Anyone tried Moblin?
Any experience?
Not yet…i think i will say on openSUSE with my netbooks…
It is always a good idea to try out different distros. At least, we all will get new ideas.
I just downloaded and installed into a VirtualBox.
Look is great.
Yep I tried it.
It is in my opinion a horrible interface for a “computer”.
It would be good for a smartphone or PDA, but for the netbook I tested on it was just bad.
I agree! But, it has a “funky” look.
I am not saying that it is going to be good for a power user like me (I will never use it myself). Think about an end-user who only does email, browsing, little bit of document editing, play some music etc. I feel 80% of the end-users are of that sort.
I have the vanilla Fedora beta 2 on the first drive of my netbook.
Observations:
- It boots really quickly, which is why I have it installed. If I want to turn my machine on just to check something on google, there’s no need to load a full featured operating system.
-conversely-
-
There’s only support for one user at the moment, which is very annoying with social networking - which my girlfriend uses and I don’t - so thoroughly ingrained into the interface. I hope they haven’t fiddled with it to the extent that it’s impossible to custom spin a version with multiple users, even if it boots slower.
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The standard browser in it is funny about some sites. It does have Firefox Minefield installed, hidden under ‘other’ or ‘miscellaneous’ or something in the applications menu, and you can make various extensions work with it. It has invisible menus, but they work.
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If you run it, enable the unsupported updates (backports? Proposed? can’t remember) or you won’t get any.
General thoughts: it’s the best netbook interface I’ve seen, but if you don’t want a netbook interface, don’t install it. And it’s still very very much in beta.
I tried the latest beta. It’s a neat idea, but it messed up my bootloader, so I didn’t keep it. It boots really, really fast, and has a snappy UI.
I may try installing it again; it’s got it’s merits. Like mentioned above it really aims to wrap up your netbook and turn it into a “device” rather than a computer. The UI makes it super easy to do what Intel wants you to do with your netbook; social networking, email, web browsing, to-do list, planner, maybe listen to some music.
While it has some great points (the ability to tailor the OS to the Intel Atom cpu has huge potential; better performance and battery life should be possible), I think it’s part of Intel’s plan to relegate netbooks to a smaller market; they don’t want folks like me using an Atom netbook (their profit margins on an Atom cpu are nothing compared to the C2D line) instead of the pricier ultraportable laptops.
I think Intel is afraid of people using Atom netbooks as their main laptop, threatening their money-making C2Ds in laptops. It’s a low profit market, and Intel doesn’t like it. So, by wrapping the netbook in a pretty UI that limits you to doing “little” tasks, they hope to have more control over the use of netboooks.
In other words, Moblin is not of much interest to me, as I actually use my netbook as a small laptop, Intel notwithstanding.
But Moblin may be the only able contender against Windows on netbooks. Up to now, most Linux distros shipping with netbooks are the standard desktop fare; they look a lot like Windows, but they don’t do what users think thet should do (that is, running Windows programs). They don’t think about the fact the Linux is doing everyting they need; it looks like something that, in consumers minds, it obviously is not.
If Moblin could become a standard OS for netbooks, consumers may adjust to the idea of using their netbooks as “net” books; devices that supplement “real” laptops rather than replace them. Having a pretty, fast, and usable UI that helps you do the things most users want to do nowadays is a big hit against Windows; as far as I know Microsoft has no netbook specific UI plans for Windows 7.
So if Moblin can penetrate then market, it could be good for Linux, as well as Intel.