New Linux User » moblin

Fedora to Get Mini’ed with Moblin

Clair Ching — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:22:48 +0000

I commonly write about Ubuntu-based distros for the netbook but it looks like the Fedora team’s doing something about the growing netbook community as well. As I have said before, Moblin looks like an awesome project that showcases a user interface that lets netbook users maximize its features and screen space. Check out which hardware Fedora Moblin will support. This project could lead to Fedora on many different devices, targetting netbooks and mobile internet devices and the like. Popular netbooks like Acer’s Aspire One, Dell’s Inspiron Mini 9 and Asus’ EEE PC are currently the devices involved in the project. Although, as said earlier, that’s just the beginning. They’d like to be inclusive of other devices.

Fedora

Moblin was a project completed by the Linux Foundation. And Novell has placed tweaks in it already. And I really think that it’s one heck of an interesting project considering what I’ve seen from the user interface a couple of months ago. Here’s an overview of the architecture of Moblin. This reminds me: I haven’t tested Moblin v2 UX yet! So if you’re curious about Moblin, you could take it for a test drive. Those who are after Fedora Mini which has elements of Moblin, you could participate in the Alpha testing of Fedora Mini. Hardware reports would be definitely welcome on their wiki so when you do give it a try, don’t forget to update the wiki page. Access the Fedora Mini Hardware wiki page here. I suppose that those who are more comfortable with Fedora will at least have the chance for Moblin without having to suddenly switch to it entirely.

For those who’d be testing it, I hope to read your feedback soon on this blog! : ) It might still be a bit rough but you could help the community by testing this on your own computers. The development team would need information from you.

Post from: New Linux User

Ubuntu Moblin Remix for Karmic Koala (Ubuntu 9.10)

Clair Ching — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 09:58:09 +0000

Trying out Moblin got me interested because I found the user interface interesting enough and it seemed to make sense for a netbook user such as myself. The screen real estate is maximized with such a user interface instead of the regular GNOME or KDE with panels and stuff. I found the panel of Moblin nifty because it’s automatically hidden when it’s not needed.

So, yeah, I think it would be cool if Moblin and Ubuntu joined forces and have an Ubuntu Moblin Remix. Turns out that there will be one such experiment which we will see when Karmic Koala or Ubuntu 9.10 is released this October. You could even check the wiki page about Mobile Karmic Moblin Remix.

One of the issues though is that Moblin uses RPM packages and not DEBs. So how now, right? And there are no migration plans for those who want to use Ubuntu Moblin Remix. This is a release that’s made for demonstration purposes. Oh well. I’d still like to try out anyway! Especially when I saw the screenshot on the internetnews.com blog. Of course the screenshot had the usual brown Human theme of Ubuntu, that’s why I am hoping for the best!

Maybe it’s time for a new desktop environment geared towards netbook users. There are a lot of combinations of window managers and docking apps but wouldn’t it be easier if by default, there is an easy to use interface for newbies who happen to be netbook users? Ubuntu Moblin Remix might show that a new interface might be better and this could be the beginning of an awesome netbook future ahead of us.

Post from: New Linux User

Moblin on More Linux Distros for Netbooks

Clair Ching — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:02:57 +0000

Possible Linux distros to use Moblin are: Ubuntu, Xandros and Red Flag. Novell also announced a Moblin version of SUSE for Acer Aspire One and MSI Wind. I already blogged about Moblin so you have a better idea of what it looks like, right?

Moblin

Xandros is said to be the best distro for Windows users while Ubuntu and SUSE have a lot of users, especially Ubuntu because of how user friendly it is. So I get the feeling that combining Moblin with these distros could be beneficial. The user interface of Moblin seems to maximize the screen real estate very well. Aside from that, the common tasks and activities are easily seen on the zones pre-defined in Moblin.

Will these netbooks be available within the quarter? I am hoping that Moblin will be polished early next quarter so that more users could get a feel of things there. I’d like to see more feedback about the user interface. Of course it is different from the rest of usual desktop environments so there might be much resistance or acceptance.

Post from: New Linux User

Trying Out Moblin

Clair Ching — Sun, 24 May 2009 09:12:51 +0000

The other night, I became curious about Moblin because of the different user interface it has. It was said to be made specifically for Intel-powered netbooks. The user interface focuses on your use of media as well as social networks. Looks interesting? It does. Even if its just in Beta, I really had to get its img and try it out myself.

Screenshot by: Clair Ching.
Other Moblin screenshots here.

Unlike your typical Linux desktops, this one doesn’t have fixed virtual desktops immediately. As you launch the applications you want to use, you will define the zone it will go to.

Some things I immediately liked about Moblin:

The menu/task bar is automatically hidden when you are not using it. This way, the screen of the netbook is maximized for the apps.
Icons on the menu/taskbar look sleek and clean. And you could easily see what they stand for.
Conventional keyboard shortcuts to navigate from one zone to another are still CTRL-(arrow keys to the left or right)

What didn’t work on my machine:

Videos and audio did not play on my Acer Aspire One 150Bb.
Some of the icons got me confused. When I opened a PDF, the reader had a caret-like icon on the upper right hand corner. I thought it meant that it will maximize the app but it didn’t. It closed the app. In the file manager/browser, the caret-like symbol meant that it will go to the directory that’s one level higher.
There was also this issue about not having a power button or even a log out option. I was wondering how the heck I would stop from using the live USB. I ended up pressing the netbook’s power button.

Overall, it wasn’t a bad experience for me to use Moblin. I guess some of my worries include the availability of the applications I use a lot as well as adding an extension monitor. (I wasn’t able to test that.) I plan to check out Moblin again when the official release is available already.

Post from: New Linux User