You will then be able to access this information whether or not you are online! This links with an integrated personal information manager (PIM) so you can keep in touch with people over several services.
But I can do this already with my smartphone! Perhaps, but is it easy to write documents, send long-winded emails or attach extra storage space?
Netbooks are small and flexible and can be as specialised as you like! Moblin provides a base for developers to provide applications and support, and that added ease of use will help more people get the most out of their netbooks.
If Moblin is missing all these great features and is still in the alpha stage, then I bet it's really buggy!
The Moblin team is working on some quite significant bugs right now. Moblin uses Anaconda (the same installer package used by Fedora) and runs this fine if you selected 'boot and install' from the boot menu. However, if you select 'boot' from the boot menu and then try to install from a live environment you will be prompted for a root password even though you don't have one!
Wi-Fi also isn't supported on the Asus Eee PC 901. Also, any netbooks running Intel GMA-500 graphics chips are not yet supported. These issues however along with the UI are "under heavy development" to quote the official Moblin site, so though there is plenty of work still to do the future looks very bright for this project.
OK, you've convinced me! I'll install it right away…
Hold your horses! Moblin is still in the alpha stage of development, so you'll be distinctly unimpressed with it at the moment. For instance, most of the software planned is still in development, and most of the apps and libraries aren't included at present.
You also won't get the Moblin UI, as that's also still in development (so you'll just get an Xfce desktop with very few apps). It's also very selective about which systems it will work with, and at present is very slow to boot, because the fast boot improvements are not yet stable enough to include.
It's running Xfce?
This isn't quite the Xfce you know and love. The desktop environment has a mishmash of configuration tools for Xfce and Gnome Mobile, and the only bundled Moblin app is the Moblin browser (which itself is very buggy, and doesn't even render the Mozilla page it automatically loads correctly!).
It also includes interesting desktop effects such as making windows transparent as you drag them and lighting up the task bar when you scroll over it, but this would probably slow down a netbook in real operation.
It also fails to make effective use of the available screen space with the doubling-up of icons and the windows not being maximised when applications are opened.
The only real Xfce apps available for use are MPlayer and Mousepad, with the rest of the items available on the menu being Moblin or Xfce configuration tools. There is also no sign of a package manager yet, so if you want to add extra applications you will have to compile them from source.
So why should I be interested in Moblin over other netbook projects?
Well, it's early days but Moblin shows a lot of promise – and it's backed by Intel. Not many open source projects can say they're funded by a chip giant and gain the benefit of Intel developer contributions.
That's great! Where can I get hold of more information?
Your first port of call should be Moblin's official website at http://moblin.org. From there you can find out more about the project's goals, join the IRC channel and take part in their blogs and mailing lists.
