Otaku Gadgets

Netbooks have become pretty much ubiquitous these days and you don’t need me to tell you that. However, some of you might be pleasantly surprised when I tell you that you do not have to be stuck with Windows XP or a stripped down Vista or even Windows 7 Starter Edition to get your netbook a running. Sure you have those instant-booting OS’ but they don’t do much do they? There are quite a few great OS’ out there that have been coded especially for netbooks.

These are usually more focused on letting you do what people usually do on netbooks – surf the net, browse local media files and images and do some social networking online. The approach each such OS takes to each of these things is different but at the end, in some ways they are far better than conventional OS’ for your netbooks. That’s because these OS’ have been built from ground up with the netbooks’ requirements, capabilities and limitations in mind. Get to the other side for introductions to some of the more popular netbook OS’.

Moblin

Moblin is a portmanteau word that is a combination of the words ‘Moblin’ and ‘Linux’. With that name, it is very easy to understand the origins and original purpose of this OS. What is not apparent is that the development of this OS was started by Intel in the July of 2007.

“…(It) is an open source operating system and application stack for Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), netbooks, and nettops.” – from Moblin page on Wikipedia.

This year in April, Moblin was sort of given away by Intel to the Linux Foundation. That was an intelligent move too because the Linux Foundation has much more experience in handling open source development than Intel. However, there is more to Moblin that just that.

Ever since Atom came out and became such a hit in the netbook segment, Intel has been looking for a way to capitalize on this popularity and make it their new money-spinner. However, as with any other software platform, the company needed the support of third-party developers to make it big. So Intel released an SDK for Moblin 2 OS and at this year’s IDF the Intel Atom Developer Program was inaugurate.

Moblin’s main strength is in unifying all the different Atom devices into one consistent user experience. It has the right blend of flexibility and rigidity in order to give users a familiar experience across all form factors. But since Atom has not made ways into too many handheld devices as of now, things should not be too hard for the developers.

Moblin is still in the experimental phase and the only commercial release has been the Ubuntu Moblin Remix netbook from Dell.

Chrome OS

Chrome OS came after a lot of speculation that Google is developing an OS that is meant to run on full-scale computers. A lot of people thought that Android was what the rumor mill was talking about. But as it turned out, that is not what they meant.

The Chrome OS, as Google puts it, is basically Google’s Chrome browser on top of the Linux kernel with a custom windowing system. The system is hence built around the Chrome browser and everything your do in the OS will be online. According to Google, this gives developers the largest possible market for their apps – every computer that has a browser and connects to the Internet.

Applications for the Chrome OS will all be web applications. So you will be working in the cloud the entire time and the processing power of your device will cease to matter so much. The OS will boot extremely fast and is likely to be quite speedy in operation because nothing else is running.

Chrome OS is coming out in 2010 and there are already rumors that Google is going to bring out their own branded netbooks to run Chrome OS the way they want. Sounds exciting? It sure is.

Eeebuntu

Eeebunutu is a Linux distro that is based on the Ubuntu distro from Canonical and is optimized for the Asus Eee PC series. But it runs well on most netbooks regardless of its original optimization.

It was started towards the end of 2007 and since then it has been releasing with every Ubuntu upgrade. However, recently the developers declared that they would stop developing on top of Ubuntu. Because every time a new Ubuntu was released, its components were breaking things inside Eeebuntu.

So henceforth, Eeebuntu will be based on the Debian Linux structure, which is what Ubuntu itself stands on.

Eeebuntu’s main advantage is the fact that it works seamlessly with many of the Asus Eee PC models, featuring an out-of-the-box compatibility with the devices. It is a light OS that is designed to run smooth and stable on netbooks. It is meant to speed up the otherwise sluggish system and enhance productivity.

Android

You cannot install Android on your netbook by yourself unless you are pretty good at hacking but Android seems to have become a prime choice of some of the manufacturers. (But there are online guides if you want to build Android on your netbook.)

These days, whenever someone makes a small netbook device they put in Android as the primary OS because of its stability and third party apps. Android is a mobile OS and it has been designed to run on really low resources. So it is perfect for devices that are more MID than netbook.

Jolicloud

Jolicloud is an extremely new development and it was started this very year. It is another Linux-based OS that is also built on Debian and Ubuntu (the 9.04 version). The main idea here is to blend web applications and local applications to make proper usage of all the resources available to the device.

The OS is optimized for low powered devices that do not have much storage or processing power or memory. So it has the makings of a perfect OS for handheld devices and MIDs. That actually makes it even better for running on netbooks.

Like most other specialty netbooks OS’, Jolicloud also focuses on things like online communications, social networking and Internet surfing. It is currently in Alpha testing phase and isn’t likely to be out to the masses any time soon. But we can expect it to be more usable by this time next year, maybe even a public release.