Lately, I’m getting comfortable and confident using Moblin as my daily desktop. The booting and shutdown is faster (than my Ubuntu Desktop) and the mutter (Metacity Clutter) is nice and simple. So when I just need to write documents (from proposal to blogging), web browsing, instant messaging or open my multimedia stuff (mp3, mp4, ogg, 3gp, vcd or dvd) currently is rarely I’m going to boot to my fat Karmic Koala or even the fat slow vulnerable Vista. Moblin is now my first choice as most of time consumption now are typical writing and presenting documents.

Lite Desktop
Moblin is designed to be an alternative OS of Atom based computer we now call it as netbook and nettop, other Mobile Internet Devices and embedded devices. Although my primary netbook is not categorized as netbook, but because of the impression of mutter gui and the lightness, I just easily made up my mind to setup Moblin in my primary notebook.

Ok, let me start from the very basic of my need of some lightness computation: internet browsing. I won’t say that cloud computing is more suiteable for it. I must still have an ability to do anything offline. I like the idea of Jolicloud or ChromeOS but to depend on the internet that much, I’m not ready. I’m in the country where internet broadband connection is not always available anywhere I go and still quite expensive. So OpenOffice should be included, for my Office paper works and dia as my diagram tool, at least.

Back to Firefox, Bye Moblin Internet Browser
My favorit browser is Firefox. Extensions is one of Firefox features that I love. So many extensions I could use, and the most important extension for me is adblock plus. Moblin Internet Browser engine is gecko engine in the foundation, just like Firefox. But the problem is Moblin Internet Browser is meant to be easy and lite with consequences several basic functionality is gone. No right click, not able to print (to printer or pdf) and cannot add adblock plus yet. Yes, I know adblock has announced that they have support Moblin Internet Browser but untested.

Since I use Ubuntu Moblin Remix, I’d prefer to go back to use Firefox instead of the default browser of Moblin. But unfortunately Firefox is crash. I’ve got “segmentation fault” message running it. For months since I’ve installed UMR, I switched to Opera and left Moblin Internet Browser unusable. Opera is running well with complete plugins enabled: flash, pdf, multimedia player. But I missed my Firefox.

Then I found the bug report from Ubuntu, that Firefox crash because of the different xulrunner compiled with the one that Moblin Internet Browser compiled with. When we renamed or moved xulrunner of Moblin Internet Browser to other name, reinstall Firefox then Firefox will fly perfectly because Firefox will use xulrunner-1.9.1. That’s what I did. I reinstall Firefox, renamed xulrunner-1.9.2x of Moblin Internet Browser to other name, and run Firefox. But this renaming directory will make Moblin Internet Browser cannot run. And after restart desktop later, I found that Internet icon on the Moblin Panel has gone too. It’s ok, after all I’d prefer to use Firefox as my daily primary browsing tool.

Additional Ingredients
The same thing happened on Multimedia Player. Moblin multimedia player can not play some format and I have no idea how to plug the library to make it play. But I’d prefer to use my other favorit media player: Totem Movie Player. Eventhough Totem is more movie player, but since it also provide playlist so basically I could add any of my multimedia file into the playlist. Ubuntu has made easier when I cannot play some format by offering to download or use other repositories where these propietary format can be found. I simply just want to play my mp3, 3gp, dat, or avi and then build all of those format in a playlist. So I change my Moblin not to be as fat as my Karmic Koala, but Moblin with custom needs.

Moblin is meant to be lite. I thought a simple firewall that I usually use: Shorewall is not costed to much on my CPU/RAM load. Then simple single interface shorewall configuration is up now to secure my Moblin. It’s going to be a daily desktop, so at least it’s quite secured from the open world. Finally, it’s the time to fully enjoy my Moblin.