Meego For Netbooks

In-between rebuilding my sites I have been keeping up to date on the news regarding various IT subjects, including the Microsoft takeover of Nokia, described in the media as a partnership. I also listened to the Meego special from Linux Outlaws and was tempted to try it. It's certainly a different beast than what I expect of a Linux distro.

Meego is the collaboration between Intel and Nokia, it is a platform designed for smartphones, tablets and netbooks among other things. I only tried the netbook edition, since that was what I was using it, then installing on. I had tried it's Nokia predecessor Moblin in live mode ages ago from the viewpoint of "could I use this as my netbook OS" to which it got a resounding "no chance" verdict. Anyone who wants a geeks home from home, who likes getting under the hood and using the control that Linux offers will be frustrated with Meego, as much of that is hidden away, or non existent. This time round I'm evaluating it from a different use case, and it fares much better.

The classic use case of an end user with very simple PC needs ie Facebook, Twitter, email, web browsing, YouTube etc will be right at home with Meego, it's designed 100% with them in mind. The UI is very slick, very responsive and very usable. It's also has a very stylised cartoony theme to it which I personally don't like. The best way I could describe the theme is that if you had a bunch of netbooks and laptops open with different OS's and themes on display, and invited a bunch of playschool aged kids in, they'd all be drawn to Meego like magnets. The default theme in most distros is not an issue I bother with usually because it's very easy to change, with Meego it's not so simple. It does have all of the Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc integration built in right from the start so that's something.

Before we can get it running we first have to get it onto a thumbdrive, which is unusually awkward for a Linux distro. Every Linux distro I've tried over the years, either in live mode or installed comes in an .iso image, Meego chose .img for reasons only they know. Maybe it's this that gave issues with Unetbootin, I'm not sure. It failed to install with Unetbootin in Debian. I had to boot into Windows 7 and install with the Windows version of Unetbootin.

Any Linux distribution that relies on Windows to even get started sets a bad starting point. This could be early teething issues, or it could be an intentional part of the design process. Any project planned to be released and developed as open source must welcome FOSS people in every area, if you alienate them they will not devote their time and skills to improve your product. Nokia have had a long history of chronic mismanagement so this could easily be malice as much as incompetence.

The size of the image feels rather large too considering how lightweight the OS is while running. It's a whopping 823mb for what I'd class as a light distro. At 823mb it means it's too big for a 700mb CD. I've made a joke about Windows Phone 7 being blazing fast because it doesn't do much, the same joke could also be made about Meego. I have a theory; the large file size could be because it's not compressed like most live Linux CDs. This would explain the fact that it's very slick and snappy even in live mode. When it boots it has an option of either live mode or install mode, this dual purpose could also be a reason for the size of the CD image.

The installer feels half finished with very limited options and a not-quite-thought-through process. The filesystem options it supports are very few, no ext4 for example, and the default it prefers is btrfs. When you set the entire / to the preferred btrfs and try to move to the next part it complains that it can't boot from btrfs. The bootloader part of the installer is on the next screen, but you have to satisfy this screen before it will let you move to the next screen. You change / to ext3 and it complains that it prefers btrfs. The only option to get round this is to have a separate /boot. This is fine for people who want or need a separate /boot but Meego is trying to force you into modifying your preferred partitioning system around what it wants, rather than fitting in with what you want like every other distro.

After deciding to ignore the pleas to use btrfs or replan my whole multiboot setup to add a /boot that I really don't want I carry on as ext3, and select my bootloader partition, which does not see the sda6 Debian partition. I should explain that I multiboot my netbook with Windows 7, Debian Squeeze and Linux Mint, and (if all went to plan) Meego. My grub bootloader lives in my Debian partition. I try to set it to sda6 and go ahead with the install, only to find I no longer have ANY grub options, and can't choose any of the other distros installed. Meego screwed my bootloader.

On the bright side Meego does boot and run very fast, but the downside is that I'm faced with having to try to fix what should never have broke. In the end I decided to wipe the netbook and rebuild each partition. I now have Windows 7, Linux Mint Debian Edition (instead of Debian Squeeze) and Linux Mint 10 (for screencasting). I also have Meego for now.

The flip side of this is that Meego installed exceptionally quickly, the fastest Linux instal I've seen clocking in at under 10mins. I say "clocking in", it's just an estimate, I never sit and time these things. This very quick install time is negated by the fact that I have hours of fixing and reinstalling of other distros and OS's that the Meego install broke.

While every other distro has it's name listed somewhere, so that sudo update-grub finds it and adds it, Meego uses the imaginative name "unknown linux distribution". This could be just another of the rough edges but it seems like another sign that Meego just won't cut it.

My use case for installing Meego, is that I am planning on starting a freelance Drupal web design company, and I wanted a live support browser instance logged in all day, emails set with notifiers, support ticket system etc all on a standalone PC sitting by my side, and Meego seems to fulfil all of that in a nice UI. All of the actual Drupal work will be done on my regular desktop, which is still Debian Squeeze XFCE. In hindsight I've decided that what I really need is a few apps running all the time with a notification workflow, and I can do that with any Linux install, so I've been setting my LMDE install up for that same purpose that Meego was intended to do.

My views of Meego as a product are mixed, the UI is very slick, very responsive and very stylised. I happen not to like the style but that's a personal thing. It feels half baked in terms of in-house / open source. I can't see it catching on with FOSS developers as much as Intel and Nokia would prefer, which means it either flounders or the development costs have to be done in-house. With the Microsoft partnership the former Microsoft employee and shareholder / now Mokia CEO Mr Elop has all but nailed Nokia's immediate future to the Windows Phone 7 mast, their focus on Meego is very likely to evaporate to virtually nothing.

If that wasn't enough to deter potential FOSS developers / love, any company who signs a major deal with Microsoft tend to become a pariah, and their products are avoided on political principle as much as technical merit. Novell made themselves a pariah with their own pact with Microsoft, and as a result distros like OpenSuse rarely get a fair chance. OpenSuse is apparently very good, but many avoid it because of that deal. In fairness this is a different type of deal so who knows what the backlash will be like.

Novell jumped into bed with Microsoft over patent infringement claims, Nokia shunned open source and much more advanced platforms like Android in favour of Windows Phone 7. If this move flops and Nokia are forced into retreat by embracing Android in the future, will people be prepared to give them a second chance?

Meego for netbooks is an interesting distribution which is designed to do the thing that netbooks were designed to do; be netbooks. For people who only need very basic vacation use single OS, it's well worth a look. Given the uncertainty over the platform first by the major incompetence of the Nokia management, then the Microsoft intervention I'm not sure if it has a future or what that future will look like, but it's fun while it exists.