Nokia, Intel Merge Maemo, Moblin Into MeeGo

AVee writes "Intel and Nokia just announced a new project called MeeGo. MeeGo is supposed to be the result of merging Maemo and Moblin, bringing together the best pieces of those (already quite similar platforms). Interestingly this means that Intel will be sponsoring a mobile Linux distro which will run on ARM."

Re:Next version of the n900?

[r_jensen11]

Meego's website lists netbooks, pocketables, in-vehicle, connected TV and Media Phone, so it looks like they're looking at a much broader population than Android is

Re:Funny names

[Rexdude]

More like a Mi-Go [wikimedia.org]

Re:Package management

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a mistake. GTK is crap aesthetically, codewise AND from a documentation point of view. They should have concentrated on Qt for the professionals, and left GTK to rot with the "community".

Re:Name?

[Hurricane78]

Still better than the other way around:

Maggot.
The mobile OS from Yugo. ^^

Re:Package management

[diegocg]

It's really a problem? I mean, package wars are so 1999. I recently switched to a RPM based distro after 9 years using and loving APT. And while there're differences (some advantages, some disadvantages), these days they're pretty much the same thing. I'm using KDE 4.4 from Fedora rawhide in my Fedora 13 base system, just as I would have done in Ubuntu. There're things far more important in this merge than using RPM instead of DEB. Like, for example, focusing on QT instead of Clutter.

Gtk RIP?

[perrin]

Both Maemo and Moblin started off Gtk-based, using the Clutter toolkit on top of Gtk. Now both have switched over to Qt. Are there any other serious users of Clutter left?

I hear lots of projects starting with or switching to Qt these days, and none that switch to or start with Gtk. Having programmed in both Gtk and Qt, I have to say I understand why. Qt is hands down the better and more elegant toolkit, despite my preference for C over C++. Qt also makes it easier than Gtk to port between Linux, Mac and Windows. Gtk on the other hand is stuck with a horrible dependency hell that prevents using it for anything serious on non-Linux platforms.

I think the way forward for Linux on the desktop is to standardize on one GUI toolkit, and there is no doubt that this toolkit would have to be Qt. It is a bit sad, because I always like Gnome better than KDE, and I see no easy way for Gnome to convert over to Qt.

Good move

[bill_mcgonigle]

I was recently worried they'd both wither on the vine trying to compete against Android and filling almost exactly the same space. Thus I was thinking I'd have to base a project on ChromeOS, which seemed strategically foolish (at least Nokia and Intel will have divergent interests to keep development focused on solving problems well in the abstract, rather than quick-n-dirty tangents a single vendor can accept).

Especially if they stay with the mainline kernel, which Google isn't interested in doing, together Intel and Nokia are going to be much more successful than competing poorly against each other and Google.

So, here's one developer's intent to go this way rather than Android (for a non-phone project). Congrats to the adults in both camps.

Re:Gtk RIP?

[segedunum]

I was playing out with Qt and Qt Creator recently and the framework is very accessible and cross-platform, while GTK+ is somewhat more of a hassle to port.

Unfortunately, GTK is a huge panopoly of multiple dependencies that simply haven't got easier to package up over the years, and in many ways have got worse. It's cross-platform support is also pretty terrible as a result, especially when it comes to Windows and Mac but for embedded devices I would imagine the pain and maintenance would be worse. Sad, but true unfortunately.

I want a desktop that works on installation, not one where I have to tweak around for two weeks to get it do something. Also the options that pop up everywhere, the atrocious control panel and several other things are just horrible.

I just wonder why people post third, fourth or fifth hand 'information' from people who know very little as fact. That's like saying you can't do anything with Windows for two weeks because you have to install Office, a DVD player and a dozen other things............and you don't have to do those things with your average Linux distribution these days, apart from the DVD stuff, but there are ways and means. No one has any trouble sitting down to a KDE desktop and starting work. Perhaps you can enlighten us all?

Also when tweaked right (with some compiz magic) I can improve my application interaction productivity very much (application switching mapping to mouse, multiple desktop control with mouse, etc.) that are just not there in an evident way in KDE.

Well, Kwin provides a lot of options for stuff like that, but..........what I find amusing is that you're having a go at KDE because you think it takes you two weeks to configure things and you're then switching the whole thing around in the very next paragraph because KDE doesn't provide the configuration you want? Uh huh.

Never mind the fact that it still looks ugly and very clumsy.

Uh, huh. Alas, repeating something does not make it true I'm afraid. If you put KDE nest to Gnome, and next to the serious proprietary competitors like Vista, 7 and OS X, then you can only see one open source desktop competitor on the ugliness front. You might find things ugly as do others, but the aesthetics of desktop environments are moving on regardless.

Re:Interesting...

[segedunum]

I think it's more of a case of cutting down on maintenance and reducing fragmentation. You could potentially run Moblin or any piece of software that runs on Linux on Arm by recompiling anyway, so it makes very little difference.