Moblin V2.0 Beta For Netbooks and Nettops

superbubba writes "The Moblin steering committee is happy to release the Moblin v2.0 beta for netbooks and nettops for developer testing. With this release, developers can begin to experience and work with the source code of the visually rich, interactive user interface designed for Intel Atom based netbooks."

Significance?

[jginspace]

Why is this blog posting worthy of the Slashdot front page? The Moblin beta was reported 6 weeks ago (it wasn't actually a beta, the quality was shoddy). Since then they've decided they're having something called a 'beta refresh' program, with new releases to play with on May 29, Jun 07, Jun 16, and a new one today [kernel.org]. That latter build is not actually linked from the download page yet so it's probably not what this breathless press-release is referring to. So, what's the significance of this "It's here" report>

Re:kdawson

[e9th]

You seem angry. Why not go here [slashdot.org], uncheck kdawson, and you won't be bothered again.

Re:Moblin and Ubuntu Netbook Remix

[gbarules2999]

Are they just two different attempts at the same thing?

Yes. You have Ubuntu Netbook Remix, which is an official Ubuntu project that takes Ubuntu and slaps a netbook GUI over the top. Then you have Moblin, the Intel-funded program, which does the same thing to Fedora (or has it changed?).

Re:Moblin and Ubuntu Netbook Remix

[meson_ray]

Moblin and UNR are quite different. I've tried both of them on my eee. Moblin is specifically written for intel architecture, and takes advantage of atom/core2 (sse3) so it has a lot of eye candy that runs well on low performance hardware. There aren't very many applications in the repositories for it yet, but there are some neat built-in twitter/last.fm/gchat programs. UNR's main advantages are that it runs on any hardware and it has ubuntu's repositories, so you can install many more programs on it with the package manager.

Moblin seems to run really snappy, even with all the eye candy. The interface (I think they call it clutter) is kinda weird, and it's got a different feel than most other linux distros, but for a netbook it works well.

I look forward to them adding more programs to Moblin, and stop it from crashing as often as it does...

Re:Great new idea!

[Tenebrousedge]

Hey, I've got a great new idea! What if the interface allowed for some way for minimized applications to notify the user of something! It would be awesome if--get this--when someone IM'ed me, I would have some way to know, so I could switch to that window and respond!

It does support notifications, through libnotify. It didn't have an IM client last I checked.

Ooh! And another! What if they made it so every time I tried to reach the upper toolbar of my application, a giant black bar didn't come down, grey out my screen, and interrupt me!

Waaaaah, I don't like the UI!
Deal with it, rewrite it, or use the terminal like God intended. It may also still have Xfce running underneath the Clutter UI. If not, you could download the alpha, which was perfectly functional.

Wait... what if I had some way of knowing which applications were open and where they were located at any time, instead of having to manage my desktop in my mind??

What, did you miss the pane that was intended for that purpose?

Question: do you actually own a netbook? If so, you probably are all too familiar with full-screen mode in your web browser of choice. 600 vertical pixels is not a whole hell of a lot.

The point of a netbook is primarily to get on the internet. How you can be railing against a project designed to make that easier is somewhat bizarre.