Moblin, Ubuntu Netbook Remix, Android and Linux Netbook Prospects
by Sam Dean - Jun. 02, 2009Comments (0)- Related Blog Posts
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While some reports out of the CompuTex show going on in Taiwan this week point to major netbook manufacturers shifting toward favoring Windows exclusively, there are encouraging signs for Linux-based netbooks cropping up too. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols is reporting that Canonical will be demonstrating a Moblin version of the UNR (Ubuntu Netbook Remix), and will develop a UNR based on the full release of Moblin 2. There are already some netbooks shipping with UNR loaded. Meanwhile, Android (which is Linux-based) is making headway on netbooks, and could run on netbooks with various flavors of CPUs.
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols writes:
"What's different about the combination of UNR and Moblin is that in this mix, UNR will be using the Moblin interface by default instead of UNR's Launcher interface. Under the surface of both is the GNOME interface. Canonical will also be announcing that they'll be releasing a version of UNR, tuned for a new Intel Classmate PC. Unlike previous editions of the Classmate, sources at Intel tell me that the new Classmate will be available for sale in the U.S."
Moblin has gotten many good reviews for its friendly interface, and a mashup of it and Ubuntu Netbook Remix sounds promising for netbooks. Hopefully, Canonical can help woo some of the major netbook manufacturers to deliver non-Windows netbooks. Meanwhile, Novell has announced that it will demonstrate the SUSE edition of Moblin version 2 software pre-loaded on Acer and MSI hardware this week at CompuTex.
As we reported yesterday, ASUS has been demonstrating an Android-based netbook powered by a 1-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. If you check out the video demonstration, it looks very snappy. Dell also has video online of Android running on netbooks, and Dell's newest netbooks are available with Ubuntu pre-loaded.
Meanwhile, Embedded Alley, a leading provider of embedded Linux solutions, has delivered a new development system for Android-based devices, including netbooks. "The Development System enables development of Android-based intelligent devices built on MIPS Technologies’ processors, targeting applications in domains beyond mobile handsets," the announcement says.
Linux and Linux-based operating systems will maintain a presence on netbooks, despite the prevalence of Windows. It's wishful thinking at this point to hope for Linux to have anywhere near the market share that Windows will have on them, but why does the market share need to be equivalent? For years, the Macintosh held only five percent of the desktop computing market, and look how much innovation the Mac has ushered in.
Linux netbooks, at lower prices than Windows alternatives, can grab and hold reasonable market share. As they do that, they'll put many open source applications in front of millions of new users.
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