Moblin is like a step backwards in time, I’d rather have Windows ME

moblin

I have avoided blogging about Moblin for many reasons but I can’t avoid it any more. Moblin is a new flavor of Linux from Intel that has been designed for Netbooks. The OS has recently reached the Alpha stage and has been released for testing. I usually avoid being overly critical of Alpha software as it is typically not a good representation of the final product, but today I just have to express my dissatisfaction with Moblin.

To quickly get to the point, Moblin = Lame. As far as a flavor of any operating system goes Moblin is many steps backwards, actually it’s LEAPS backwards. The OS while still in Alpha is of course going to be far from complete but should be somewhat similar to the final product.

At this point the OS is slow and visually worse than Windows 98 or even Windows ME (that is the first reference on this site of ME actually being an operating system). If Intel is serious about Moblin (I don’t think they are) they should get more people on the Moblin team that are concerned with looks, speed and usability. Right now the OS is far from ready and in my opinion should not even be at the Alpha stage.

Wireless is currently not functional (for most Netbooks) in the Alpha and as such can’t be used on it’s primary target, Netbooks. If a computers and OS’s primary function is Internet access doesn’t that negate the purpose of testing it? Is it just me or is the purpose of Alpha builds to find serious flaws but be functional? Josh’s Blog has pointed out that the wireless is functional on the Dell Mini and the Acer One but honestly I can’t imagine anyone willingly switching to Moblin on these machines. The hardware is simply not powerful enough for this OS.

After attempting to use Moblin for several days I had to give up due to my overall frustration with it. As a regular user of Alpha applications and operating systems it frustrates me when there are “new” things coming out that are like a jump backwards in time but need the faster hardware to run at normal speeds.

Intel, you need to go back to the drawing board on this one. You won’t gain any customers or fans as a result of Moblin. Maybe you should talk to the guys over at Ubuntu Netbook Remix and see why people are excited to be able to get their hands on it.

UPDATE::

I tested Moblin on 3 different machines all of which were typical hard drive installations and the only OS on the machines. All of the machines had some severe lag issues and were abnormally slow. Since posting this I have been searching for other people’s views of Moblin and found a video at I Occupy Space that Laptop Mag did with Moblin running from a USB pendrive. The thing that surprised me was that it was substantially more responsive than what I encountered. All 3 of my machines I used are Intel based and should be compatible with this build. The boot times that I experienced were consistently between 14.5-18 seconds, so yes the boot up is pretty fast.

Check It Out> Moblin, Ubuntu Netbook Remix

7 Comments

Holden Page

Said,

Intel should scrap this and buy out Jollicloud… the average consumer cares about looks more than boot times. That’s why people want the iPhone or OS X or the cool looking dell studio line up.

Not this… this is disgusting.

pgc

Thanks for the feedback. I would point out that the Alpha was aimed at testing the guts of the OS, the fastboot, GEM, DRI2, etc – basically everything upto the UI. We used XFCE to test that everything underneath was working properly but rest assured this is not the final (or close to the final) UI for Moblin.

Please be patient with us during the release process and I hope you’ll try out the beta release (due end of March) for further feedback – also I’d love to know what netbooks you tested the alpha on, so we can look at the performance issues for the next release.

Re: wifi drivers. Moblin is an open-source project, and as such we ship only open-source drivers. Unfortunately some OEMs chose parts (particularly wifi parts) that have incomplete drivers, or drivers/firmware we can’t redistribute, or sometimes even proprietary drivers.

The Geek

Of course I will try the beta! I honestly hope that it turns out to be a good release. I am not one to cheer for failure of any project but I sincerely hope that you are able to make this attractive to consumers.

Competition is always a good thing and right now Windows 7 is making users happy in the Netbook space. For Moblin to suceed you will really need to have it not only boot fast but look good and give customers things that Windows 7 can’t. Right now projects like Jolicloud and Ubuntu Netbook Remix are visually attractive which will convince your average consumer to buy a Netbook.

In today’s computing age it is about much more than being 1337 and running Linux on your computer.

joshl

Hey, thanks for mentioning my blog :)

rogerdugans

Having recently heard a few good things about Moblin, I tried it last night: my opinion differs greatly from yours.

I just purchased an HP Mini 1010nr which came with WinXP Home, and after testing to make sure the system worked, removed XP.
Nearly a minute to boot is just NOT acceptable, for one thing.

I tested a few good linux distributions and by default, with NO optimization, Debian 5 (Lenny) booted faster and used less disk space. No working wireless though, since the hardware is not entirely Open Source friendly.

I then installed Mepis 8 which is based on Debian Lenny but more amenable to non-open hardware:
Wireless worked out of the box
Boot time was a bit faster than Debian which was a good 10 seconds faster than WinXP.

I have now tried Moblin’s alpha on a USB pendrive, and even this boots faster than Windows, and pendrive booting is not normally all that quick.
The system IS faster and more responsive using Moblin’s Alpha than the installed distro which, again, is faster and more responsive than XP.

There are issues, of course: wireless being a big one, and given the lack of support for linux from so many hardware vendors, these are not always trivial.

But from the appearance and performance of the Moblin ALPHA, if Intel keeps following the path they are on, Moblin will likely develop a large 3rd party user/developer community and have some easy-fix options to deal with the lack of vendor support.
Debian is the same about non-open source hardware, and yet there are many Debian-based distributions (Mepis and Ubuntu for example) that ease the problems.

My opinion could not differ more from yours:
Moblin is big step forward.

Once Moblin gets a little more developed I will be testing it again and I really hope that my experience is improved the second time around.

One of the most frustrating things for me in using it was the speed issues that I experienced. It was unbearably slow and even after installing it to a standard laptop I could not deal with the performance issues. Hopefully this gets worked out soon so end users can get a better Netbook OS with the power of Intel behind it.

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Ubuntu Remix, Please Step Aside - Moblin is Front and Center | Techgeist Said,

[...] Moblin is a linux based operating system specifically designed for netbooks. What started out as a horrid looking proof of concept has now bloomed into a workable, and fairly awesome netbook based OS. Screenshot Credit: [...]

Moblin is like a step backwards in time, I’d rather have Windows ME

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