Review: Moblin 2.0 beta

Intel recently unveiled a publically available beta version of Moblin 2.0, the next iteration of the chip maker's Linux-based operating system designed for netbooks.

Although Intel has had a long standing partnership with Microsoft, the company has teamed up with Novell to develop Moblin specifically for the growing market of netbooks and mobile internet devices.

The install is pretty straightforward, but creating a bootable install disk is slightly more difficult than with some other operating systems. However, the Moblin site provides plenty of detailed information to get you up and running.

Furthermore, you can opt to run the beta from a CD or USB key without installing it first. You won't be able to save any settings, but you'll have the option of testing the operating system and its features without going through the process of installing it.

Once up and running, users are presented with a remarkably bare backdrop and an auto-hiding toolbar along the top, providing a static set of tabs to all of Moblin's features.

First and foremost is Myzone, which gives a general overview of your life. The screen is split into three panels. On the left you'll find a calendar as well as links to your favourite applications, the centre panel highlights recently accessed files and web sites, while social network updates are on the right.

The next tab is Status, which allows users to update their status on their favourite social networking sites. Only Twitter and Last.fm are supported at this stage, but more social networks are expected to be added soon.

This is followed by the People tab, which provides an interface to all your contacts. Although this section is still at a very early stage and has limited functionality, the aim is to provide an integrated list of contacts from across different platforms, as well as presence information and access to instant messaging.

The Internet panel is a browser based on Google's Chrome engine. As well as a full web browser, including the tabbed browsing seen in most browsers today, it includes an integrated 'automagic' bar that provides suggestions based on running, favourite and recently viewed web sites as users begin typing.

Next is the Media tab, which provides easy access to recently played and viewed media files and the ability to search for specific media. This section is also in its early stages, but Intel has plans for a playlist feature and other searching and sorting functions.

The Pasteboard allows users to store and manage multiple copied items, and makes it simpler to copy and paste between applications.

The final two panels are probably the most important. The Applications panel lists all of the applications available, segmented into categories, and lets you adjust Moblin's settings.

Zones, meanwhile, acts as a series of virtualised desktops, and allows users to manage, organise and switch between currently running applications.

Every time you start a new application you have the option of creating a new Zone or starting the program within an existing Zone. This can make life a lot easier when you have several different applications open, particularly if you can logically separate various tasks.

On the far right of the toolbar is the Status section which provides power, screen brightness and connectivity information. Wired networks, some Wi-Fi and some 3G connections are supported, with more coming soon, along with Bluetooth.

Moblin runs quickly and smoothly, and Intel has clearly done a lot of work optimising it for the Atom processor so that it makes the most of the reduced specifications found in netbooks.

However, while the developers have worked hard to make Moblin simple and uncluttered, there is a feeling that any kind of customisation is purely cosmetic, and that if you don't like the layout or other fundamental parts of the system there is nothing you can really do about it. As a result, Windows users may find there is something of a learning curve, particularly when it comes to altering anything.

Similarly, although there are a growing number of applications out there that will run on Moblin, users hoping to install anything even vaguely out of the ordinary may find themselves out of luck.

Even in its early beta form, Moblin 2.0 is one of the best operating systems of its kind we've seen. The clean and slick interface offers easy access to the majority of functions that most users will be looking for.

That said, it suffers from a lack of customisation that anyone not particularly interested in social media might be looking for, and anyone looking outside the bounds of the Moblin structure may well be frustrated by the experience.

Intel recently turned over control of the project to the Linux Foundation with the aim of making it even more open to other contributors. The long-term goal is to turn Moblin into the 'nexus' of mobile Linux development and make it the de-facto Linux platform for portable devices.

Ultimately, it's still quite rough around the edges and we hope that Intel will include some customisation of the toolbar to help users have quick access to the features they want. But other developers need to sit up and take notice, because this is how it should be done.