Moblin 2.0 Released, Intel's Linux For Netbooks 142
eldavojohn writes "Yesterday, Moblin, the joint OS project between Novell and Intel, was released as V2.0 Beta for netbooks with the image available for download. We've talked about Moblin before, but Computer World has an article speculating this is Intel's direct affront to Microsoft's Windows 7 by pointing out that Moblin is designed to optimally use Intel's Atom Processor and smaller screens so popular with netbooks. Windows 7's netbook competition doesn't stop there, as GoodOS's gOS3 Gadgets and Canonical's Ubuntu Netbook Remix are being designed to also take advantage of Intel's Atom, especially from a UI perspective. Ars has a look at Moblin's rich new UI as well. Back in April, Intel said it would support Windows 7 on the Atom later this year, and Intel also says Windows 7 is a good choice for Intel's netbooks, so it doesn't look like they're intentionally burning any bridges between them and Redmond."
Re:Another typical Slashdot microsoft bash. (Score:5, Informative)
Yep. I didn't upvote this in the FireHose because it seemed to be just a collection of "Intel makes something".
Ars Technica [arstechnica.com] has a descriptive hands-on preview. Much more useful.
Re:My preecioooous! (Score:2, Informative)
"A goblin is an imaginary evil, crabby, and mischievous creature described as a grotesquely disfigured or gnome-like phantom, that may range in height from that of a dwarf to that of a human. "
Download speed (Score:3, Informative)
Or shall I say download slowness:
2.8 of 666 MB (3.8 KB/sec) 2 days, 1 hour remaining.
Not to mention that they mention a VMWare image on a page, link to the download page and no VMWare image can be found there.
As the Unedited Submitter ... (Score:5, Informative)
How about a summary that describes the new Moblin release (what the post is ostensibly about), rather than focusing on the competition against Win7? How about being FOR something (Moblin in this case), rather than always being against Microsoft?
I'm no fan of Microsoft, but seriously, the one-note, constant Microsoft bashing on this site is getting old.
Well, it's edited pretty much how it's submitted so I'll take full responsibility for this one.
... we really do need to shake that image at least a little bit to be taken seriously.
I guess I'm confused though. I didn't seem to think my summary was pro or anti Microsoft--merely focusing on what else is out there besides Windows 7 for netbooks and pointing out that Intel may have an unfair advantage in this department. If anything, I was hoping for discourse containing thoughtful comments about Intel's upper hand in pointing Novell in the correct direction for optimally using the chips/chipset/gpu in these hardware devices surrounding the Atom process.
When I looked for other stories to reference this one to [google.com], I found 10 or more talking about Windows 7 on the netbook and one talking about Moblin (the on linked in the story). I'm sorry for not continuing the trend of talking about Windows 7 and am disappointed you think my submission was a veiled attempt to attack Microsoft. I am anti-Microsoft but I try to keep that relegated to my posts down here instead of in the summary.
Specifically what did I write that was offensive to you? I also found the title of the Computerworld article to be speculation but the actual text to have level headed statements from Intel (something I tried to reflect in the summary). I guess I failed and I apologize for making Slashdot seem so biased
cooperation between Intel and linux?!? (Score:5, Informative)
So, it's more than just that Intel is releasing this. It's Intel, working with the Linux Foundation in an attempt to create a new standard. Isn't this pretty much the ideal case for we've been asking for in open source? A propietary hardware manufacturer working with an open source consortium to create and release open source software. I'll view this collaboration as successful if we start seeing netbooks for sale from major OEMs with this OS installed.
Oh, and some other random stuff I saw that I liked:
-standard X11 window server and can run most linux apps
-the clutter organizational scheme looks intriguing but I'd have to use it for awhile before I could tell you if I liked it or not.
-It's using the gecko HTML rendering engine. What's interesting here is it is not using webkit.
-Lastly, I'd like to see something on how well the wireless network device works and changing networks. The article was a bit short on this aspect. Has anybody used it? How is it?
Re:Download speed (Score:5, Informative)
But there are torrents... [google.com]
Re:Duh. (Score:1, Informative)
Actually it is quite relevant. It's a comment on the fact that winXP resists being slimmed down, while never the less being MS's best system for the types of devices we are talking about. Which is to say, XP is not optimized for netbooks. Thus the post is relevant both to the GP and to the topic in general.
Only it was expressed as a joke that went over your head.
netbook opportunity squandered (Score:4, Informative)
When the eee PC came out, Linux had a big opportunity. Unfortunately, Asus completely blew the details of the implementation. They picked a sucky distro, and they did a lousy job on quality control and integration. My wife uses linux on the desktop, and when she saw the eee at Target for $280 she asked me to get her one for her birthday. The model they were selling at Target was out of date and not very good, so I ordered a fancier model on amazon for $400. It came with its wifi misconfigured, and Asus tech support told me they couldn't fix it, and I'd have to return it. This was a few months ago. Yesterday I was making a trip to Fry's, so my wife suggested I just buy one while I was there. Well, Fry's is now selling the eee only with Windows, and Amazon's site also doesn't have the linux version available. AFAICT retailers were just getting too many returns of the linux ones. You can pretty much tell what was going on based on the amazon reviews. Some, like mine, were being shipped misconfigured. In other cases, you had people buying the linux version and not understanding that it wasn't windows. And in still other cases, people were buying them with linux and then trying to install a (presumably illegal) copy of Windows, and failing. (None of this is new, either. All this stuff happened in the past with the Great Quality linux boxes they used to sell at Fry's. The hardware was in fact great quality, but Fry's was getting too many returns, so they stopped carrying them.)
I think the basic problem here is that it's expensive and difficult to do a good job integrating hardware and software for a consumer computer. That's the kind of thing Apple is famous for doing well. Apple puts a lot of money and effort into it, and they charge for it when you buy a mac. I just don't see how anyone is going to do anything like that in the netbook market, which is an ultra-low-margin market. It would have been especially difficult for East Asian manufacturers like Asus and Great Quality, which have a language barrier to deal with. (At one point, Great Quality was shipping their machines with a linux distro that didn't even have an English-language web site.)
Meanwhile, MS can afford to do what it takes to maintain dominance in all sectors of the market. MS doesn't even have to do a good job on netbooks. They just have to avoid doing such a horrible job that it becomes painfully obvious to people who have never used anything but Windows before. It's possible that ARM-based netbooks will change the equation, but I wouldn't be surprised if MS jumps in and starts competing vigorously on ARM, simply to maintain their monopoly.
Re:Duh. (Score:3, Informative)
winXP resists being slimmed down
Meanwhile, there's GeeXboX [geexbox.org], a whopping 20 Mb livecd, fully functional as a media center.
Re:As the Unedited Submitter ... (Score:3, Informative)
I see it less as antagonistic, and more of "Why even mention Microsoft at all?" The summary comes across as an analysis of Moblin as compared to Windows 7 (and a larger overview of how Windows 7 fits in to the future of netbook OSes) instead of just saying,
"Hey, look, Intel released a new OS for netbooks. Take a look."
Which would've been much more to the point.
Re:Very promising (Score:3, Informative)
Currently it's worth avoiding netbooks that have the following hardware:
1. Intel GMA500 aka Poulsbo graphics chipsets. There is no FOSS driver for these. That's because there's a PowerVR core in them. The Fedora Project's Adam Williamson seems [fedoraproject.org] to have found some partial drivers hidden away in a quiet little Ubuntu repository where they were dumped by the Intel team. But success seems partial. So for now avoid anything with GMA500.
2. Broadcom wireless. Again avoid these Broadcom 4322 like the fscking plague. Dan Williams (again a Red Hat / Fedora person) has a fairly scathing [gnome.org] take on them based on his experiences of trying to get suspend/resume and wireless to work consistently.
3. Elantech touchpads. Bastien Nocera (what is it with all those Red Hat people, don't they like closed-source binary drivers?) may have had some success at wringing some code out of Ubuntu and Intel people [hadess.net] to share with the rest of us, but it still seems uncertain.
4. CPU. The Intel Z-series draw less power [linuxdevices.com] than the N-series apparently.
5. RAM expansion. Lots of the netbooks have a single, soldered slot. So if you like being stuck with 1GB of RAM while you try to run OpenOffice.org-3 then go ahead, have fun.
So, the bottom line is that the Dell Mini 10v might be OK as regards the graphics (it's GMA950) which in turn means that it doesn't do HDMI and has an unfortunately lower vertical resolution than the Mini10v, but the wireless sucks and the touchpad probably sucks, the RAM is fixed too low.
Looking at the HP Mini 1000s its difficult to tell what wireless they use. Graphics are GMA950 [hp.com] unlike the older HP2133 which used Chrome9 graphics chipsets for which VIA has failed to release FOSS drivers.
Seems like a lot of the netbook producers (even those such as Intel, Dell and Ubuntu that pay lipservice to "Open Source") are having a hard time being honest and straightforward with us.
Re:It's the apps. (Score:3, Informative)
The Linux world is fractured, meaning that a single binary will only work on a small fraction of all Linux distros.
But with Linux, the distro usually comes with comes with all the applications you can eat, either on disc or in the online repositories. This is the preferred way for non-techies to get their apps (whereas no true slashdotter would install a binary package when they could roll their own tarball instead).
Punters need to be told this, not "oh, er, well we do Windows as well if you like".
Because most of the popular applications are Free, the application publisher doesn't have to support every distro and architecture - that can be sorted out downstream.
If someone was serious about investing in shifting Linux boxen, it is perfectly feasible for them to add their own application repository to fill any gaps or omissions in the distro repository (something that would be unthinkable with closed source). Asus started to do this with the EEEPC, but didn't exactly throw their heart and soul into into it once they started offering XP.
I completely agree that Linux could do with a unified installer for the exceptions to this rule, and make things easier for people who did want to sell non-free software. There are things like Autopackage - but I haven't used it enough to know whether its good. Its not as if this sort of thing has to support more that the top 3 or 4 "click'n'drool" distros.