www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHO21jj4ZpU

Check It Out> Jolicloud Blog

Looking to try out a new operating system for your Netbook?  MeeGo has just released version 1.0 of their Netbook OS and it looks very promising.  With its Moblin like interface it is relatively intuitive and caters to the small form factor that typically makes Netbooks hard to use.

Check It Out> MeeGo via Liliputing

Microsoft has been trying to convince people that Windows 7 Starter Edition is different, and today they may have.  Paul Thurrott has posted (albeit briefly) that Microsoft has removed the 3 application limit and hopefully we will get a confirmation next week on whether or not this is true.

One thing is for sure with Netbook users, Microsoft is doing everything they can to make Windows 7 attractive to them.  Linux has been making some very serious headway in the last couple of months with Ubuntu Netbook Remix and now Moblin 2.0 but Microsoft is not sitting idly by.

Windows 7 has been engineered to be Netbook friendly but they have had a huge problem, Starter Edition screams “Crippled” and that is bad for marketing.  It is the only version of the operating system they can give away relatively cheap with a Netbook.  If Microsoft does proceed and takes away the 3 application limit they will succeed in winning over more users.

Check It Out> SuperSite, Techarp

If you happen to be one of the lucky individuals running OS X on your MSI Wind, today just got even better for you.  Thanks to the VoodooProjects team there is now a fully functioning audio driver available.  Not everyone has had the greatest success in getting it to work correctly but so far the reports are pretty possitive.

The driver itself includes mute controls, separate left and right audio level controls, auto-mute when plugging in a device into the headphone jack.  After downloading the driver just install it to /System/Library/Extensions and everything should go smoothly.

Check It Out> MSI Wind Forums, VodooHDA

Netbooks are currently the hottest selling computers on the market right now for good reason but something is still missing from them, a good interface.  Still in the Alpha stage is Ubuntu’s Netbook Remix (UNR) but its pretty much just a skin for the standard Ubuntu.  HP also has a Netbook interface but again it is basically an over sized taskbar.

Thankfully the makers of the K Desktop Environment (KDE) for Linux are not satisfied with simply re-skinning a user interface and actually want to make a true Netbook interface.

• We aren’t making an interface for a “smaller laptop” or a “larger handheld”; the interface is for a netbook, which has a unique set of use cases and should have a unique, if familiar, user interface. To our knowledge, nobody is really doing this yet. We feel that just as Apple made popular an interface style on handhelds that is for handhelds with their iPhone/iPod touch interface, netbooks deserve a similar treatment.
• Being based on libplasma, we don’t have to start from scratch. In fact, the bulk of the work is already done. This will give us a nice showcase for the concept of a “primary user interface framework” and how it can be used to reapply existing work to new physical form factors with minimal investments.
• Being based on libplasma, it will automagically work with other Plasma tools. This will make working with a Plasma netbook and a Plasma laptop together easy and coherent, especially when the SoC projects on things like network transparency in libplasma come to fruition in KDE 4.4.
• Being part of the Plasma project, it will share the visual identity of the Plasma desktop shell: you will be able to put your netbook next to your laptop/desktop and they will look like they belong together. Only Apple manages to do this with their products right now.
• Because it’s not some esoteric software stack all welded together with a kernel and various “made for mobile only” toolkit work, it will be easy for people to get involved and work with it.
• The emphasis in the design is on full screen usage, speed to information, integration with applications and visual beauty.

The new version of KDE 4.2.2 is really a good interface and it is starting to look like KDE 4.4 will be a really good release.  The one thing that I think KDE has been missing is a Windows version that would replace the standard Windows shell (Start menu, taskbar etc.).  They do currently have a Windows version but it is only the applications that come with KDE and not the actual interface.  If they did make a version of KDE that could also run on Windows based Netbooks they might find that they could dominate the Netbook market with this.

Check It Out> aseigo via Netbook news and Liliputing, Ubuntu Netbook Remix

Freescale is aiming at a $100-$200 price point for the Netbooks and their primary focus for the operating system is.. wait for it…. Android!  They want to use Google Android to power their Netbooks due to it’s low system requirements.  This is really starting to be quite the trend with companies making devices running Android.  While it is good for phones will it be sufficient for a Netbook?

Current Netbooks primarily use the Atom processor which is more powerful and averages about 4 hours of battery life.  By comparison the ARM processor is aiming for an average of 8 hours of battery life.  This could be a good opportunity for Freescale to get into the game and of course be good for consumers to get computers cheaper when they have less money to spend.

Check It Out> eWeek via OSnews, Freescale

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

A few days ago I posted about CrunchEee a Netbok version of CrunchBang Linux.  Today Lifehacker has some more screenshots of CrunchBang as well as a quick introduction to it.  This is a distro of linux that has some nice potential and is bound to make those happy that are looking for clean OS.

CrunchBang is also capable of booting from a USB pendrive.  This can work well for those out there that need a portable OS.

Check It Out> Lifehacker, CrunchBang

As you can see from our OS Directory there are a multitude of Linux distributions out there.  While Ubuntu is the most popular one right now there are still many other flavors to choose from including those built on Ubuntu such as Cruncheee.

CrunchEee is a Netbook version of CrunchBang Linux which is based off of Ubuntu.  It has been designed specifically for Netbooks and as such is very lite and relatively easy to install.  If your looking for a good Netbook OS make sure you give CrunchEee a try.

Check It Out> CrunchBang, CrunchEee Download, CrunchBang Blog,

Thanks to a heads-up from my friend Leo, TechCrunch has some details regarding a new operating system in the works called Jolicloud.  The OS looks very polished and could easily blow away the competition in terms of visual appeal and usability.

From their website:

We love netbooks: they are cheap, compact, light and always connected via 3G.  What we didn’t like so much was the user experience so we decided to build our own.  We used Linux and made it boot faster and we optimized it for surf and cloud computing. We redesigned the interface and integrated some cool stuff.  This is how the jolicloud project started. The next step is to let you try it out and have your opinion so together we can build the best netbook experience.

Despite their name containing the word “cloud” it does not appear as if it is Cloud based.  They have only released one screenshot, however they have a Flickr page where they will release more as they get closer to their official release.  At this point it does not appear as if they have any deals in progress to get it pre-installed on Netbooks and will just be releasing it for download.

If you are interested in signing up to beta test Jolicloud you can go to their site and select the “Keep me informed” button and they will let you know when the beta is open.

Check It Out> TechCrunch, Jolicloud, Jolicloud Flickr