Moblin v2 coming to Ubuntu

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From the ‘they have an office in Taiwan?‘ files:

Computex, the big tech hardware show in Taiwan takes off this week and there should be several Linux related items being shown off. Linux vendor Ubuntu actually has an office in Taipei (they’re in the Taipei 101 building). Ubuntu will be showing the Moblin version of the Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR), based on the beta code from Intel.

What is interesting to me personally is the reminder that Moblin should not just be regular Linux for a different device. It looks different than your typical GNOME/KDE/Xfce Linux desktop and is optmized for the netbook experience. A netbook is not the same thing a notebook — it just doesn’t have the same power. A netbook is supposed to be about easy/quick access to the net.

Check out the screen cap below (from Ubuntu) of the new Moblin based netbook edition. It sure doesn’t look like the Jaunty release that I’ve got on my regular notebook desktop now.

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 Ubuntu of course is not alone in supporting Moblin. Last week, I wrote about Linpus and their support for Moblin v2 (also for Computex).

The new capabilities that Clutter (new UI/graphics technology)  provides makes Moblin a really interesting opportunity on netbooks.

Ubuntu is also set to to announce a version of its netbook remix for the Intel clasmate PC as well as some new efforts with SanDisk around solid state drives.

Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth has publicly said (and told me in briefings too) that the netbook market is a key one for his distribution.

We know now that numerous Linux distros will support Moblin — we don’t know how Windows 7 for netbooks will actually compare – yet.  That said, the fact that multiple Linux distributions will be Moblin v2 compliant will mean an ecosystem of developers and vendors that could well mean an engine of innovation that will be difficult for Microsoft to compete against.

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