Moblin V2 Alpha

The Moblin Project has just released Moblin Core Alpha for Netbooks. It uses the 2.6.29-rc2 kernel and has apparently been tested on the Aspire One. An image is available for download on the moblin.org site. Has anyone given it a run yet ?

http://moblin.org/community/blogs/tshureih/2009/announcing-moblin-v2-core-alpha-release

 

I've only run it on a USB key on my AAO-110, and it took approx 6 seconds from pushing the power button to reach the boot menu. Less than 30 seconds later (loading from a USB key), the desktop appeared. My wireless network started fine shortly after that, but I didn't try it after a suspend. It booted as fast from a USB stick than a heavily tweaked Linux4one installation does from the SSD.

It seems fast, but rather spartan in the few minutes I've played with it so far (battery getting low, and someone is sleeping in the room that has my charger). I couldn't find any option to enable scrolling in the touchpad. I didn't notice a battery charge icon.

The iso for download is rpm based, while I am used to .deb based systems. There are not many applications apart from what appears to be a nightly build of Firefox 3.05. I'm looking at the Moblin image creator, and guessing that we'll be seeing a flood of small netbook distros by April - it looks like it will really lower the barriers to entry.

While it will run on Ubuntu, it wasn't entirely clear to me whether you can create an Ubuntu based distro with Moblin image creator. Either way, I'll probably try installing the alpha on the SSD tonight, right after I back up my linux4one installation, then add a FC10 repository and see how big of a dependancy mess I can create.

 

The Phoronix team tested it and it booted in 13 seconds on Samsung NC10. The project goal is to boot in under 5 seconds!

 

I have given it a quick run from a USB key. As stated by dschl, it boots rapidly though this Alpha release is somewhat minimalist with very few applications or codecs. I didn't try adding anything with the package manager.

Wi Fi worked out of the box though the network connection manager appears incomplete. I was unable to connect to a 128bit WEP WiFi AP as the GUI wouldn't accept the complete key. I did manage to connect to a 64bit WEP protected network though. I was also unable to find a way to set a fixed IP address with this application..

General use seemed very snappy, more so than my current Ubuntu set up. I look forward to seeing the developments coming out of Moblin in the coming months.

 

I'm currently posting this from Moblin installed on an USB stick from my Aspire One a110. It feels faster than the Acer Linpus version. I really like it. Will probably install it when there is a more stable version out there.

 

Posting from moblin as well. wifi with wpa-personal works, wpa-enterprise is not yet implemented though.
For now the distribution is very bare (probably helps the VERY low boot time, haven't timed, but got the feeling i'm under 10s). There's hardly any applications included, and the repositories seem pretty empty.
I can't wait to see this develop though, I hope intel will do a better job than the half baked linpus os we have at the moment.
as for sound etc, I haven't been able to test yet for lack of sound file to play...

 

I've installed it and feel in love. The only thing is I need help installing software it wants the root password. I tried my password, admin, root, toor and just hitting enter. can any one help??

 

The root password seems to be: moblin (edit: its not.. someone told me it was.. ive just reset mine after installing as i couldnt find it)

I've just started the install to the SSD so I can have a play and see what I can get working.. Once thats done i'm gonna try using MIC2 and see what I can put together.. it looks like you can pull in ubntu,redhat and fedora packages and build a custom distro.. Could be quite good.

Boot time is awesome. Thats what I really want to keep (I use Gentoo on my AA1 at the minute which is pretty quick now.. but not as quick as i'd like)

I need to get my touchscreen working too as that doesnt seem to be supported out the box.. (not that you'd expect it to be mind as its non-standard)

The other thing I noticed is it doesnt seem to work with the Card Readers properly.. I was hoping Intel might have sorted that mess.

Sam

 

I've just timed it from poweroff to desktop when installed on the SSD.. Its about 16 seconds!

Not bad.. the BIOS still needs to be quicker for a much faster start.. but it's pretty good considering the stage its at.

 

As a super-rough benchmark, glxgears on Linpus is around 360fps. On moblin is was around 230fps.

 

I'm really liking the Moblin system, after only a few hours using it (I'm a die hard Gentoo user on my desktops and servers but it's overkill on the AA1)

I've just got the development tools up so I can have a play with MIC2 and build some new images with some AA1 specific tweaks in the ISO, I might try and get the UNR interface running on it as that would rock, if not ill be swapping out XFCE for Fluxbox.

If you want to reset the root password after installing Moblin (as your created user isn't in the sudoers file for some reason) the best bet seems to be to just boot another livecd/liveusb, mount the moblin SSD partition and edit the /etc/shadow file and remove the root password.. It'd be easier if they documented the root password!

Fedora 10 repos seem to work pretty much flawlessly as far as I can tell.. I'm just gonna have a look at the kernel config and see what I can find/change in there.

 

[off-topic]
Replying to the post about glxgears, simply adding
export INTEL_BATCH=1
at the end of /etc/profile on my linpus acer doubled the reported framerate.
I know that glxgears-is-not-a-benchmark, and I haven't benchmarked any 3D games. Anyway everything seems a bit faster. I don't know why this simple mod isn't implemented as default, as many use it for compiz.
TheTilde

 

@ sambartle

The password for root is: moblin
now you know it, change at your preference.

 

Moblin alpha 2 looks and works great. I really like the layout and simplicity. Wifi was connected right away. Very, very fast too. Now I'm torn between Moblin and Sidux. Which one to go for. Hmm...

It's becoming frustrating (in a good way frustrating) that we apparently are being blessed with better and faster operating systems suited for the Aspire One to choose from all the time. What a luxury problem.

 

Hello,
Posting this from moblin. Im having some issues
first the software upgrade does not work, Im unable to press the button to actually perform the upgrade even if all the upgrades are found.
Also I'm unable to use the add remove software program, it just crashes on start.
My wifi is not found, so I'd to resort to the good old cable to post this.
And I'm also missing a login manager and multiuser capabilities.

I agree that the system is really fast so I'm actually interested in using it, if someone can help me these issues I would be very thankfull. If the add remove software was working I guess you could add some fedore repos since the system is rpm based.
This way one would have acces to an enourmos amount of software.

The most important issue of course is the wifi not working.

 

It's in an early state. It's only alpha 2, so I wouldn't count on using it as a full working OS already since there aren't many software and update packages available at this point. I can't help you with wifi issues since I had absolutely no problems connecting through wifi. There's an icon sitting next to the clock application in the tool bar. Clicking that provided me with available wifi connections and after choosing my own and adding the password it connected within ten seconds. So, unless you've missed the (tiny) icon I'm afraid I can't help you with that one.

Instead I found another issue. Moblin doesn't support the ext2 file system at this moment which is a big mistake, imo, if they want SSD netbook owners to become potential Moblin users.

From Moblin's web page:

So they say they'll make Moblin geared towards netbooks. However, as aforementioned, I sadly found out that they don't offer the option to install Moblin onto an SSD model (no ext2 file system supported), which really baffles me. The Solid State Drive (SSD) is the future for netbooks so I've heard. Moblin apparently only caters to HDD owners, at least for the time being. And that's a shame since I feel it has potential to become one of the best distros for the little AAO. But alas and alack, running Moblin on an SSD with the ext3 file system is not optimal -- things get very sluggish and it was far from being an impressive experience after installation. Moblin is very fast in live session and I loved testing it. It has a good feel to it. Moblin is probably also the best looking Linux OS I've come across in a very long time. So I was really hooked on getting it installed onto my AAO 110L model. Shame SSDs aren't supported. If you're reading this and you own the HDD model go ahead and try Moblin out. I'm sure it'll be a sweet experience for you.

Myself, I'm either going with Sidux or #! CrushBang for the time being, but I'll keep an eye on future Moblin releases. It definitely has a lot of potential for being a successful netbook distro.

 

Yes, I've seen the icon on panel and I'm able to detect my wireless, it just doesnt't seen to be able to connect to it. However since my aspire one is an ssd one I am considering not running moblin by the same reason as csmo, lack of ext2 support. Maybe I'll checkout Sidux or Crushbang. What I'm really looking for is a optimized kernel and boot time and acces to a lot of software, since I'm mainly using my my netbook for small programming projects (python, ruby, c), writing reports (latex, vim), reading email (claws), surfing the web (firefox, mplayerplug-in, flash-support) and sometimes I listen to music and watch movies while I'm treveling. So basically everything based on debian or fedora is ok when it comes to software, but then I want to have a short boot time. Maybe arch linux is a good trade off?

 

Dude, you're abusing your netbook, using it for things the pundits tell us it's not designed for like programming projects and report writing:lol: :lol: :lol:

Moblin's definitely not yet ready for prime time, but it certainly has potential. Come to think of it, even the best of the Linux aren't completely ready for prime time on the AA1. Yet.

 

Looks like I'll be sticking with Mandriva due to the lack of ext2 support as well.
Unless of course someone knows how to turn off journaling in ext3 on Moblin...

 

Everybody have probably already saw this but Alpha 2 is out.

http://moblin.org/community/blogs/tshur ... -2-release