Intel shows MeeGo mobile OS running on a netbook

Intel has unveiled its new MeeGo operating for netbooks — the successor to its Moblin mobile OS and developed in conjunction with Nokia.

MeeGo combines aspects of Moblin and Nokia’s Maemo and is intended as a platform for all manner of mobile devices, from traditional portable computers to smartphones to in-car information systems.

This first demo showed the operating system running on an Acer Aspire netbook and the UI at least looks pretty much what we’ve seen before in Moblin. Nokia will be using MeeGo on its own devices though, so perhaps the differences in look and feel on different devices will only be skin deep.

Other than support for multiple device types, it isn’t clear what MeeGo has inherited from Maemo — that mobile OS is already well-developed and used on Nokia’s range of internet tablets, like the N900. Both Moblin and Maemo were open source projects though, as is MeeGo, so anyone can take a peek at the code to see what’s going on.

MeeGo is a free download and is currently available for Intel Atom-based netbooks and the Nokia N900, but while the OS images can be booted from a USB flash drive, you’re stuck at the terminal prompt for the time being.

[ MeeGo via Engadget]