Intel To Challenge Android With Moblin For Mobile Devices

darien writes "Intel has officially entered the smartphone fight, giving a bullish demonstration at IDF of an Atom-based phone running the latest incarnation of its mobile Linux-based OS, dubbed Moblin for MIDs (mobile internet devices) v2.1. The system isn't aimed at current Atom CPUs, though — they're too power-hungry. 'One of the drivers of this initiative, and a key reason for the acquisition of Wind River, will be Intel's own app store, catering to ultra mobile devices based on the Atom chipset. The Intel Atom Developer Program will make use of Wind River's VxWorks product, which the company believes will help it achieve that developer grail of the 'write once and run on all devices' experience."

Comments

Wait... how?

[SanityInAnarchy]

The Intel Atom Developer Program will make use of Wind River's VxWorks product, which the company believes will help it achieve that developer grail of the 'write once and run on all devices' experience.

I don't get it. VxWorks is an OS, right? How does that help with "write once, run anywhere"?

Seems to me that Android is doing more towards this, given that native Android apps target a VM, and thus aren't tied to ARM, x86, or anything else. I'm not saying Intel isn't doing this, I just don't see what that has to do with Moblin, VxWorks, or an App Store.

Re:Wait... how?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The other weird aspect of TFS, beyond your correct points, is that Moblin is Linux based(and a substantially more "orthodox" Linux than android) and was something Intel was doing well before they ate Wind River and acquired VxWorks.

Obviously, I'm sure that subsequent VxWorks releases will be carefully tuned to do their best VxWorking on Atom boards; but the connection between that and Moblin, or Intel's new enthusiasm for app stores, seems quite limited.

Re:Wait... how?

[sunking2]

Because Green Hills is in the business of porting vxworks to any embedded system on the market. Green Hills provides the cross compilers. In fact, you probably can't even begin to think of introducing a new embedded cpu without talking with green hills to coordinate a port. It's kind of hard to shoot too many holes in a strategy that revolves around vxworks.

Re:Wait... how?

[ceallaigh]

I believe the Intel's focus for WindRiver is their software tools. Note that WindRiver already markets BSP kits for Linux for OEMs. It includes debuggers, emulators, and build systems. With WindRiver's tools and Intel's hardware they can have a very compelling Moblin Linux solution for potential hardware vendors. Sean

Re:Wait... how?

[Anonymous Coward]

After having dealt with various incarnations of VxWorks over the past four years... Massive step backwards. VxWorks is lighter weight than Linux, but a massive leap backwards in terms of networking features and performance. (Remember, VxWorks was chosen over Linux for recent Linksys WRT54G units for cost reasons on the order of $2-5/unit and not overall performance- Units were cheaper to make, but in my experience far less reliable than the older Linux-based units with double the RAM/ROM.)

VxWorks 5.x's networking stack is basically the 1990ish BSD Reno stack, with no new features but a lot of new weird bugs, for example. At least its deficiencies keep me employed.

Re:Wait... how?

[The Wild Norseman]

Ya, sorry. I brain farted.

*double clicks on his desktop to open a Windows*

Re:Wait... how?

[GooberToo]

and a substantially more "orthodox" Linux than android

I have no idea where people get their misinformation from, but that statement is completely false!

Android runs a standard Linux kernel, which is to say, Android is "orthodox" Linux. On Android, the differences are above the "Linux" level. They have their own framework known as Android. To say Android is unorthodox is to say KDE and Gnome are unorthodox Linux, which is of course crazy talk.

Re:Wait... how?

[SanityInAnarchy]

Most Linuxes are GNU/Linux, including such things as a standard libc. Android uses its own.

Moblin also uses X, I think. Android doesn't.

Thus, many apps you can run on a "desktop" Linux, or even a minimal or server Linux, you could simply recompile for Moblin, but you'd need to actually think about it and port to Android.

So, you're technically right (Linux is just a kernel), but functionally wrong.

Re:Wait... how?

[savuporo]

Most Linuxes are GNU/Linux, including such things as a standard libc. Android uses its own. Meh ? There is a multitude of libc's out there, GLIBC is not the only one. Look up EGLIBC ( debian standard now ) , uClibc, standard on uClinux distros, dietlibc, newlib. The fact that Android uses a BSD-derived Bionic C library for core userspace, does not make the system any less "Linux". Functionally, a lot of linux systems dont ship X, and dont ship loads of other userspace libraries that you may think are "orthodox". Lots of linux systems use busybox for almost all userspace functionality.

Re:Wait... how?

[SanityInAnarchy]

The fact that Android uses a BSD-derived Bionic C library for core userspace, does not make the system any less "Linux".

However, it's probably what people mean by "less orthodox", and probably causes some compatibility issues.

As for eglibc, that's not so much a differently-designed libc as a fork to avoid the maintainer of glibc, IIRC.

Functionally, a lot of linux systems dont ship X,

Not a lot of them ship some GUI other than X, though -- so it's not as though a typical Android user would want to enable X.

Stupid

[cheesybagel]

Stupid, stupid, stupid. The main selling point seems to be that it can run regular Linux apps. Which of course you would not want to do in the first place in devices with such a constrained screen size and different input methods. You are better off writing apps for that device instead. They should have just tried to improve Android instead.

Re:Stupid

[Neil Watson]

Being able to run the same apps on the device as I do on a Linux host would seem like a good thing to me. It frees my data.

Re:Stupid

[jittles]

Not true, I get on the command line of my iPhone all the time. There's nothing like being able to SSH into a machine from anywhere you've got reception. Its got nice little touch gestures for different command short cuts and everything.

Re:Stupid

[Neil Watson]

Maemo, found on the Nokia N900, is Debian based. It's most likely that installing apps on a Maemo device will involve a simple 'apt-get install '.

Re:Stupid

[symbolset]

You are so far wrong here that it's not even funny.

There are more apps available for Linux than just Open Office and The Gimp. Tens of thousands more. Maybe you don't use them all, but some of us use ones that would work just fine on a mobile phone platform (Apache, for one).

A Linux Phone with a wireless data link, usb servo controller and a webcam for example makes an interesting onboard avionics computer for an RPV - just to spew a quick one off the top of my head.

You keep your Android if that's what you want - there's room for both. But don't go telling people you know that Linux isn't a good fit for this or that segment until you broaden your interests a little more, ok?

Re:Jeez

[rodrigoandrade]

Considering that the next computing revolution is happening in the mobile market, I'm actually surprised there aren't MORE mobile OSs. I mean, who desn't want to be the next Microsoft???

Re:Jeez

[fifewiskey]

me....oh wait nevermind, trying to produce one now.

Re:Jeez

[Chrisq]

Is there anyone these days who ISN'T releasing a mobile OS?

Well, I'm eagerly awaiting an announcement from HURD....

Android already conver that market

[mhamel]

It's like the 80s and the begining of windows all over again but for mobile devices. The question is what will be the OS that can use the most software. Right now there are: IPhone OS which is very closed. Windows mobile also very closed and not sexy. Android which is open and has lots of backing by lot's of different builders. Many other smaller options. Moblin look very open too but.. when it will show up, Android should already available from every cellular providers.

What is funny in that mobile war is the position of Apple. Pretty much like when the first Mac came by at the begining of the 80s. They have a great product. But they are too closed. So it's going to be everybody against them. They can't win. Dell, HTC, Lenovo, Motorola, Philips, Samsung, Sony Ericson (on the open side this time) , and many others already have android phones.

I predict that soon when you'll want to build a mobile application, it will have to run on Android first. That way it will be available to everybody. The rest will be second thought. Just like the market for computer right OS now with windows. But this time the winner will be the open platform because it's been early in the market and the manufacturer will simply find it easier then going for windows mobile.

Re:Android already conver that market

[tomtomtom777]

Windows mobile also very closed

How is that? Is Windows mobile more closed than Android? I thought Windows mobile has an native API that allows pretty much everything, whereas Android exposes only a sandboxed Java environment.

... and not sexy

Agreed...

Re:Android already conver that market

[mdwh2]

Right now there are: IPhone OS which is very closed. Windows mobile also very closed and not sexy. Android which is open and has lots of backing by lot's of different builders. Many other smaller options. Moblin look very open too but.. when it will show up, Android should already available from every cellular providers.

You list Apple, and everyone smaller than them. What about Blackberry? Nokia? All the billions of Java phones out there?

I don't disagree with you, but note a difference with the 80s computing analogy is that aside from the ones trying to push an operating system, there are also loads of less expensive (and yes, not as good, but you get what you pay for, and still fulfil most people's needs), that make up the vast majority of the market.

Of course, there were a lot of computer makes around in the 80s, but the other difference is that these phones today do support a common standard, mainly thanks to Java, and also due to functionality being offered on websites). It's not perfect, but it's way better than the bad old days of computing where you needed a different version for every make and model on the market. Now a single application runs on pretty much any phone.

Except then along comes the Iphone, and changes that by specificially not allowing Java. So now we have to return to the days where special "For Your Iphone" applications are needed, to do what the rest of us were doing for years before. It's great marketing for Apple though, because people see these "Posted using XXX for Iphone" everywhere - all the people using ordinary phones are using open standards (either a Java app, or via the website itself), and thus don't get the free advertising spam for that make of phone.

What is funny in that mobile war is the position of Apple. Pretty much like when the first Mac came by at the begining of the 80s. They have a great product. But they are too closed. So it's going to be everybody against them. They can't win. Dell, HTC, Lenovo, Motorola, Philips, Samsung, Sony Ericson (on the open side this time) , and many others already have android phones.

I predict that soon when you'll want to build a mobile application, it will have to run on Android first.

I agree, and I hope so. I loved the Amiga back in the day, but looking back, it seems obvious that from a hardware point of view, the PC would be the winner, ever since it became a standard for business use in the early 80s. It was just a case of what OS it ran.

One problem however is that there is yet to be an open standard for mobile hardware. In some sense, there doesn't need to be, if systems like Java or Android are used. But I still have a worry Apple may be able to gain a monopoly on the hardware, because there's no open standard for potential new companies to use for mobile hardware.

The PC won because when every company said "Hey, let's get into making computers", most of them took the easy option and built PCs. With phones, they're left struggling to come up with their own hardware, or more likely, not bother at all.

Good

[Lemming Mark]

I'd rather buy Moblin than Android on a mobile device. Android replaces basically every part of what we usually call "Linux", except for the kernel (which of course actually *is* Linux). Moblin has a heavily custom desktop environment but other than that it seems like a reasonably "normal" distribution. If I were to do any hacking on the device I'd bought, I'd like it to be a familiar environment. If I'm downloading others' apps I'd feel more confident in getting a good range of apps if they can code in a familiar environment.

Android's good because it's an open platform. I can easily believe that for really resource-constrained apps it's better than Moblin. But on anything that can handle it, I'd rather have a "real" distro than Android. The diversity of having multiple mobile platforms is a good thing; I just personally would rather be able to run a familiar Unix-like environment on all my devices, even if they use a custom front-end to fit the form factor. Improvements to infrastructure (kernel, X.org, shell, apps, whatever) required for a small device are something that I'd like to see integrated upstream so that everyone benefits.

Re:Good

[sarhjinian]

I'd rather buy Moblin than Android on a mobile device. Android replaces basically every part of what we usually call "Linux", except for the kernel (which of course actually *is* Linux). Moblin has a heavily custom desktop environment but other than that it seems like a reasonably "normal" distribution

I don't think I'd call that an advantage. Linux-the-normal-distribution has a lot of aspects that aren't well-suited to a small-screen mobile device, and keeping those aspects around results in a worst-of-both-worlds compromise. Think about Windows Mobile (especially pre-2003): the interface carry-overs from Windows proper are the chief reason it's an also-ran on PDAs and phones, and it's only as those features disappear (and the platform diverges further from the desktop) that it's getting any traction at all. That many WM apps pay only lip-service to the platform and obey desktop conventions makes matters worse; keeping the desktop's UI encourages some pretty bad behaviour on the part of many developers.

There's no real point to extending the traditional Linux desktop to a phone for the same reason: there's nothing worthwhile to carry over. There's enough of this problem on the Linux desktop, which suffers from the platform's focus on servers and technical users. Google was right to junk as much as they can in favour of a user interface that's built for a mobile device. If they've made a mistake anywhere, it's that they've allowed the handset makers too much control over the interface, weakening the Android brand and hamstringing the phone with glitchy, tacked-on interface garbage that doesn't integrate well with the underlying OS (have you seen HTC TouchFlo on Windows Mobile? It's like lipstick on a pig).

I'm not saying that Moblin will be Windows CE awful, but I can't see it being iPhone or even Android-good if it's carrying over just about any aspect of the Linux GUI, and I can't see ports of desktop Linux apps being anything more than oft-frustrating.

Re:Good

[Lemming Mark]

I probably don't really want an existing DE on my mobile phone (for instance), I agree with you on that. But there's a lot of space between Moblin's approach (which already uses a custom DE that's specialised for netbook-class devices) and Android's approach (which replaces almost everything in the stack, as well as the UI). I'd also like for the primary supported method of writing applications to not be a strange combination of Java and a custom bytecode interpreter / JIT - that's the way Android has done it although I had the impression they were moving to support native applications.

If Moblin rewrites the entire user interface and doesn't default to using any "normal" Linux apps, it will still be *way* closer to "normal" Linux than Android is. Android doesn't use glibc, AFAIK - it doesn't even use X.org for display. Moblin on a phone would "merely" have an unfamiliar interface and apps, where Android is basically unfamiliar to me in every way - it's a significantly larger change than just the UI level.

I'm not a normal case, I suppose, in that I like to hack about with devices. However, it seems to me that the closer-to-vanilla environment provided by Moblin is going to be easier to get existing OSS developers working on and I'd like to benefit from their work too.

Re:Good

[WebCowboy]

Think about Windows Mobile (especially pre-2003): the interface carry-overs from Windows proper are the chief reason it's an also-ran on PDAs and phones,

The differences between Android and conventional Linux-based OSes run quite a bit deeper than the UI--Android is a very different architecture altogether. It's like saying MacOS X is BSD UNIX--IT ISN'T. It shares a lot of common elements, it is somewhat compatible but architecturally it is VASTLY DIFFERENT, far more than skin-deep-different. Therefore, one could say that those chief reasons for WinMo's failures could be addressed with a far more "conventional" Linux-based OS distribution. That is where Moblin comes in--it is an application framework that sits far higher up the stack. Whereas Android starts going its own way almost right above the kernel, Moblin sits atop an essentially complete core installation of Fedora, and in fact is technically "distribution agnostic" and can alternatively be installed atop Ubuntu as well. As Moblin is under the stewardship of the Linux Foundation the logical end goal would be to make Moblin an application framework upon the base install of ANY LSB-compliant OS.

And, I suggest you troll YouTube for demonstrations of Moblin--you'll quickly see it is very much NOT a "carry-over" of desktop Linux from a user perspective.

If course, Intel was the founding institution for Moblin, and its heritage is one of being optimised for the Intel Atom/x86 architecture, so Intel is pushing for Moblin smartphones because it is a software platform ready today for its hardware being released shortly..but here is an interesting situation: The Linux foundation is not beholden to Intel, Moblin is Free software and nothing impedes it from being built or optimised for another platform..notably ARM based competing platforms. For example, the Clutter 3D UI framework builds on many ARM based devices (I've seen it working nicely on the BeagleBoard), as to pretty close to all the essential parts of Moblin Core. Moblin 2.x could be ported to ARM with mostly "integration work" (figuring out compiler options, "glue logic" programming and scripts and so on).

There's no real point to extending the traditional Linux desktop to a phone for the same reason: there's nothing worthwhile to carry over.

I BEG TO DIFFER! The "Linux desktop" is more than the desktop environment/user interface, and as has been demonstrated there is quite a lot of the stack that is worthwhile to retain, even if it doesn't "make sense" in Mobile applications. Why do I say this? Because I think far too many people are demonstrating a very short-sighted view that mobile devices must always be mobile! For some reason, nobody thinks to look at how notebook/laptop PCs are used by so many people--they are carried about much of the time, but as often as not (maybe most of the time in fact) they sit on a desk connected to a full sized keyboard, mouse and monitor! This is especially the case with corporate PCs, where in many setups almost all users are issued notebooks.

If nobody gives it a second thought about something that weighs a couple kg and has occupies a footprint larger than an A4 sheet of paper being used in "two modes" then why should it be different for a pocket-sized computer? If these tiny devices are so powerful why artificially constrain the software on them to something geared towards mobile use? What is keeping us from putting USB host and HDMI ports on these devices (or on a dock the device sits in) such that we can use them on larger screens with full keyboards and mice? THAT is the problem with Android! It is designed for SMALL devices and needs some HEAVY modification to work outside those severe constraints. Critics already doubt Android's capability on netbook sized applications, much less when used in desktop or living-room-console situations! Hell, only in the most very recent release was there official coverage for something as basic as supporting DisplayMetrics t

Re:Jeez

[gbjbaanb]

erm.. Microsoft. They're the only ones with a second-rate attitude to mobile devices, although I heard than WinMo 7 will come out (eventually) and have support for social networking!

I use the mobile device marketplace as a way to explain to managers that Linux is the next big thing - they already know mobile is the big marketplace (gartner et al told them so) but they don't realise that Intel with Moblin, Nokia with Maemo, Palm with webOS, and Google with Android are all Linux OSs.