Moblin project

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Moblin is an open source project focused on developing software for Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) and other new categories of devices such as netbooks and nettops.^[1] Intel launched the Moblin.org site in July 2007 and significantly updated the site in April 2008 with the launch of the Intel Atom processor family at the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai. The Intel Atom processor family is focused on MIDs, nettops and other market segments where low power consumption and low cost are key considerations. The Moblin.org website hosts a variety of tools for developers including a software development kit, source code for all of the major components of the Moblin platform, documentation and sample code.

1 Major components
2 Participants
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Major components

Moblin provides components which are essential for a mobile Linux operating system.

Moblin Image Creator (MIC): allows developers to create a custom Linux file system for a device. Using MIC, a platform developer can choose which components from Moblin they want on their device, build the target file system, copy all the necessary files to a USB pen drive and load it onto the target.
Kernel: platform-specific kernel patches and device drivers for building a kernel.
UI Framework: screen interface and its underlying GTK-based framework, which uses the Hildon application framework.
Power Management Policy: extending and enhancing existing Linux power management capabilities
Browser: the Moblin browser is full-featured web browser based on Mozilla technologies with a finger-driven UI and MID UI integration. The Moblin browser supports key plug-ins like Adobe Flash.
Multimedia: audio and video playback and photo viewing including Helix or GStreamer multimedia frameworks.
Linux Connection Manager: Internet connections that can be extended through plug-ins to support various wired or wireless technologies.

[edit] Participants

Intel sponsors the Moblin project and several vendors are working on Linux distributions that are Moblin compliant. Canonical is creating a version of Ubuntu Linux known as Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded Edition and Red Flag is creating a distribution known as MIDINUX.^{[citation needed]}

With the release of the first Moblin-based MIDs in the middle of 2008, the focus of the Moblin project is expanding beyond development of the core stack to encouraging porting and development of new applications for Moblin. Intel is sponsoring a series of developer contests, starting with one focused on developers in India, to help jumpstart the Moblin application ecosystem. Some ideas for cool applications for Moblin can be found here.