Developers got their first look at MeeGo on Wednesday, with the release of key components of the as-yet unfinished operating system.
MeeGo is a mobile version of Linux that will merge Intel's Moblin OS with Nokia's Maemo OS. It's designed to be used in smartphones, handheld computers, and netbooks. The first devices based on the OS are expected later this year.
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On Wednesday, Nokia and Intel released the MeeGo distribution infrastructure and the operating system base, including the kernel, the OS infrastructure and middleware. "This is the latest step in the full merger of Maemo and Moblin, and we are happy to open the repositories and move the ongoing development work into the open," wrote Imad Sousou, director of Intel's Open Source Technology Center, on the MeeGo blog.
Versions of these components can be downloaded for handheld devices and netbooks running x86 processors and for handheld devices that use Arm processors, like Nokia's N900 smartphone, he wrote.
The merger of Moblin and Maemo is expected to be completed in May, when the first complete version of MeeGo will be ready.
For now, developers have access to the core components of the operating system, which can be booted by a computer but do not include any of the graphical user interface components planned for the final version. As a result, developers who boot the operating system will enter terminal mode, which allows them to type commands for the computer.
Additional components of MeeGo will be released over the coming days, Sousou said.