Moblin, Linux for netbooks

Moblin got me curios and I wanted to test it out:

Moblin is an open source project focused on building a Linux-based platform optimized for the next generation of mobile devices including Netbooks, Mobile Internet Devices, and In-vehicle infotainment systems.

Cause I don’t own (yet!) a netbook, I installed it under VirtualBox (VB from now on). The image is 666 MB big and it comes not in an .iso, but in a .img format. But, VB, a really awesome software, had no troubles booting from it. As with the majority of Linux distros nowadays, Moblin image is also a Live CD, which means you can run it, without installing it.

The preinstall process is made up from 6-7 steps: choosing the language, the keyboard layout, the timezone and, of course, the partitioning. Basically, it’s just another boring “Next-Next” process. The installation itself took around 6 minutes to finish. When it’s done, it asks for a username and a password.

The first boot went pretty quickly, considering that booting under VB takes longer than booting under regular installations. The thing about VB is that it needs, the so called “Guest Additions” installed on the guest machine, so that the guest machine can be used normally. In this case, I failed to install it: Moblin comes with one version of the Linux kernel and the additions are for another version of the kernel. This prevented me in my quest to test Moblin fully. Anyway, I’ve managed to take a few screenshots of it, all are uploaded to my Picasa profile.

There was one thing that was strange. It has a “Status panel”, from which you can update your profiles on social networks. A really useful stuff. I just opened it up and updated my Twitter profile. Almost. I wasn’t logged in to Twitter from it and Moblin didn’t say a word about it. It just happily said that my status is updated. Once I found the “Web services” panel I logged in and this time I was really updating my Twitter stream.

I really was hoping to test it normally and write a detailed review of it, but this guest additions thingy thought otherwise. Moblin is a great distro, even in this beta stage I believe it’s useful. What do you think? Did you test it already, saw it in action?

One thing’s for sure: when I’ll get myself a netbook, it’ll run on Moblin.

Cheers!

P.S.: Check out the Moblin intro, too!