potential slowness mentioned by kavernicolito is giving me second thoughts. Also, I'm worried that the WiFi on my netbook won't work.

I'm also now tempted to try Mint and/or Ubuntu, Lubuntu or Xubuntu. Hmm.

Mint is niceness. I used it last time I had Linux on a laptop. Simple install, great hardware support, all the basic apps you need, etc. For general purpose web access, mail, etc. on a secondary machine it's great.

Ok, I'm going to install Lubuntu 12.10 on the desktop and see how that goes. Then I'm probably gonna check out Linux Mint 14 after that. Then I'll decide on one. :)

UPDATE: Well, couldn't install Lubuntu 12.10. It kept hanging on the "preparing to install" window after clicking continue.

Therefore, I installed Linux Mint 14 instead. It installed fine and I have to say, I really like it, in fact, I'm on it now as I post this. I noticed when idol it was only using 200mb of RAM. Therefore, I'm really tempted to install it on my netbook aswell. Is that a good idea?