Moblin Alpha 2 released for netbooks

Moblin, the Intel-founded open-source project aimed at netbooks, has just released the second alpha of Moblin v2. The follows the first alpha release a couple of months back. The Moblin Linux kernel was created to be a fast and lightweight platform, specifically designed to run on an Intel Atom CPU.

The release includes an updated kernel, improvements to the graphics framework and revisions to the Moblin Image Creator (MIC2). The kernel still has two graphic issues with Intel’s GMA 500 graphics chipset is not yet supported and 3D performance still a work in progress. Support for the MSI Wind netbook has also been added. This support comes in addition to the Acer Aspire One, Asus Eee PC 901 and Dell Mini 9.

The Moblin project is competing with other mobile Linux-based operating systems such as Google’s Android, Jolicloud and gOS. Moblin’s expected beta release date is still April, however we suspect there may be some slippage here. The Alpha release and pre-built images are available via the official site here. A full list of changes are attached after the jump.

The summary of changes are as follows:

Updated UI libraries (Clutter, etc.)
Updated Graphics subsystem with KMS early integration.
Updated Moblin system services
Support for the MSI Wind
Updated ConnMan with many improvements and bug fixes
Updated and enhanced boot process, inter-process, and package interactions.
Many updates to the OS libraries
updated XFCE (v4.6)
Updated to Kernel 2.6.29-rc7.
Gnome 2.26 RC release.
Updated Moblin Image Creator (MIC2).
Development for software and applications for Moblin.