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."
Very promising (Score:5, Interesting)
I looked at the screenshots, and this looks really cool. They've put a lot of thought into the GUI, which is not only designed for netbooks and small screens, but touch screens as well.
Moblin is also totally open source, meaning that they won't charge for it and they'll get contributions from the larger open source community.
Unless Microsoft has some secret feature in Windows 7 designed for netbooks that nobody's heard of, then Linux could reclaim the lead in netbook OS's. If somebody ports Moblin to ARM, then Microsoft is in even bigger trouble.
Re:Another typical Slashdot microsoft bash. (Score:1, Interesting)
It's easy to spot MS shills. Most of the time they say something like that.
"I'm no fan of MS, but.." or
"I'll play the devil's advocate.." or
"I hate MS as much as the next guy, but.."
-N.S.Sherlock
Re:Very promising (Score:4, Interesting)
It's clear they did put a lot of effort in designing the UI. We've got a couple netbooks around the office and I'm tempted to try it out. But from another review, the reviewer noted that it's not packaged with binary drivers. So if you are stuck with certain Wifi cards it may suffer the same pain in the ass that linux generally does: having to track down a damned driver.
That being said, using it with a netbook preloaded with Mobilin where all the hardware is designed to work with linux from the get go....it's worth considering.
Re:Duh. (Score:2, Interesting)
I my self have learned to tell if I am using a quality OS by whether it installs a video editor (whether you want it or not) and has a dedicated system process watch over it and put it back in case you delete it.
Some Linux OS's come with video editors, but unfortunately an admin can still uninstall it. I say Linux has a way to go before being ready for the general user. ;)
Re:How, exactly (Score:5, Interesting)
Bypass all of the useless Web 2.0 Flash/Java/AJAX pushed by their marketing department:
www.dilbert.com/fast/
Seriously, if there's one website that should know better than to listen to their marketing department, it's Dilbert.com
Re:Very promising (Score:3, Interesting)
as for arm? don't count your chickens just yet. linux had a wide base of netbooks in the beginning and it faltered. was the fault that of the netbooks that are still being sold now with winxp or of linux? use a little brain power here and you'll come to a conclusion.
Linux still holds a greater share of the netbook market than it does the traditional desktop market. The fact that even after Windows was available on these netbooks they couldn't secure the same market share tells me that people find Linux more suitable on netbooks than they do on desktops, or windows less so (or both).
my prediction is that arm comes out gang busters and dies quickly into a niche market grave. how many technologies have you've seen with this kind of traction that end up going no where due to lack of software support?
ARM will be a niche market as long as Linux is a niche market. However, if Linux becomes a significant player in netbooks, then so can ARM, because all the same software support will exist.
Re:Very promising (Score:3, Interesting)
FOSS drivers are only available for GMA945, GMA950 chipsets in current notebooks. Anything with the GMA500 may or may not work with some hard-to-get-ahold-of proprietary blobs. See my post abopve. It sucks. Intel have made a good name for themselves in the past with Freeing their drivers but this GMA500 thing is muddying the market and causing uncertainty. In the past I would have felt happy that choosing Intel was going to mean FOSS drivers but now I'd think twice before recommending them or purchasing them.
Re:cooperation between Intel and linux?!? (Score:4, Interesting)
I used the alpha. I am about to install it to my netbook's hard drive; hopefully it provides a way to upgrade. I would presume the answer is yes, but it's pretty rough.
I kind of like XFCE, though. I hope this UI can be disabled easily. The second important note is whether (since this is Fedora-based) the Fedora repos can be enabled without making the computer do bad crashy things.
The other point that the summary neglected to mention is that this project is the first real implementation of Arjan Van De Ven's work on fast booting. He's the guy that made his Eee boot in five seconds. [lwn.net] Moblin can be expected to boot fast, which I think is necessary if we're going to recategorize netbooks from 'underpowered miniature laptop' to 'powerful internet appliance'.
A friend of mine bought a macbook a few months ago because she needed a computer that was extremely simple and user-friendly. Macs are somewhat better in that regard than PCs, but the computer is still pretty incomprehensible to her. This new UI is probably not for the slashdot crowd (anyone who can tell you why it's important that Moblin has a (relatively) standard Xorg server is not really the intended audience), but I think for the common Joe or Jocelyn it's perfect. Especially if you were ever wanting to make a $100 netbook...if the price point is sufficiently low to the point where it's clear you're not buying a Real Computer, and stick this UI on it, you can both set new expectations for what the device is supposed to do and sell a lot of toys to people that don't really have any use for a Real Computer.
Random points:
Webcam support is essential.
The social networking pane needs to be Facebook, not Twitter.
um, End of Line?
competive netbook OSs? (Score:3, Interesting)
IMO, Intel's efforts would be better spent building drivers for Open Source distros so that more netbooks will run straight out of the box with Open Source installed, and pushing vendors to install conventional desktop UIs rather than "netbook UIs".
Smartphones don't have that problem because people don't have fixed expectations as to what a smartphone desktop ought to look like, it just has to be easy to use and mildly extensible.
That said, I'm running Kubuntu Jaunty 'right out of the box' on my Eee PC900 (and yes, that's a 900MHz computer with the original 1G DRAM) . . . without concern about my warranty because it lives on an SDHC flash card sitting in the internal card reader. Looks great, works well, and it's a standard KDE4.2.2 desktop.
Find out how here [informit.com]. Just Part 1, the tweaks needed for Ubuntu-Intrepid described in Part II are not needed with the new Kubuntu. If you don't have an Eee PC900, make sure Kubuntu-Jaunty has the drivers required to support your netbook or you know where to get them first. Google is your friend.
Oh dear not more Linux (Score:2, Interesting)
I really wanted to have Linux on my Acer Aspire One but the struggle was just too much. I spent days then gave up with Linpus, then tried again unsuccessfully with eeebuntu. It's now got Windows 7 and runs fine.
Is it too much to want to close the lid on a netbook and then everything to come back again when I open it? And to get a bluetooth 3G modem connection without huge messing about?