Ulteo is a new user-friendly Linux project started by Gael Duval after he was laid off by the Paris, France-based company in March as part of cost-cutting measures. The project is designed to reduce the need for Linux users to perform tasks such as installation, administration, and maintenance.
With Ulteo, Duval appears to be taking a software appliance approach to Linux, maintaining that the operating system and applications should be delivered as an application system that is stable and automatically upgraded, requires minimal administration, and expands application availability.
The first alpha version of the code, known as Sirius, focuses on the first of these three targets, according to the Ulteo project. In keeping with the plan to reduce administration, every time a network connection is available, the Ulteo system will check for updates and upgrade itself via the Ulteo General Daemon.
The Ulteo project is based on elements of the Debian and Ubuntu distributions and is based on version 2.6.15 of the Linux kernel. It also includes the KDE desktop, OpenOffice, Firefox, and Thunderbird, among other open source applications.
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