bobpeers -> blog

I just installed the Moblin beta refresh created on 07-06-2009 and just for interest tried the update software setting. I was rather surprised that there were already 270 updates totalling 279MB (this was only 11 days after the release).

My point is that it’s clear that there’s some very heavy development going on right now even though it’s already a very stable and feature rich OS.

It also highlights one of the great features about open source software, everyone gets the opportunity to see the progress and comment on it. It may be more exciting the way Apple, for example, releases it’s next versions but I can’t help think in the long run it’s better to be open.

It’s all over the news but I’m happy to see that Microsoft have lifted the artificial 3 application limit on Windows 7 Started Edition. As much as this would have made life easier for Linux to compete it’s also ironic that to some extent the threat from Linux has forced this decision.

If there was no completion in the OS market do you really think that Microsoft would have done the same?

On the other hand they are still severely limiting the capability of the Starter Edition, to quote from the Windows Blog it DOES NOT include the following

• Aero Glass, meaning you can only use the “Windows Basic” or other opaque themes. It also means you do not get Taskbar Previews or Aero Peek.
• Personalization features for changing desktop backgrounds, window colors, or sound schemes.
• The ability to switch between users without having to log off.
• Multi-monitor support.
• DVD playback.
• Windows Media Center for watching recorded TV or other media.
• Remote Media Streaming for streaming your music, videos, and recorded TV from your home computer.
• Domain support for business customers.
• XP Mode for those that want the ability to run older Windows XP programs on Windows 7.

I’m pretty sure that with Googles Android and Intels Moblin under heavy development, with some big players behind them, there’s still room for competition in the netbook OS market.

Since my last post I’ve downloaded the Moblin v2.0 beta img file and installed the img using Virtualbox. It’s easy to install, just use the img file as you would a regular iso file so set Virtualbox to boot from the img file.

The only gotcha is to remember to enable PAE/NX in the general settings, I seem to forget this every time but the boot process stops early on with the warning. I’m also not sure how much space is required for the install but at my first attempts failed with the partitioner complaining that you must have at least 2500 MB for the root (/) partition, I’d say to allow at least 4GB in total.

For anyone that’s used Fedora and the Anaconda installer before it’s all very familiar stuff except for a few removed options (no encrypted partitions for example). The install took about 10 minutes at most.

Once rebooted we arrive at the start page, or m_zone as moblin call it.

I’ll not go into much detail as it’s described thoroughly on the Phoronix site and Ars Technica but here’s a few screen shots of the applications screen, nautilus and a terminal (no it’s not hidden away!).

Many applications are standard Gnome versions but with a modified theme and I think the GUI is very easy to use even to some one totally new to the interface.

Just to note that there seems to be no GUI to shutdown Moblin, instead open a terminal and use:

sudo /sbin/shutdown -h now

The user you created on install is added to the sudoers file so you can run this command by using your normal users password.

Generally it runs OK in Virtualbox, if very slowly, plus there are some issues with the screen resolution as you can see in the screen shots that the top menu becomes ‘squashed’ at the right side and the start screen actually goes of the edge of the screen.

Nautilus

Applications Display

Terminal

I just read that Intel has released a beta version of the Moblin OS for netbooks. This replaces XFCE used on the alpha release with the new Intel interface. I’ve yet to give it a try but I’ll post some screen shots when it’s running in VirtualBox.

Update – I’ve just realised that there are no VMWare images available for the beta as there were for the alpha, not a big deal but a bit more work to get going.

After my experiences with Google Android I decided to take Intels Moblin for a spin. Intel make it very easy to try Moblin out as they already provide a VMWare image on the main download page.

As it turns out using VMWare images in Virtualbox is a piece of cake as Virtualbox natively supports this format. Simply download the image from the website, then unpack the file (if you’re using Windows I highly recommend using 7-Zip, plus it’s GPL licensed) and save the vmdk file into your Virtualbox harddisks folder.

In Virtualbox you just use the vmdk file as as the new machines hard disk and off you go. I found Moblin booted very quickly and connected to the network without any problem. The desktop environment used is XFCE so you would expect good performance but in use I found it was extremely sluggish. Some mouse clicks took 20-30 seconds to register and I noted that the CPU used by Virtualbox hung at around 50% during this whole period. I suspect that this is a problem with Virtualbox and not Moblin but it’s hard to be sure.

Moblin is aimed mainly at the rapidly expanding netbook marked which Android may also be venturing into. It will be interesting to see what happens in the future in this field, especially with Windows 7 fighting over the same market (if Microsoft can maintain it’s profit margins that is).