Dr. Dobb's Digest October 2009
In the world of Netbooks, it seems there's something new every day. The most recent news at this writing is that AT&T will be pushing Nokia's Booklet 3G for $299. Without a two-year comment of approximately $60 per month, the Booklet 3G will sell for $599. The Booklet 3G is powered by the Intel Atom processor and will run on Windows 7. The computer has Wi-Fi, 3G capabilities, GPS, a 120-GB hard-disk drive, and comes with a battery that Nokia claims will last for up to 12 hours. Sounds good, but (gulp!) a bit pricey. And then there's Acer's just-announced Aspire Netbook that dual boots Google Android and Windows 7.
An option, of course, is a Netbook with an operating system that doesn't drive up the cost of the system. An operating system like, say, Moblin (http://www.moblinzone.ddj.com) -- the Linux distro that's optimized for mobile devices (particularly those running on Intel's Atom processor) everywhere.
What pushes Moblin into the cool zone is that, thanks to Moblin's common core of services and APIs, you can code once to deliver applications to multiple devices, each with different form factors. This was a hit at the recent Intel Developer Forum where devices of all sizes and form factors -- desktop to hand-held Ñ were running the same apps across the board.
Moblin v2.0 was recently released, with v2.1 expected before the end of the year. Moblin v2.0 features fast boot times, speedy performance, and a netbook-focused Linux stack that integrates a Mozilla-based browser, media viewing, social networking, and support for Linux desktop applications via Gnome Mobile technologies. And like everyone else these days, Moblin will provide an app store -- the Moblin Garage, an online catalog for open source Moblin applications. The Moblin SDK includes development images, documentation, tools, and examples to get you started writing, debugging, and porting apps. Plus there are numerous third-party open-source tools.
The Moblin Core consists of the Application Services and UI Services layers and is a common set of packages and libraries -- many based on Linux and other open-source contributions -- but enhanced for the Atom processor, that apply to all devices. The UI services layer supports both legacy GTK- and Qt-based applications as well as new technology from the OpenGL-based Clutter (http://www.clutter-project.org/) open-source library for creating portable and animated GUIs.
The Platform-specific UI layer is where components for the unique I/O requirements of the devices reside. For example, a netbook typically has a 7x10-inch display with a keyboard and mouse as the primary input methods. A MID, however, typically has a much smaller display with touch-screen as the primary input method. Clearly, the user experience and apps need to be tailored to the unique requirements of these devices. These are just a few of the features Moblin delivers.
Linux vendors keen on capturing a share of the exploding Netbook market are lining up behind Moblin: Linpus, Canonical, Wind River, Novell, MontaVista, and Asianux, to name a few. It should be interesting. It would seem that Windows Mobile and/or Windows 7 will be among the main competitors in the market. However, the operating system license fees from Moblin/Linux vendors zeroing in on Netbooks will put the pressure on Microsoft. Can $150 netbooks be far behind?