Slashdot Mirror
Intel Launches Mobile Linux Project
An anonymous reader writes "Intel has unveiled an ambitious project aimed at developing open source software for mobile devices. The Moblin project comprises a Linux kernel, UI framework, browser, multimedia framework, and embedded Linux image creation tools, along with developer resources such as documentation, mailing lists, and an IRC channel. Intel says it hopes Moblin will serve as a 'point of integration' for multiple sub-projects, and appears eager to see devices such as its Mobile Internet Device design, and chipsets such as its Ultra Mobile Platform 2007 platform, be thoroughly supported by Linux. Although all of the projects currently focus on the Intel architecture, Moblin says it is open to hosting support for other processor architectures."
So typical in the mobile scene that everyone has to develop a new way.
I would encourage you to RTFA (either moblin.org or the linuxdevices article) where it talks about Intel using Hildon (the UI framework from Maemo). To me that looks like the biggest reusable chunk of open source code that Nokia has turned out so far. Much of the rest of Nokia's stuff is either off-the-shelf (the kernel, packaging system (apt+dpkg)) or closed source (media codecs, DSP code) or rather trivial (I don't think writing your own application launcher sidebar is really going to cause significant fracturing of the Linux userbase). There is lots of code reuse if you look for it a little deeper than in a slashdot summary...
^I'm with stupid.^
You don't have a history of trolling so I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt:
- No version of the Linux kernel has ever been released under the GPL 3
- AFAICT, none of the articles mention anything about Intel using a proprietary kernel
- On the projects page of moblin.org they list under the "Kernel" sub-heading that they will be working on "Platform-specific kernel patches and device drivers." I don't see any reason not to take this at face value.
For more info please RTFA. kthxbye.
^I'm with stupid.^
I am a fan of both OpenWRT and Angstrom (formerly OpenZaurus) and have on more than one occasion used OpneEmbedded to build packages and whole binary distributions for my Zauruses (Zaurii?). Having said that I don't think that OpenEmbedded is really applicable in this case. OE's big focus is on making cross compiling less painful and on offering a more fine grained approach to the creation of binary packages. Since Intel's UMPC platform doesn't need to be cross compiled for (it's plain x86) and since it has lots of storage space at it's disposable (a minimum of 4GB or so as opposed to 16MB or less on on some OE supported targets), the benefits of OE might be outweighed when compared to the number of available source packages from a standard desktop Linux distro like Ubuntu or Debian brings in "for free." Just my 2 cents.
^I'm with stupid.^
The Neo phone OpenMoko is putting out is a Samsung processor, so no, it's unlikely that Moblin will work right now (though Intel did say that they'll host other architectures, I think somebody would have to port it first.)
Not that I wouldn't highly appreciate a phone with a pentium 3 powering it. (And modular hardware so it can be forced to work with multiple carriers, the Neo kinda fails the open phone idea because of that (at least as far as I can tell, you cant add CDMA to it and get it to work with sprint/verizon/cricket).
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
This is the upstream project from which several components of Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded are being derived. As such things like the moblin image creator are documented in the Ubuntu Mobile User Guide which is being developed here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UMEGuide
To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.
I have my own obvious personal bias, yes, but I have seen and helped them build and maintain codebases and dev kits for other chipsets. As long as people use it, they will maintain it.
I can also say that overall, there is a HUGE shift to Linux as their development base, coming at great cost to WinCE/Windows Mobile.
(posted anon for obvious reasons).