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!

It’s been a while since I last wrote something; didn’t have anything smart or interesting to say. Not that I do have this time. It’s 4AM and I can’t sleep. Can’t really find the inspiration for work and writing (if you can consider these scribblings as writing). Lots of ssss… stuff happened which had a great impact on my mood and my ability to do something useful. And I just didn’t felt like doing something about it. Until recently…

I was having a couple of beers with a friend of mine, with whom I go to college. After the 3rd beer or so, we came to an idea of submitting a paper to this year’s SISY conference. All I will say for now, that it will include Python, Assembly, microcontrollers, electric motors and lots of other geeky stuff. This project, even while the idea is still only in my head, got my mind running again and might be the way out of this state of indifference. Why? Well, to be able to start this project, I first need to finish my current project, my graduate work. To finish my grad work, I needed to start working on it again (which I did, honest!). I’ll even spend my whole Saturday this week in the college to write/test/debug my app there. If all goes well, the app will be finished this week and I can go onto writing the documentation for the grad work. Everything will go fine, right?

I installed Ubuntu 9.04 on my laptop a few days ago. Loving it! Had only 2 minor issues with the hardware upon the installation. First, the graphic card was messing around, it didn’t want to enable all those funky visual effects. That got sorted out, thanks to @firusvg who suggested to install compiz and @ivan86 who pointed me to this article. Second, when plugged in the headphones, the sound was still coming out on the speakers. @Asgrim sent me this link which helped me to sort this out. Apart from this, everything else works out-of-box. Even the wifi!

OK, enough for now. Here’s to hoping that the bad times are over and the good times are coming. Cheers!

Today is one big day for me: I passed my last 2 exams at the College. 3 months of learning, a bit of luck and a professor in a good mood — the winning combination! This is a big relief for me, cause I now can fully concentrate on programming, no other stuff to think of, just me and the code.

At the College I have only one more obligation, the graduate work. I’ve chosen to write a desktop application in Python; my mentor loved the idea, and this will be a great chance for me to learn something new. Need to work out the details with the mentor, but roughly I have it all in my head and on papers :)

I’m off to get my power-nap now, I’m dead tired and there’s some code need to be written tonight :)

Cheers!

... I have a Blog too! Well, it was damn time to get yourself one of those.

Actually, this is my third blog. The first lasted about a day or two. The second went alright for a time, but then the hosting company started to play around with settings, so the whole thing fell apart. This time, I'm serious. Kinda.

Until now I was foolin' around a lot. Tried this and that, experimenting. Heck, I even got a job. A real one. For real money. It lasted about 5 months, but then I quit, 'cause I still have some bloody exams @school, and I commuted every day to work, so it was pretty hard to concentrate on both. Now, I'm back to freelancing. Studying hard to get these exams off my back, and working on some projects; nothing big.

Sooo... What to expect from me and my blog? Tutorials, screencasts, reviews, freebies, random writings... Anything that is connected with the Internet, it's development and me. I'll try to show up with some quality and creative stuff, hopefully, on a regular basis.

Ramble on!