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Intel Handhelds Software Hardware Linux

Intel Launches Mobile Linux Project 68

An anonymous reader writes "Intel has unveiled an ambitious project aimed at developing open source software for mobile devices. The Moblin project comprises a Linux kernel, UI framework, browser, multimedia framework, and embedded Linux image creation tools, along with developer resources such as documentation, mailing lists, and an IRC channel. Intel says it hopes Moblin will serve as a 'point of integration' for multiple sub-projects, and appears eager to see devices such as its Mobile Internet Device design, and chipsets such as its Ultra Mobile Platform 2007 platform, be thoroughly supported by Linux. Although all of the projects currently focus on the Intel architecture, Moblin says it is open to hosting support for other processor architectures."
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Intel Launches Mobile Linux Project

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  • You can tell Intel is sincere because they've followed the Linux naming convention... and come up with one that sucks :P

  • by jrumney ( 197329 ) on Tuesday July 17, 2007 @08:16AM (#19886101)
    With Nokia already backing Maemo [maemo.org] based on GTK, and Trolltech's Qtopia [trolltech.com] based on Qt, what perceived need did Intel have for starting a new project to develop a mobile UI rather than joining an existing effort? Vendor specific fragmentation is just going to result in duplicated effort.
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by ouchiko ( 945605 )
      So typical in the mobile scene that everyone has to develop a new way.
    • by disasm ( 973689 )
      This is capitalism, the more venues the better. Probably the most obvious answer to this is Intel didn't like what it saw in the other projects, had an idea of what they wanted, and ran with it.

      Sam
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      With Nokia already backing Maemo based on GTK, and Trolltech's Qtopia based on Qt, what perceived need did Intel have for starting a new project to develop a mobile UI rather than joining an existing effort?

      With HP backing Red Hat and IBM backing SuSE and Red Hat, why did Mark Shuttleworth start a new Linux distro, Ubuntu?

      Answer: because if other projects didn't fill the bill, the easiest way to get what you want is to start new one, rather than trying to wrangle with the politics of the existing ones.

    • by MrLizardo ( 264289 ) on Tuesday July 17, 2007 @08:48AM (#19886277) Journal
      I would encourage you to RTFA (either moblin.org or the linuxdevices article) where it talks about Intel using Hildon (the UI framework from Maemo). To me that looks like the biggest reusable chunk of open source code that Nokia has turned out so far. Much of the rest of Nokia's stuff is either off-the-shelf (the kernel, packaging system (apt+dpkg)) or closed source (media codecs, DSP code) or rather trivial (I don't think writing your own application launcher sidebar is really going to cause significant fracturing of the Linux userbase). There is lots of code reuse if you look for it a little deeper than in a slashdot summary...
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by LDoggg_ ( 659725 )
        "In another nod toward Nokia's 770 and N800 web tablets, the Intel/Red Flag MIDs will use the Matchbox window manager, alongside the proprietary Hildon UI and application framework."

        Not sure why the article called it proprietary. Hildon and maemo are open source. The proprietary part is the build that Nokia puts out(along with media streamers,codecs, skype, etc.) called "Internet Tablet 2007" for the N800 (IT2006 for the 770).
    • I see it as a way for them to get people into their chips. Buy our chips, we give you this custom designed Linux mobile OS.

      If it works it would suck for MS. Bonus. Windows Mobile is so outdated and MS has shown no signs of pushing out something new. Intel is offering more options in the mobile OS front. Never a bad thing. I guarantee their goal is somewhere in the area I mentioned, sell the hardware, give away some tailored software.

      I would think Slashdot would be all over it.
    • by RAMMS+EIN ( 578166 ) on Tuesday July 17, 2007 @01:03PM (#19889439) Homepage Journal
      ``what perceived need did Intel have for starting a new project to develop a mobile UI rather than joining an existing effort?''

      Have you heard of NIH? It was invented at Intel. Well, actually it wasn't, but they have their very own, similar but incompatible version of it.
  • by ookabooka ( 731013 ) on Tuesday July 17, 2007 @08:26AM (#19886155)
    What about OpenMoko [wikipedia.org]? An open source and open hardware cell phone slated for consumer release around October 2007. If Intel wanted to do something seems getting involved there would be a great place to start. Had they have gotten involved a bit sooner they could have probably convinced the developers to use intel hardware instead of what they are currently using (I believe it is samsung . . don't quote me on that though).
    • by Cyberax ( 705495 )
      Moblin is a software solution. I'm pretty sure it can be run on OpenMoko.
      • by Luctius ( 931144 )
        Openmoko is the software stack
        The Neo1973 is the hardware.
      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        The Neo phone OpenMoko is putting out is a Samsung processor, so no, it's unlikely that Moblin will work right now (though Intel did say that they'll host other architectures, I think somebody would have to port it first.)

        Not that I wouldn't highly appreciate a phone with a pentium 3 powering it. (And modular hardware so it can be forced to work with multiple carriers, the Neo kinda fails the open phone idea because of that (at least as far as I can tell, you cant add CDMA to it and get it to work with spr
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Benanov ( 583592 )
          (at least as far as I can tell, you cant add CDMA to it and get it to work with sprint/verizon/cricket)

          CDMA doesn't seem to be "open" hardware in the slightest, you need new firmware per carrier, at least that's what it seems like.

          You'd also be paying some high patent premiums for that hardware to Qualcomm.

          That and while it would be awesome in theory, most of those carriers (esp. Verizon) would rather lock everyone out of everything that doesn't use their network. It's going to take a lot of market force th
        • by Cyberax ( 705495 )
          I don't think it's possible to create a modular phone - it's too small. Components must be fitted very tight to make it practical.
    • All these projects can only be good. It means that corporations are actually serious about open phones.

      Each of the mentioned projects have different goals. This Intel project will support Intel hardware. The OpenMoko project on the other hand actually has a real phone that people can buy, which none of these other projects have.

      This is the good thing about open source. With each project doing its own thing, we'll see a lot more support and competition for mobile devices.

      As for me, I'm going to get the Neo19
    • What about OpenMoko?

      From the screenshots it looks like they are sort of targetting different devices. OpenMoko is trying to tackle the cellphone/PDA devices, providing a UI that appears to be in a similar vein to Symbian - e.g. each app runs full screen (which is the only sensible way to deal with cellphone sized devices). On the other hand, this appears to look much more like a desktop system, with a fully fledged window manager offering multiple windows, etc. Which leads me to believe this is probably
    • by Jambon ( 880922 )
      Maybe they felt that having name that sounds like mucus in Spanish [wordreference.com] wasn't for them (Yes, I know this has been mentioned before [slashdot.org], but I still can't get over it. The US has a large Latin population, and I think they're shooting themselves in the foot with that name).
  • by Gothmolly ( 148874 ) on Tuesday July 17, 2007 @08:35AM (#19886211)
    I hope this at least builds on the successes of OS distributions for devices like the Linksys NSLU2, the WRT54G, and the Sharp Zaurus series. These people have stable and tested toolchains, build practices, entire organizations set up around managing and maintaining Linux on these devices.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by MrLizardo ( 264289 )
      I am a fan of both OpenWRT and Angstrom (formerly OpenZaurus) and have on more than one occasion used OpneEmbedded to build packages and whole binary distributions for my Zauruses (Zaurii?). Having said that I don't think that OpenEmbedded is really applicable in this case. OE's big focus is on making cross compiling less painful and on offering a more fine grained approach to the creation of binary packages. Since Intel's UMPC platform doesn't need to be cross compiled for (it's plain x86) and since it has
    • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 17, 2007 @10:30AM (#19887133)
      As a guy who works for Intel (@ another embedded project), I can say that they take very good care to insure their toolchains are solid and that the codebases are well maintained for the embedded gear they sell.

      I have my own obvious personal bias, yes, but I have seen and helped them build and maintain codebases and dev kits for other chipsets. As long as people use it, they will maintain it.

      I can also say that overall, there is a HUGE shift to Linux as their development base, coming at great cost to WinCE/Windows Mobile.

      (posted anon for obvious reasons).

    • Hopefully this will get new drivers written that utilize the latest kernel's new wireless architecture... that would be good for everyone
  • Moblin? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Zero_DgZ ( 1047348 )
    Moblin? As in these guys? [ffshrine.org]
  • Wow! Must be good...
  • by muszek ( 882567 ) on Tuesday July 17, 2007 @09:22AM (#19886541) Homepage
    hmmmm... when Matt Zimmerman announced [ubuntu.com] Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded Edition, he was delighted to be working with Intel on this version of Ubuntu. Is there really a reason to create a separate project?
  • # Browser -- based on Mozilla, but with a finger-driven UI and Hildon integration.
    Gads I hope they contribute this back, as the version of Opera that comes with the N800 bites small rocks - it doesn't play nice with Google Maps (things like the route dragging and street level view don't work), and will NOT work at all with AAA's TripTiks.

    • by yani ( 50270 )
      Try Minimo, and if you are using google maps you might as well use Maemo Mapper anyway.
    • Intel makes money selling CPUs and flash memory -- of course they're going to choose Mozilla over Opera.
    • To be honest i don't think the actual structure of the O/S is of interest other than in engineering/reliability terms. What to me would matter in a Linux web device is the browser, as Opera (as referenced above) doesn't yet play nicely with some "Web 2.0" AJAX websites (Google Maps, Google Docs & Spreadsheets).

      It's a fact that no matter how good Opera is at some applications, web sites are often designed with Firefox & IE in mind as target browsers. While this is in many cases symptomatic of bad
    • Shortly after this story was published and I posted, the Maemo development team announced a replacement browser package for the N800, based upon Mozilla. This may even be what Intel is working on as well, I don't know.

      So, this is a case of "Ask and ye shall receive." Kudos to both the Nokia team and the Intel team.
  • Intel Launches Mobile Linux Project

    And here I thought I was going to read about Intel programming on Linux while driving. Or better yet, putting linux on cars!
  • Intel's Grand Plan (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Gals and Guys,

    I've see the question, "Why doesn't 'Intel' use one of the existing projects?" Well, 'Intel' hasn't started any project.

    Some guys at Intel, in some group, in a division, did it. It served their purpose, probably for board-set, or platform verification reasons. Some jazzed engineers suggested the project be formalized, and a good manager, decided no to get in the way.

    How do I know this? Let's just say, it is an educated guess.

    I have seen so many posts about 'Intel' decided, or AMD decided,
  • Lest they be kidnapped by moblins...
  • So far I have seen lots of projects about embedded Linux, but few about hardware. While I saw that they will be using parts of the Maemo project code, and of course the Linux kernel, there is little on what they will be doing to support hardware projects.

    I'm wondering when someone is going to release the hardware for me to use. Not all bundled up in a package like the iPhone Linux wanna be that was mentioned on /. a few days ago, but a hardware component package. More like inexpensive pico-itx type devi

  • Kind of like Goblin but for Mobile.

    Is there some kind of secret rule that ties OSS projects to terrible naming? Maybe like a blood pact or something?
  • Rather than using a Linux kernel massaged into something suitable for a mobile platform, why not create a kernel and OS designed from the ground up to meet the needs of the mobile platform. I guess "linux" is becoming more of a brand name than a specific thing.

IF I HAD A MINE SHAFT, I don't think I would just abandon it. There's got to be a better way. -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988.

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