Moblin Infrastructure

Submitted by Tariq Shureih, updated on 18 May 2009 - 0 comments

Moblin is a Linux operating system distribution built from the ground up. The idea was to start with a kernel and a boot-loader and set initial functionality targets, such as “boot to bash”, and traverse the components, package, and dependency tree to understand, identify, and control the components and packages needed to achieve that functionality.

These steps help us control, as well as document and understand, what is involved in bootstrapping a Linux O/S on a given platform, as well as to take the actions necessary to control the size of each component to stay within the target O/S disk footprint.

Moblin is designed and architected to be an optimized Linux O/S meeting the following criteria:

  • Optimized run-time memory footprint
  • Optimal installed permanent storage (or disk) footprint
  • Optimal power and battery life
  • Optimal performance and boot-up time

Moblin is an RPM-based distribution. Similar to other RPM-based distributions, we use RPM-centric tools to manage components and dependencies namely YUM, rpm, and rpm-build, in addition to Moblin-image-creator which was extended to support YUM RPM repositories for its package repository.