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Palm Pre Information & Updates
Palm just introduced their next-gen smartphone, the Palm Pre, and next-gen operating system, Palm webOS. Gadgetell's got the latest Pre and webOS information and news for you right here.
Today, at the Intel Developer Forum, Dell announced the new Dell Mini 10v as the first netbook to use Intel’s Moblin operating system. Moblin is Intel’s idea of what a netbook OS should be and with the coming version 2.1, Moblin is designed for smartphones and Mobile Internet Devices as well. With the OS receiving so much attention, it might be worth knowing just what exactly it is.
What’s Moblin?
As mentioned above, Moblin is meant to run exclusively on devices with smaller screens and less processing power. There isn’t much to find in the current build that isn’t somehow based on cloud computing. It can pull in data from a variety of sources on the main screen, whether it be a Twitter feed, RSS feed, or web-based calendar. It also has a strong media base, with the OS designed for easy navigation of all media on the device and other devices connected to your wireless network.
Moblin 2.0
While this is Moblin 2.0, which is still in beta, it’s only now that it reaches a state that anyone would want to use. To say 1.0 was slow to start is an understatement. Sure, the community behind the project supported it, but there was nobody else using it. Even now it’s not the greatest choice for everyone.
What will be the netbook OS of choice?
Having tried Moblin 2.0 several times, it just doesn’t seem as the best option. The interface, to me, is quite clumsy, and it chokes when displaying any webpage with flash on my Eee PC 901. With Intel behind it, there is a lot of promise, though it just doesn’t seem as desirable as Jolicloud (the battery hog that is is). Perhaps it might work better on the next generation of Atom chips, but for now the flash issue kills it for me, and also the fact that with such little storage I have no media to really consume on my netbook. If you’re still looking for the perfect Linux for your netbook, it’s worth a shot. Having major PC manufacturers shipping it on netbooks is certainly a good sign of the support to come.
Read [Engadget]
Read [Moblin Project]
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