Ulteo

Ulteo is an operating system project for desktops and laptops mostly based on Linux that benefits from web services. Ulteo is exploring new concepts such as mobility, and therefore can be seen as an exploratory project.

Ulteo

Company / developer	Ulteo SAS
OS family	Linux
Working state	Current
Source model	Free and open source software
Latest stable release	Virtual Desktop 1.0 Beta1/ Template:Release date (Virtual Desktop 1.0Beta1)
Available language(s)	Multilingual (more than 55)
Update method	Yuch
Package manager	none
Supported platforms	i386
Kernel type	Monolithic (Linux)
Default user interface	KDE
License	Various
Website	www.ulteo.com

Release History

Ulteo's first release was on December 7, 2006, with the Ulteo Application System alpha (Sirius) which began as a fork of the Ubuntu Linux project.

During the end of 2007 Ulteo then progressively released to beta testers a first version of the Ulteo Online Desktop that runs within a web browser.

Ulteo's second release of the Application System (Ulteo Application System Sirius Beta1) occurred on March 17, 2008 and offered a connection with the Ulteo Online Desktop that was progressively opened to the public during the beginning of 2008.

Ulteo's Virtual Desktop (Ulteo Virtual Desktop Beta1) that installs and run on Windows was released on May 19, 2008.

Features

Application System

Ulteo's provides users an operating system based on Linux, applications and storage capabilities that can be used from different places, assuming that an Internet access is available.

A user can have Ulteo installed on his PC with the Ulteo Application System, and at the same time, he can retrieve his Ulteo environment, including applications and data in a web browser, with the Ulteo Online Desktop. All the Ulteo components are inter-connected through the network and talk to each others.

Synchronization of users data happens through a replication and differential mechanism that occurs over Internet, between local installed instances of Ulteo and the Ulteo Online Desktop. The synchronization process also handles the user's menu organization, bookmarks and instant messaging contacts.

Ulteo Application System has also introduced a special mechanism that makes it fully and automatically upgradeable from Internet, not at package level, but as a whole.

Virtual Desktop

The Virtual Desktop is a virtualized version of Ulteo that installs and runs on Windows XP and Vista. Features are the same as the Application system. The Virtual Desktop is using the coLinux Linux kernel, thus avoiding the need to run a virtualization engine such as VMware, Virtualbox or QEmu.

Online Desktop

The Online Desktop is a version of Ulteo that can be accessed with a web browser. It offers most of the features that are already available in the Virtual Desktop and the Application System.

Applications

So far, many Ulteo applications that ship with the system are either native Ubuntu Dapper packages, or backported packages from Ubuntu development version, or derived from Ubuntu package to handle Ulteo features.

Applications that ship with Ulteo include: Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org, Kopete

Multilingual

Ulteo Application System (beta1) fully or partially supports 89 languages.

System requirements

The Ulteo Application System needs a 32 bit Intel x86 based computer to run, with at least 512 MB RAM and 4GB of free hard-drive space.

The Ulteo Virtual Desktop needs [Windows]] XP or Vista.

The Ulteo Online Desktop needs a web-browser with Java enabled. Preferred web-browsers are Firefox 2, IE7.

Press reviews

Ulteo already benefited from several press articles and reviews in English and other languages.

Sources (external links)

• Ulteo website, all product features - Ulteo Website by Ulteo SAS
• Ulteo packages and other information about Ulteo - by Distrowatch
• Google - Google search engine