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Novell and Intel Team Up For Moblin On Netbooks

Posted by Soulskill on from the os-names-that-sound-like-they-might-eat-you dept.

ruphus13 writes "The Mobile and Netbook space already has several Open Source OS providers. Android has been making its way into netbooks, and Moblin, LiMo and Ubuntu are also alternatives for OSes on netbooks and mobile handhelds. Now, Novell has also joined the fray, but rather than porting openSuSE, they have teamed up with Intel to get OEMs to use Moblin for their mobile devices. From the article: 'With the other tools and benefits that Moblin offers OEMs and developers, it's really a rather smart approach that could potentially yield a better netbook experience (for developers and consumers), maximize development resources, and produce quality software in minimal time. I don't think Novell is eschewing SUSE, but in its current form, it's not as suited for netbooks as it is systems like the HP ProBooks. Paired with Moblin's netbook-centric bent and coming from a desktop/server market (rather than a true mobile device background), bringing a SUSE/Moblin system to netbooks has as much potential (if not more) for success as an Android adaptation does.'"

2 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. What's up with SUSE? by ultrabot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's interesting to follow Novell's moves regarding SUSE; first, they lay off lots of SUSE developers, now they are just "skipping" it in favor of Moblin. I'd be surprised if there was no hard feelings regarding the decision among the SUSE team.

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  2. Re:Great a notebook with a broken package manager by EsbenMoseHansen · · Score: 2, Interesting

    openSUSE has a neat package manager since 11.0. Issues were in 10.1 times, 3 years ago. Today you have a neat zypper, YaST using the same engine, PackageKit integration, etc.

    Out of curiosity, does that mean that stuff like

    • unused packages removal - ie, if a a package is only installed as a dependency, and if no package which depend on it are still installed, the package can be automatically removed.
    • suggested packages, ie., packages has a list of packages which enhances the package in quesiton.
    • recommended packages, ie, packages which are not strictly required but should normally be installed with a package.
    • support for packages deprecating and/or providing other packages
    • support for running configuration utilities and such during installation

    Just curious, the comparisons chart I have found are obviously out of date.

    --
    Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.