Alpha version of Intel's Moblin OS released for brave netbookers
By Tim Stevens 
posted January 30th 2009 8:36AM
posted January 30th 2009 8:36AM
[Via Ars Technica]
posted January 30th 2009 8:36AM
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I think you'll find that a moblin is a baddie from the zelda games.
An octorok could kick a moblin's heinie any dang day!
I always found Darknuts to be the most vexing of the standard enemy.
The Moblin OS from Intel... it's Ganon approved!
This distro is horrible. I tried it out last night via Live-CD on my Eee PC 900HA. Can barely find any of the hardware. Wireless didn't work...
I realize this is an alpha release but, really... don't waste your time.
CrunchEee is better and way more stable. Finds all the hardware no problem. Plus it looks cooler.
geee isnt this exactly what the article said :)
well excuuuuse me, princess.
It reminds me of Canola 2 (http://openbossa.indt.org/canola2/using.html) for Maemo (http://www.maemo.org)
Canola is bloody awful. it forgets all my songs. even after it loaded them all the last time i opened it
I still don't get why that IM icon has only one arm. Someone please explain it to me.
Think of it in a 3D sense and the IM guy is standing at an angle, South-East angle perhaps. Look at the light reflecting on his shoulder it's sort of indicitive that the he other arm is also streched out but at an angle, and they simply didn't want to draw an outline around it.
Poor design if you ask me.
The icon is looking at the camera icon.... it isn't one arm it's pointy breasts.
Funny an OS from Intel reminds me more of Olestra than Canola.
(Olestra the fat substitute oil that caused discomfort and rectal leakage)
A netbook with out Wifi? Interesting.
It's just a book.
I am in desparate need of an OS similar to this one for my father's notebook -- he's a complete technophobe who averages about 50-100 viruses/trojans per month on any Windows install I've ever given him. I've even tried booting him into a VM, but he even managed to screw that up by infecting the files on the external hard drive! lol...
I installed gOS on his Dell Latitude 420 this week, but I'm afraid that even gOS may be too complicated for him to handle. The wbar sucks too... :(
I need an interface with big icons, like the ones pictured above. The only programs/icons he really needs are:
1. Firefox
2. VLC
3. Openoffice (Word, Excel, and ppt functionality)
4. Trashcan
5. Shortcuts to his Documents, Music, Videos, and Pictures folders.
That's it. No menu bar, no preferences/options... nothing else is needed beyond those 5 functions. It also needs to work with the Dell Latitude 420 hardware...
Any ideas?
yea tell him to quit going to porn sites and stop downloading hotchick.mpg.exe. net nanny could help....
Your father oughta lay off the porn torrents.
-jp
xubuntu?
http://www.canonical.com/projects/ubuntu/unr
Oh, and alternatively, Xfce's interface can be tweaked easily for your needs. Just have a normal panel at the top or bottom with a taskbar, clock, and tray. Then have a bigger, dock like panel on the other edge with the 4 or 5 launchers you need. I used to do something similar for my parents, but I had 5 big icon based menus for internet, office, media, games, and utilities. I used Arch, but Xubuntu would be easier if you need.
You can even adjust the right/left click desktop menus, or at least one of them.
is is ubuntu mid edition
ds
.
the idea and the layout of the Intel Moblin OS looks pretty close to MY idea and design of a (possible) Google GoOS suggested/published FIVE months ago on my GoOS blog (and posted on several IT forums and blogs around the world)
http://newgoos.blogspot.com/2008/09/goos-screenshot-on-sony-vaio.html
.
wtf? Are you serious?
Um, not really...
Both this and your "GoOS" look like minor variations of common linux distros,
GoOS.. what an original idea, wait let me just open up Thunderbird in my gOS bar and send this to the google copyright team.
.
the idea and the layout of the Intel Moblin OS looks pretty close to MY idea and design of a (possible) Google GoOS suggested/published FIVE months ago on my GoOS blog (and posted on several IT forums and blogs around the world)
http://newgoos.blogspot.com/2008/09/goos-screenshot-on-sony-vaio.html
.
Why is everyone trying to get into an OS market that's already saturated? WindowsXP works great on my netbook, and I imagine the Linux-flavor does as well, both a a low price point. This "custom" OS of stripped down interfaces is a waste of time. It seems Intel is trying to make another stab at the internet appliance market, which fails to take off every time it's tried. Internet appliances (with the exception of WebTV) have never been successful. Why devote resources in a struggling economy to a known loser?
do you mean free?
I think they're more trying to contribute to other distributors pushing into the netbook space than to push Moblin. Right now it's more of a framework focusing on different points, the big one so far being boot time, and another being a DE for lower resolution screens. I'll tell you, boot time is a welcome target, Ubuntu and Fedora boot at an embarrassing pace, and the likes of Arch, Gentoo, and Slackware are merely acceptable.
Bubba: "Why is everyone trying to get into an OS market that's already saturated?"
Because the OS is becoming less important, commoditizing OS' hastens the decline of importance of any one OS and makes the service cloud the important product.
Disrupting the value proposition and virtual monopoly (oligopoly if you wish to give apple more credit than due) currently enjoyed by Microsoft is a good thing for Google, and others that wish to gain from new models of software distribution and content delivery / marketing.
The Moblin team had to tear apart X pretty good to make it ideal for netbooks, which is why most wireless doesn't work. They're obviously going to make it work in the future. The main reason for releasing this alpha was to show off the boot time. And it does boot FAST! http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_moblin_2&num=1 And the good news is that there's still stuff they want to do to improve boot time in addition to making the rest of the OS usable.
what does X11 have to do with WiFi drivers?
This is just a customised distro for a narrow HW set which have always been able to boot fast ... not new the interface might be neat though
什么玩意来的
什么玩意吖
Why XFce? Atom solos are fine with GNU...
Needs to look moar gnomish
It would be really cool to see a netbook distro using KDE 4, is there any one ?
Looks all Knoppix-ey
All these netbooks run either a modified (and in most cases very lightly) linux distro. Or Windows XP. I plan on getting an aspire one very soon as a secondary work computer, doesn't matter what OS is on it to me. Point, why doesn't these manufactures just get together and design ONE os to work with most or all of the netbooks.
I need an interface with big icons, like the ones pictured above. The only programs/icons he really needs are:
1. Firefox
2. VLC
3. Openoffice (Word, Excel, and ppt functionality)
4. Trashcan
5. Shortcuts to his Documents, Music, Videos, and Pictures folders.
These applications can be used on pretty much any of the three major OS's Windows, Linux, even Mac.
If you know someone who is constantly getting infected its time to move them over to a live cd environment with the "Documents" folder linked to the hard drive.
I installed this last night on my AA1. It runs amazing! Only problem I have had is the lack of repositories. Everything worked right out of the Box wireless included I love it!
Looks like yet another Linux distribution...:-\
I second the motion that the linux people get together and design ONE FRICKIN DISTRIBUTION for netbooks so they could pool enough resources to make one actually work properly.
One factor behind the *development* of this particular Linux distro by Intel: it would seem that their marketing strategy consists of supplying it with only Intel drivers, and then to use their commanding share of the netbook market to further leverage the exclusive use of Intel chipsets (on netbooks and maybe notebooks and desktops) if the use of *Moblin* Linux catches on. Perhaps they will offer a discount on chip components to manufacturers who agree to install Moblin on a certain percentage of their products?
Of course, people will always be free to download Ubuntu or other Linux distros which do not place restrictions on hardware support (and support much more hardware than fresh installs of Microsoft OS's).