Midinux 2.0 on a Q1Ultra

By Clayne Robison (Intel) (11 posts) on October 17, 2007 at 2:52 pm

I got a copy of Midinux 2.0 Beta 5 the other day, so I took the plunge and blasted the OS that came pre-installed on my Q1Ultra. Installation was relatively painless, although I wished that there was a little more flexibility when it came to choosing which packages to install. But then, that's only because I've installed Linux a few times and like that flexibility. If I had never installed Linux before, I probably would be glad that I didn't have to choose which packages to install.

I had seen demonstrations of Midinux on Intel's MID devices, but I always wondered how much of the demo was actually functional. Well, after booting, I found out that most of the bling had substance behind it. RedFlag has ported a pretty good set of tools and utilities to the Hildon world--browser, email, word processor, chat, calculator, etc. Even the terminal has a widened scrollbar to make it easier for fingers.

The browser, coolfox worked quite well. Some content was squished and fonts were sometimes small, but youtube.com content did just fine. I wanted to see if sylpheed could pull down my gmail, but the installation on Midinux didn't have any SSL options, so it failed. Gmail.com in Coolfox did just fine, however, even if the font was a bit small. The magnification feature on the browser didn't seem to do much. 

I even got Skype working on the device. I tried the RPM installation route, but there were too many dependencies and I finally gave up and used the static build. The Skype UI was designed for desktop platforms, and navigating with the teeny widgets and font sizes was a bit tricky, but chatting worked fine. I tried for several hours to get the microphone working so that I could make Skype calls, but since the mic didn't seem to be working in other applications either (e.g. sound recorder), I finally gave up. Perhaps a REAL Linux guru could figure that one out.

I have my complaints. Several of the dialog boxes, while they appeared to have been Hildon-ized, were still not usable. I suspect that the layout and spacing was done with Chinese, and when I switched to English, things got a little too crowded. The on-screen keyboard was sufficient, but I thought it rather odd that the '.'  character wasn't on the main screen. The touch screen was also sensitive enough that I frequently got double characters. I also thought it strange that I couldn't adjust screen brightness. There were two  brightness levels--high and low--and you made the choice at boot time by plugging or unplugging the AC power. Perhaps that tricky feature is reserved for Beta 6? I got brave and took the device home without the external power source, and the battery lasted about 1 hour. A bit of work to do there. Also, getting wifi to work was rather painful. Midinux comes with a network manager installed, and although the UI is nice, it doesn't do much.

So, on the whole, it was definitely beta software, but I was nonetheless quite impressed. The OS is still a bit rough around the edges and not quite ready to throw at the non-Linux-guru consumer, but it's getting there.

Categories: Mobility, Open Source

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Comments (6)

October 19, 2007 12:18 AM PDT

Jason Zhu (Intel)
Jason Zhu (Intel)
 Impressed to see the big progress of Linux OS for Ultra Mobile Client. I am looking forward to seeing the commerical linux product soon in the market.
Clayne, when do you think the 1st Linux MID to be launched?
Here is another article about UI design for MID-Linux.
http://softwarecommunity.intel.com/articles/eng/1590.htm
October 19, 2007 8:15 AM PDT

Clayne Robison (Intel)
Clayne Robison (Intel)Total Points:
990
Registered User
 Linux MID devices will be available in 2008. When in 2008? Depends on the OEM.
October 19, 2007 4:18 PM PDT


John		 Where does a person download Midinux?
October 20, 2007 8:57 PM PDT


zhou		 Clayne, can you post some screenshots or vidoe about your Q1 Ultra with MIDLinux? That would be great for us visitors.
October 22, 2007 8:50 AM PDT

Clayne Robison (Intel)
Clayne Robison (Intel)Total Points:
990
Registered User
 Downloading Midinux? Now that's a good question. I'd like to know the answer to that myself. The copy I got was procured internally and I like my job enough to make it public without Red Flag's permission. :-) Red Flag's development process is not quite as open as the one found at http://www.moblin.org. I'd like to see that change sooner than later.
November 18, 2007 9:51 AM PST


ALP ATALIK		 I want one and I want it now. It's torture. :)

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