Intel and Nokia today revealed a new operating system that the two plan to put on smartphones, netbooks and tablets.
Last year Nokia and Intel announced that they would collaborate on several projects; but at the time, neither offered much information on what those projects might be. Today we've got a little insight into what the Nokia-Intel partnership is all about: Software.
At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the two companies announced a Linux-based operating system called MeeGo. MeeGo is actually just a mash-up of Nokia's Maemo OS and Intel's Moblin. Nokia and Intel have said the open source OS will run on both smartphones and netbooks, with support for ARM architecture and Intel's line of Atom CPUs.
At the moment, there are very few details available but it will be interesting to see how this goes. The OS will more than likely have a better chance on smartphones than netbooks. Microsoft is still dominating the netbook OS market because it has the advantage of familiarity. Still, we can't say much until we see it in action. Watch this space.
Android is another Linux distribution for mobile phones, just like this MeeGo is. It shouldn't be too big of a deal to run MeeGo apps on Android and vice-versa as typically all you would need are the shared library files for whatever window manager you used to write the application, as long as the CPU architecture is the same. It would be analogous to running a KDE program on the Ubuntu- no big deal.
I agree from a techy stand point, but from a marketing standpoint it would better to have one flag for all of the linux operating systems maybe. To the average techy it may not make much of a difference, but to the average user the idea of having a one stop shop for all their apps is very appealing, and right now unfortunately it doesn't seem like anything is on even ground to the iphone app store (from my understanding anyways, I always just hear iphone iphone iphone it seems).
No. The biggest strength of Linux is that it is open and free for people to mess with and mold it to fit what they need. FYI, there is a good deal of compatibility between different distributions due to the Linux Standards Base.
First of all, there are "one-stop shops" for applications in just about all Linux distributions; they're called "package managers." They have also been around for a long time before the Apple App Store has been, too. And why you hear "iphone iphone iphone" all of the time is because Apple has a good marketing department marketing to people who are far more fashion-conscious than they are tech-literate. Somebody who is actually a real geek would much prefer something like the Nokia N-series units since they are fully-fledged Linux computers that don't require being cracked just to run your own programs.
Too bad Nokia won't get any market share selling to techies alone. Linux biggest roadblock... is Linux, and the unnecessary amount of distros. Price also, or lack of it. Everybody and their mom is developing a Linux OS to run on their devices/computers because they can get a couple guys to develop it then try to make money off it for next to nothing. When will this ever stop? Because it needs to if it wants to actually go anywhere other than in the workplace, servers and few homes. For now, keep Linux on servers and spend some real time developing an OS for phones that doesn't get chopped and screwed every 6-8 months.
Abrahm
Nokia started putting Linux on mobile devices back when Android was just a twinkle in Google's eye. Their first Linux-powered mobile device of note was 2005's N770, which has been already updated three times (N770 -> N800 -> N810 -> N900.) It was actually Google that brought forth a new distribution with Android, not Nokia.
jurassic1024
You are really talking about Linux on the desktop, not Linux on mobile devices. It's a considerably different market. Linux is probably the single most widely-deployed OS out there, bar none, because of its extensive use in embedded devices like phones, routers, switches, and the like. It is popular for these uses due to its high degree of flexibility and lack of licensing costs. Linux can make a fine phone OS- what you're most likely really complaining about is that some particular implementations may not have the exact GUI elements you want. I also bet you've never knowingly used a Linux-powered phone or PDA-type device since the ones that are out there are pretty well-polished by the hardware manufacturer. But you know what? If you have used one and find something wrong, you are more than free to make the changes you want, since the tools and such are free.
False_Dmitry
CUPS was around for a long time before they got bought out by Apple. Apple bought out Easy Software Products (who developed CUPS and started in 1997) in 2007 so that they could have the CUPS software dual-licensed under both the GPL/LGPL and Apple's proprietary license instead of just the GPL/LGPL. Apple has done a few things that have modestly benefited the Linux community, but it's mostly just tweaks to already-made code that was already around and Apple decided to use in one of its products, such as Safari's KHTML/WebKit rendering engine.
I disagree that they are all the same as long as they are Linux. The development environment is playing a big roll in these applications, since that is what ultimately will compile your program to work on the device. I think Nokia should play nice with OHA and become part of the Android revolution.
On second thought, maybe is good to have open-source platforms compete. After all, we've heard for years discussions about which is better between KDE and Gnome, and yet the both coexist happily. I guess if MeeGo and Android agree to some compatibility that would allow then to fight each other for hearts and minds without giving the market away to Apple. After all any further fragmentation will only cement Apples position.