Digital Home Thoughts: Moblin v2.0 Beta for Netbooks Released

"The Moblin steering committee is happy to release the Moblin v2.0 beta for Netbooks and Nettops for developer testing. With this release, developers can begin to experience and work with the source code of the visually rich, interactive user interface designed for Intel Atom based Netbooks. The Moblin v2.0 user experience has been designed from the ground up to provide unique ways to engage with the internet, aggregate your social networking activity, and enjoy your media content. The new user experience and core applications were developed using the Clutter animation framework, leveraging heavily from GL and the physics engine."

I'm generally not a fan of Linux on netbooks - it always seemed like it was a nice-looking top layer and below that it was ugly and confusing. Even on the HP Mini 1000 Mi Edition, which has a great home screen, I found myself missing my Windows applicatons. If someone is focused almost purely on browser-based applications, a Linux netbook can work quite nicely, but the scenario breaks down as soon as they want to do something that's application based - the lack of iTunes is a deal-breaker for some people. I think that's the main reason why Linux netbooks tend to have higher return rates than Windows-based netbooks. I've downloaded the Moblin 2.0 beta, put it on a USB flash drive, and will take it for a spin...anyone else here used Moblin?