NEC announced its plans to support the Moblin project at “Wireless Japan 2009,” a three-day expo in Tokyo this week. A computer translation of the announcement suggests that NECs contributions will include Linux drivers for WiMAX radio chipsets.

The NEC chipsets, in turn, will be used in mobile devices and car navigation systems from NEC and its “NEC AccessTechnica” subsidiary. Broadband-connected car navigation systems will deliver significantly more information about local businesses than today’s simple point-of-interest databases, the announcement notes.

WiMAX is a trade organization maintaining standards around IEEE 802.16 wireless technology. WiMAX technology was originated by Intel about eight years ago, and currently seems poised on the brink of widespread adoption.

Fourth U.S. city goes “Clear”

Meanwhile, in the U.S., Clearwire Communications launched WiMAX service in Las Vegas, under its “Clear” brand. Priced at $20/month and $40/month respectively, the fixed and mobile versions of the service offer downstream data rates up to 6Mbps and 4Mbps, respectively, with 500Kbps upstream rates.

Like WiFi, WiMAX degrades gracefully, connecting reliably but at lower data rates in the presence of interference or a weak signal. Thus, actual speeds will depend on the user’s distance from and the clarity of their signal path to the nearest access point.

The “M” in WiMAX stands for “microwave.” Thanks in part to smaller waveforms, the technology should offer better support for connections without a “line of sight” between host and client antennas, since smaller waves pass through solid objects more readily. However, most WiMAX gear so far seems to use the licensed 2.5GHz band, which offers waveforms little smaller than those in the unregulated 2.3-2.4GHz band popularized by 802.11b/g and of course microwave ovens.

via Moblin Zone

Moblin v2 Beta Screenshot

So with all the hype about Google’s Chrome OS, it got me to thinking about the future of the Netbook OS market space. With a glorified calculator and a 9″ to 10″ display, what is it going to take to bring real value to these little computers? As the form factor is appealing enough for Paris Hilton and her chihuahua, running Windows XP or Windows 7 may be enough to slow the system down to a bore. We can all agree that the world runs Windows, but if Microsoft is only willing to license a cheaper copy of it’s OS as long as  netbooks keep the slower Atom CPU, and no more than a gigabyte of RAM, then we may need a savior.

Since Google’s Chrome OS wont be in our laps until next year, I decided to try Moblin last night. Moblin is short for Mobile Linux and was developed by The Linux Foundation and Intel in 2007 to run on MIDs, (Mobile Internet devices). It is a sleek FAST Linux based OS that runs a monolithic kernel. A monolithic kernel is a kernel architecture where the entire operating system is working in the kernel space and alone as supervisor mode. What does that mean for security, and stability? I wont get into that now, but if you’re curious here’s a good read on Monolithic and Mico kernels.

Moblin v2 Beta Screenshot MyZones

My first impression of Moblin was Wow! After a quick 10 min install on my HP Mini 1030NR netbook, I was up and running! The interface is very sleek and simplistic and not bloated with a bunch of “stuff” that I had to wrap my little brain around. The boot time was truly amazing! A cold boot brought the little netbook up in less than 8 seconds. That’s right I’m not kidding! 8 freaking seconds! I was ready to start surfing the web and checking my email!

… or was I?

First things first. There was no built in broadcom driver for my WiFi card. Thanks to Glen Gray at Slain.org, I was able to follow his guide for the Dell Mini 9 to get my WiFi up in running in about 15 mins. I know that the official Broadcom driver is not Open Source, but come on Moblin. Every possible WiFi driver should be available from the get go.

After getting WiFi up and running, I was ready to start surfing the web and… wait, gotta install flash so I can watch the YouTubes.. WHAT? Adobe flash player is already installed? Okay, so this part was a little confusing. According to Moblin.org, it’s ALL OPEN SOURCE.

That's what they said

Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally cool with the fact that flash is there. I mean really. I was on my way to install it. I’m just a little confused by their FAQ. This was the official Moblin v2 Beta that I downloaded from their site.

So… annnywhooo. I got straight to “work”. I plugged in my Twitter, and Last.fm info and started to see what tis little OS could do. I was very impressed with it’s easy of use, and elegance. Check out this quick video below to see how it works.

I must admit I still haven’t spent as much time with it yet to do a proper  review, but I have got to say it is worth a look if you have a netbook. It may even run in a VM. Don’t know. Haven’t tried yet.

That said, I am curious if this is the right way to go with netbooks. Do we just want a full featured mini laptop at $200-$300, or a slimed down Mobile Internet Device? If it’s the latter, then Moblin may be a serious contender. But if we want a full powered laptop with a cheap price that runs Windows and has the support for all of our hardware and software, then we may be waiting quite a while for a “decent” $200 laptop.

Download Moblin