Ubuntu 10.04 Netbook Edition vs Meego 1.0 Netbook

I have recently tried both these operating systems on an ASUS EeePC 1005HA. There isn't really much of a battle here, or rather - there shouldn't be. Ubuntu thoroughly beat Meego in every way I can think of. Meego is an OS that is basically a smartphone Linux scaled up to a netbook screen. It's extremely limited - much like what I expect Google's Chrome OS to be (and there are some similarities, as Meego's browser IS Google Chrome). Ubuntu is a fully loaded Ferrari of an OS. Meego, well, isn't.

Ubuntu has the built-in "Ubuntu Software Center" where you can click to install a wide variety of free apps that will do almost anything you could need. Meego? Not so much - I didn't even bother trying to figure out how to add applications, but I'm pretty sure you use RPM packages. No visible terminal even. Wow.

Which brings me to the fact, neither OS is really ready for prime time end user installation. Both take some work to get everything working right. If you're trying to make a USB stick on a Mac to install Ubuntu, expect some of the most horrendous documentation you have ever seen (you have to click Mac under directions). The commands presented are outright wrong in places, and missing a lot of spaces that are required to make it work (I consider myself very experienced and I found a few places I had to trial and error a couple times to find where the spaces should go). The documentation for Meego (making a USB drive) on Linux were better, but ultimately - neither resulted in a bootable USB drive! I *have* used Ubuntu's built-in bootable USB drive creator to make working bootable USB drives on the same drive before, so I know it's not an issue with the USB drive but rather the direct byte-copy method being used in both how-to guides. I resorted to CDs with an external CD drive.

Once you get it running, Ubuntu Netbook Edition is more intuitive, better organized, and feels faster. It could benefit from Google Chrome instead of Firefox in the default install, but other than that, it's just better out of the box. My Alltel 3G card just works, I couldn't find any way to make it work in Meego's simplified networking menu. Navigating Meego with it's panel was counter-intuitive and rather painful. Ubuntu did a much better job of balancing small-screen capabilities with a great, intuitive user-interface. One small bar on top (sadly, they're adding a sidebar to Ubuntu Netbook Edition in 10.10 - a design decision I do not like on such a small screen...).

Overall, Meego Netbook is half-baked and inadequate. It's unpolished and downright ugly in places, and it is counter-intuitive to use. Ubuntu Netbook Edition is a full-on, high quality, desktop operating system. Scaled down to work well on the smaller screen. Ubuntu blows the backside off Windows 7 Starter (or even Home Premium!). Meego makes me wish I had Windows. Any Windows. And maybe that's the goal? Meego is ran by Nokia and Intel. Maybe it's a way to create an "ultra-entry-level" OS positioned below Windows Starter in the market? I don't know... but that's all it would be good for.

And yet, it's that very quality that make Meego much more likely to gain the widespread commercial availability pre-installed on Netbooks that Ubuntu Netbook Edition will likely never see. What we need are some netbook makers willing to ship Ubuntu Netbook Edition instead of Windows. They say Linux netbooks do poorly in the market. And I'm sure they do when they ship with garbage. If they shipped with Ubuntu, I think they could do quite well. Linux is not an operating system, it's part of one. Meego and Ubuntu are totally different OSes. One is great. One is hard-to-use and very feature-limited.

Meego Netbook Home Screen

Ubuntu Netbook Home Screen

P.S. I fully expect both platforms to be absolutely dwarfed by Google's Chrome OS. Why? Revenue sharing. I expect Google to PAY manufacturers to bundle Chrome OS (share Google's ad revenue). Meego will stay the realm of Nokia hardware, and Ubuntu will be the Netbook OS of choice for geeks who are okay with installing an OS themselves. Chrome and Windows will be the competitors on the shelf in Best Buy...

P.P.S. I do have one set of real benchmarks. I don't think these numbers mean anything, Meego feels a lot slower and that's what counts. But for the benchmark fans, here is SunSpider on Meego; and SunSpider on Ubuntu. Both are running in Google Chrome. The build on Ubuntu is newer and likely accounts for the difference. Don't read much into this, but I figured I'd post it anyways.