Intel Releases Moblin 2 Alpha OS for Netbooks

[Marcus Yam]

When it comes to netbooks, the near-constant in hardware design is the Atom processor. But what about the operating system on top of it?

Intel Releases Moblin 2 Alpha OS for Netbooks : Read more

 

[Guest]

Very nice to see this. Nicer still if it includes the GNU compiler collection.

 

[StupidRabbit]

i guess it all comes down to how the OS looks. it might be super complicated or efficient on the inside.. but most people will just prefer xp just for the looks.
but its interesting to see intel make an OS since most netbooks are stuck with the Atom. i bet it will play a random 2 hour movie whenever you want to extract an archive just so you have something to do...

 

[apache_lives]

wheres google's OS i heard of a while back? they seem to be the king of easy and efficent, oh and free too

 

[tipoo]

huh. so Intel wants to get in the software game, eh?

 

[Guest]

Is it open source?

(of course not)

 

[enewmen]

Why not just modify Maemo 5+ Linux? It works well, Open Source, lean enough for a 3" handheld, a REAL OS (can even run Apache, full Adobe Flash9, etc), handles 3D, etc. Just mod it for x86.
Anyway, there are many good Linux solutons already made. Why does Intel need a new one? The BE-OS was also good, too bad that died.

 

[WheelsOfConfusion]

I wish Intel would instead funnel their efforts into support for their hardware that ALL distributions could use instead of making Yet Another Linux Distro. I'd probably just put some flavor of Ubuntu on a netbook anyway.

And realistically, Microsoft's impending support termination aside, why CAN'T netbooks keep using XP? I doubt the hardware will seriously outpace its capabilities in the next few years. The only thing I can think of is XP's security problems.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

Perhaps I'm just too microsoftish, but while I was able to read the article, I still have no clue what features the os has and which it doesn't. Can't someone translate it into plain english? or are people just expected to know what DRI2, clutter and the other things mentioned are? I know sse3, as that is a hardware thing, and not a linux one ....

Basicly what I read was :
Intel modified a linux system to run well on their second newest architecture. This includes very good boot times (not sure what it compares to). It doesn't do 3d well, but might in future. The gui won't nessecarily be satisfactory, but might be in future. The battery time influence is guesswork, and compatibility is not mentioned at all. It supports features of some sort, and has included some software that some people not using windows might know.

Basicly that's what I read - not very enlightening

 

[aracheb]

well it looks like that vista really screw it up for Microsoft.
I'm not blaming this to vista, but since vista is so heavy weight i can't be shove into a netbook, and windows xp is running obsolete so it looks like that vista really did it for Microsoft. Not only Intel, but also hp is taking the same approach on building their own Operating system, because of Microsoft decision of shoving Vista into our assess. It wont be long before all the company that are working on their independent OS unify and built one OS..

 

[JimmiG]

Great another Linux distribution! Just what the world needs. As if the 58532 distros already available aren't enough to satisfy everyone...

 

[aracheb]

[citation][nom]JimmiG[/nom]Great another Linux distribution! Just what the world needs. As if the 58532 distros already available aren't enough to satisfy everyone...[/citation]
the problem is not on the distros (is in the support behind it). and how well it is marketed... Intel have both, market and money to make a bit hit distro.. Let see. for an example of a well marketed and beautifully applied distro of unix/linux look at macos..
and everybody love macos..

 

[WheelsOfConfusion]

[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]Perhaps I'm just too microsoftish, but while I was able to read the article, I still have no clue what features the os has and which it doesn't. Can't someone translate it into plain english?[/citation]
Xserver lets Linux/Unix use GUIs. It's the counterpart to GDI in Windows, I think.
XFCE is a desktop environtment (the actual graphical interface you see when you log on, which is basically everything you can see that isn't a command line). That includes the file manager (Explorer in Windows, Thunar in XFCE). In the Linux world, XFCE is a "lightweight" DE that's less of a resource-hog than the two most popular DEs (Gnome and KDE). That's probably why the chose it to test out Moblin: it won't choke an Atom.
Clutter is the software toolkit they chose for making applications that will run on the new Moblin distro.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

Excellent explanation. So xfce is the graphical shell, and xserver is just the library system needed to power it. Thanks.

 

[WheelsOfConfusion]

Yes. That.

 

[Guest]

XP is still the number one for netbooks.
Windows 7 is more loaded then XP,and apart from looks has only very little to offer over XP.
DX10 does not apply to Atom notebooks due to it's limited hardware compatibility.
It wouldn't make sense anyways to see someone trying to play DX10 games on an atom powered pc.

As for linux, I wouldn't want to trade my .exe files for .tar.gz and having to ./configure them...
As long as Linux hasn't got 3D acceleration as windows (non opengl), it's not really worth the switch to me...

 

[WheelsOfConfusion]

[citation][nom]ProDigit80[/nom]As for linux, I wouldn't want to trade my .exe files for .tar.gz and having to ./configure them...[/citation]
Or you could just stick with the provided Package Manager and install pre-compiled .rpms and .debs.

"As long as Linux hasn't got 3D acceleration as windows (non opengl), it's not really worth the switch to me..."
What do you mean "hasn't got 3D acceleration"? What's wrong with OpenGL?

 

[Guest]

I'm already running the beta edition of Windows 7 on my netbook (AA1 with 160gb HD & 1gb ram). It runs perfectly fine. Yes the machine is not the fastest but that's not what I paid for. It is a travel machine; I plug in a gps, take it on flights & road trips. It runs IE & winamp fine. That's all I want from it. Who needs another operating system?

 

[funkjunky]

[citation][nom]WheelsOfConfusion[/nom]Xserver lets Linux/Unix use GUIs. It's the counterpart to GDI in Windows, I think. XFCE is a desktop environtment (the actual graphical interface you see when you log on, which is basically everything you can see that isn't a command line). That includes the file manager (Explorer in Windows, Thunar in XFCE). In the Linux world, XFCE is a "lightweight" DE that's less of a resource-hog than the two most popular DEs (Gnome and KDE). That's probably why the chose it to test out Moblin: it won't choke an Atom. Clutter is the software toolkit they chose for making applications that will run on the new Moblin distro.[/citation]

I think this is the point. Distros are usually created in 2 flavours: feature-full, and light weight. The feature-full are the ones end users like. It has everything they need. The light weight is usually for the geeks with old computers they want to keep running, or servers they want to minimize loads with.

However their isn't much of an inbetween. Everything I've heard of that is inbetween tailors too much to the technical crowd. They need something like ubuntu, without the footprint it has. This is probably why intel jumped in and as someone else said, they have money and marketing, so this could be big =).

 

[WheelsOfConfusion]

XFCE is really only "lightweight" compared to GNOME and KDE. From what I understand, XFCE and Enlightenment are both pretty hefty as far as the "geeks who want to keep old computers running" crowd goes, just not as much as the other two. Since Intel said they wouldn't be using XFCE in the final version, I imagine they're working on a customized Fluxbox interface or something along those lines, tailored with enough features to give people the equivalent of the Eee pc's "easy" interface.