Intel aims at a 2 second boot for Moblin

Imhad Sousou, director of Intel's Open Source Technology Centre, has said that Intel want to see a future version of Moblin boot within two seconds. This aim was one of the items he discussed at the Linux Collaboration Summit, in San Francisco. The recent Moblin 2 alpha has already shown a reasonably rapid boot process with most of the major components starting up within seconds, but Sousou says that Intel wants to build on this to bring the total start up time to two seconds, while retaining the full software stack.

Sousou warned that parallelisation of the boot process, a popular strategy for reducing boot time by initialising unrelated components simultaneously, is only a means and not an end for developers, noting that "Parallelised bloat is still bloat". The need for faster boot times is driven by the motor industry and their need for embedded car computers which can be instantly accessible.

Sousou also discussed the transition of Moblin's governance, from Intel to the Linux Foundation, and a tentative plan to create a "Moblin steering committee" to direct the development through the Foundation. According to Sousou, Intel's vision for Moblin also extends to the UI experience. It believes that the future of user interfaces lies not in conventional UI tool kits, but in "canvas and scenegraph" environments as a more effective way to build the next generation of user interface. Moblin already includes the Clutter canvas framework developed by OpenedHand, which Intel acquired in August 2008.

A report on ars technica observed that Intel clearly has an ambitious vision for Moblin, but believes the real test will be how third party's engage with the project now it is under the Linux Foundation's management.

(djwm)