Trying Out Moblin

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.