5 ms·

MeeGo - The fusion of Maemo and Moblin

17 points by ez77 17y ago

mortenjorck 17y ago
The wave of amazed astonishment today at Microsoft actually announcing an innovative mobile OS really should be shared with this. "Fusing" Maemo and Moblin seems about as straightforward a process as merging Android and Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Sure, they're both based on a Linux kernel, but... isn't that about all? They have entirely different UIs, different software stacks, and are targeted at different classes of device. Both Moblin and Maemo have looked very promising on their own, and I hope this is the right decision for both of them. It just seems very strange for Intel and Nokia to attempt this.
- yungchin 17y ago
  It makes sense for Intel, because they want to get into the mobile market, which is totally controlled by ARM. So getting Nokia's platform to be not only ARM- but also Atom-compatible might get Intel a chance of entry. I guess it technically makes less sense for Nokia. Maybe they just need Intel's money, to be able to keep up with the pace of Android development.
  - andrewtj 17y ago
    For Nokia, I don't think it's anything to do with Android (in the narrow sense) and is about far more than Intel's money. It seems to me that some years back Nokia took the view that phones are just another computing platform. Taking this view, actions like the Trolltech acquisition, Maemo, the Booklet 3G and this announcement can be seen as one cohesive movement towards Nokia offering the full computing stack.
- wmf 17y ago
  I think Moblin and Maemo 5 are both using quite a few GNOME pieces. Of course Maemo 6 creates a lot of questions (the first one being "why rip up your platform right after you just barely got it working?")
- gcb 17y ago
  Microsoft actually announcing an innovative mobile OS? where? all I saw was a flashy presentation with lots of eye candy and nothing that resembled a real device running anything. that was as fake as the moon landing. Aint fooling anyone
  - ashr 17y ago
    So you probably didn't look at all. http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/15/windows-phone-7-series-hands-on-and-impressions/ http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/15/windows-phone-7-series-ha...
    - gcb 17y ago
      nice. thanks. so, why the hell is everyone linking to that silly movie that shows just a phone rendering?
    - gcb 17y ago
      ah, seeing that on the mobile really feels like it's a windows phone. it only keeps the fliping page interface when launching the main apps. after that is just load time and buffer change. or side scroll. or zooming.
mbreese 17y ago
Isn't this where projects go to die? I'm not sure why companies think that they can merge open source projects just like they are divisions in a company. This seems like a last ditch effort to salvage some sort of market for both of these projects. Neither really seemed to have much of a direction, so I suspect that together they will really be able to go nowhere fast.
- gcb 17y ago
  sad but true.
- nitrogen 17y ago
  The fact that they call themselves the MeeGo Technical Steering Group seems to confirm your conclusion.
Tichy 17y ago
Why can't they just tell me on the start page what they are. MeeGo, SchmeeGo... I have no idea what this is about.
megaduck 17y ago
This is a fantastic development for people who want a general purpose linux on netbooks. I've tried several times to use Moblin as my primary OS, and it's just too half-baked and incomplete at this point. The browser is buggy, and email lacks a lot of basic features. The network services are also unfinished or missing. The calendar doesn't sync with google calendar, there's no facebook integration, there's no address book synchronization. There's also a lot of missing UI niceties. What's frustrating about is that all of the infrastructure is there to have those things. They've developed a nice abstraction layer for hooking into web services, as well as a great UI toolkit for building slick-looking applications on a small screen. They've also got awesome power management, and an amazingly fast boot process. Moblin makes your little atom-based netbook feel amazingly responsive. My hunch is that Moblin has been building things from the 'bottom up', i.e. power management, networking, display drivers, and tools. Maemo seems to have the opposite approach, where they have a lot more UI polish and finished applications, but they might not have the robust underlying infrastructure code. If both companies play to their strengths, then we might get a pretty nice linux for small screens. If that happens, I'll jump ship from Ubuntu in a heartbeat.

17 points by ez77 17y ago

The wave of amazed astonishment today at Microsoft actually announcing an innovative mobile OS really should be shared with this. "Fusing" Maemo and Moblin seems about as straightforward a process as merging Android and Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Sure, they're both based on a Linux kernel, but... isn't that about all? They have entirely different UIs, different software stacks, and are targeted at different classes of device. Both Moblin and Maemo have looked very promising on their own, and I hope this is the right decision for both of them. It just seems very strange for Intel and Nokia to attempt this.

yungchin 17y ago
It makes sense for Intel, because they want to get into the mobile market, which is totally controlled by ARM. So getting Nokia's platform to be not only ARM- but also Atom-compatible might get Intel a chance of entry. I guess it technically makes less sense for Nokia. Maybe they just need Intel's money, to be able to keep up with the pace of Android development.
- andrewtj 17y ago
  For Nokia, I don't think it's anything to do with Android (in the narrow sense) and is about far more than Intel's money. It seems to me that some years back Nokia took the view that phones are just another computing platform. Taking this view, actions like the Trolltech acquisition, Maemo, the Booklet 3G and this announcement can be seen as one cohesive movement towards Nokia offering the full computing stack.
wmf 17y ago
I think Moblin and Maemo 5 are both using quite a few GNOME pieces. Of course Maemo 6 creates a lot of questions (the first one being "why rip up your platform right after you just barely got it working?")
gcb 17y ago
Microsoft actually announcing an innovative mobile OS? where? all I saw was a flashy presentation with lots of eye candy and nothing that resembled a real device running anything. that was as fake as the moon landing. Aint fooling anyone
- ashr 17y ago
  So you probably didn't look at all. http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/15/windows-phone-7-series-hands-on-and-impressions/ http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/15/windows-phone-7-series-ha...
  - gcb 17y ago
    nice. thanks. so, why the hell is everyone linking to that silly movie that shows just a phone rendering?
  - gcb 17y ago
    ah, seeing that on the mobile really feels like it's a windows phone. it only keeps the fliping page interface when launching the main apps. after that is just load time and buffer change. or side scroll. or zooming.

mbreese 17y ago

Isn't this where projects go to die? I'm not sure why companies think that they can merge open source projects just like they are divisions in a company. This seems like a last ditch effort to salvage some sort of market for both of these projects. Neither really seemed to have much of a direction, so I suspect that together they will really be able to go nowhere fast.

gcb 17y ago
sad but true.
nitrogen 17y ago
The fact that they call themselves the MeeGo Technical Steering Group seems to confirm your conclusion.

Tichy 17y ago

Why can't they just tell me on the start page what they are. MeeGo, SchmeeGo... I have no idea what this is about.

megaduck 17y ago

This is a fantastic development for people who want a general purpose linux on netbooks. I've tried several times to use Moblin as my primary OS, and it's just too half-baked and incomplete at this point. The browser is buggy, and email lacks a lot of basic features. The network services are also unfinished or missing. The calendar doesn't sync with google calendar, there's no facebook integration, there's no address book synchronization. There's also a lot of missing UI niceties. What's frustrating about is that all of the infrastructure is there to have those things. They've developed a nice abstraction layer for hooking into web services, as well as a great UI toolkit for building slick-looking applications on a small screen. They've also got awesome power management, and an amazingly fast boot process. Moblin makes your little atom-based netbook feel amazingly responsive. My hunch is that Moblin has been building things from the 'bottom up', i.e. power management, networking, display drivers, and tools. Maemo seems to have the opposite approach, where they have a lot more UI polish and finished applications, but they might not have the robust underlying infrastructure code. If both companies play to their strengths, then we might get a pretty nice linux for small screens. If that happens, I'll jump ship from Ubuntu in a heartbeat.