Intel and Nokia Provide First MeeGo Release 115
wehe writes "The first fruit of the cooperation between Intel and Nokia is available: the first release of MeeGo. MeeGo is a merge of the former Maemo and Moblin Linux distros. What is available now is 'The MeeGo distribution infrastructure and the operating system base from the Linux kernel to the OS infrastructure up to the middleware layer. The MeeGo architecture is based on a common core across the different usage models, such as netbooks, handheld, in-vehicle, and connected TV.' The images available now for download are suitable for Intel Atom-based netbooks, ARM-based Nokia N900, and Intel Atom-based handset (Moorestown). RPM repositories as well as git source repositories are there for download, too."
Disappointing (Score:2, Interesting)
I am quite saddened that this new system will not be Debian-based. One of the little joys of my n900 is that it is Debian underneath. I cannot imagine that switching to a Fedora base will make anything better, and I expect it will make many things worse.
No Intel GMA500 / Poulsbo Support? (Score:4, Interesting)
Half the available netbooks are running the GMA500 / Poulsbo and there hasn't been any support by Intel for Linux drivers since 2008. How can they claim MeeGo will support netbook and MID hardware without accelerated video drivers for their own product?
Re:Disappointing (Score:4, Interesting)
Most people who care seem to share your opinion. I'm a little upset about it too, but remember that the original Maemo system wasn't "quite" Debian based -- you couldn't just apt-get whatever you wanted. There were some incompatibilities with the standard Debian repos. That's why they had the easy-debian-chroot package, and that was what I really loved about Maemo. To be honest, I don't care a whole lot whether the Application Manager is a frontend to apt or yum. As long as I have my easy-deb-chroot, I'll be happy :)
Nokia is the biggest hardware company out there that I think really "gets it". So I'm still taking a position of cautious optimism.
Ethan
Encouraging (Score:3, Interesting)
And thank goodness, I say. One of the little disappointments of my little N900 is that it uses debian packaging system, and I can't even tell what date which packages were installed.
Re:No Intel GMA500 / Poulsbo Support? (Score:4, Interesting)
Word... I'd love to throw these little mouse-sized computers [fit-pc.com] at everything for work, but can't really use their binary driver packages that can only really be shoehorned in to a particular ubuntu release.
Had to go with a mini-itx nVidia ION platform instead... which admittedly has much better performance and driver support, but is ~8 times the size and thus actually needs space and mounting hardware allocated for it. I wish some manufacturer would sell the nano-itx ION reference platform [fit-pc.com] (hint hint easy money)... that was almost as small as a Fit-PC2 and had all the interfaces we wanted. But blargh.
Re:Encouraging (Score:3, Interesting)
Portage is even more advanced. And I don’t even talk about Paludis.
I don’t get why people still love to live in dependency hell (or DLL hell)...
Change for the sake of change (Score:3, Interesting)
The concept of joining the efforts and creating MeeGo is a very good one, but the details that have been announced are not encouraging. Mameo was a mature shipping product with many developers. Moblin was a proof of concept with some interesting ideas. And yet in all the mundane details they seemed to favor what Moblin was using rather than Mameo. Package management isn't a huge deal. Back in the day apt was better than rpm, now aptitude and yum are pretty comparable, with only minor advantages and disadvantages. So why change which they are using for no compelling reason? Why would they choose the convenience of Intel over the convenience of an established developer and user community? It makes no sense whatsoever.