Follow us on TwitterIt is apparent that Windows XP’s days are numbered. So, naturally there is a lot of interest in several new operating systems being developed for netbooks.
This weekend, we are exploring Moblin (initially developed by Intel), Android (from Google), Kubuntu (from Canonical) and Windows 7 (from Microsoft). All of these are pre-production releases, so we expect some buginess.
There has been some talk about Acer releasing a netbook with Moblin loaded on it. So, first up is Moblin.
We wanted an easy way to test Moblin without installing it to your hard disk. We thought you might like to know, too. So here is how we did it.
Preparations
All you need is a 1 GB USB stick and a few minutes of your time.
There are a few things to keep in mind while testing Moblin on your netbook.
It is recommended that you have an Intel Atom N270 or N280 processor with the GMA950 chipset. I’ve read that Moblin does not have support for the GMA500 chipset as of yet.
While it is possible to create a bootable CD, I would also recommend booting from USB instead. I’ve done some testing with the Live CD an found it to be a very slow experience.
Steps to Create Live USB Stick
Here are the steps to create your own bootable USB key. This takes about 5 minutes and you are good to go.
1. Download the latest Moblin release from Moblin.org
2. Download Win32DiskImager.exe
3. Unzip the file and extract the contents to a known directory
4. Run W32DiskImager.exe (See screenshot below)
5. Select the Moblin Image File
6. Select the drive letter that represents your USB key
7. Select the “Write” button to byte-copy the image to the USB stick.
8. Presto! You have a bootable USB stick.
9. Make sure you set your bios to boot from USB before you try and boot.
10. Boot Moblin from your USB stick and Presto! You have Moblin available for testing.
I will make sure and post a video in the next day and share some of my experience using Moblin.
Just remember one thing while testing. This is a BETA release and does not represent the final release.
