A lot has happened since Intel launched the Moblin project nearly 2 years ago. The market for internet-connected consumer devices is maturing. Intel are pushing into the smartphone market and netbooks are now an established category of devices.
Intel now regard Moblin as a ‘core competency’ (which is significant considering they don’t run it any more!) and consider themselves the 2nd biggest contributor to Linux on the planet. So reports FT today which is in itself significant and shows just how far the Moblin keyword has penetrated.
According to FT, Moblin are just about ready to ship 2.0 Beta which, if it follows the Alpha releases, will target netbook platforms and not Intel’s Menlow platform. The MIDs will be included in a 2010 release which is a shame because with a claimed 7-second startup time, some tempting reports coming in from twitter and the nice image below, is something I really wouldn’t mind seeing on the Viliv S5, UMID or Aigo MIDs.
New article: Moblin Builds Steam for 2.0 Beta Next Week. http://cli.gs/XEXhD5
Why do we have to wait so long for a good OS? It looks like nobody really cares about consumers; Apple made a huge step in this territory but they haven’t monopoly for good ideas, or I am wrong? ;-)
The real question is, how long were Apple working on it? 3,4,5 years? OSX is even older.
Moblin is still wet behind the ears in comparison with other operating systems so we have to keep some perspective! It will happen.
i would NOT consider apple as a benchmark or something else. apple does not develop software, they create entire products! they are based on some two or three different platforms – that’s it. no problem there developing drivers etc. so they can focus on GUI and functionality. as for microsoft and GNU/linux this is a far more complicated and vast territory. so while apple takes 2 or 3 years to get a simple update ready, i would consider this as abnormally slow. they don’t create technology, they make it just more eye-friendly and that is why i don’t like apple as they are based on image and not developing of new things. moblin, linux in general, even microsoft are for me those who do something. i am not sure how moblin will look like and how it will work or most of all, how it is going to be implemented in future devices, but it sounds very good anyway
it is unfair to say apple doesn’t develop any technology on its own. OS X has had a lot of firsts/signifigant developments like hardware accelerated desktop, resolution indepdence, time machine (as far as I’m concerned it’s the first usable backup tool) and webkit to name a few.
apple does spend a lot of time ensuring their products are easy on the eyes and consistent but that doesn’t mean the underlying technology is anything to scoff at or that highly integrated products that just work isn’t something to strive for.
moblin itself isn’t itself a giant leap forward. It’s very well packaged for atom based devices but contains 90% + parts from other open source distros / projects which is exactly how open source is supposed to work.
Os X used to be open source . Or at least until they stole everything they could and rebranded it . Now they call it Closed source (with open source components) . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X
Looks like Moblin v2 Beta might be coming this week, with 7 second boot times on netbooks and a new interface http://bit.ly/kmvBq