Intel’s short run as an operating system maker has come to an end.

According to a report in the New York Times today, Intel's Moblin project is to move under the stewardship of the Linux Foundation. The Moblin project is designed to provide an open source Linux based operating system that supports Intel's Atom processors and that can be used on a variety of hardware from netbooks to in-car systems.

SlashGear caught up with Xfce creator Olivier Fourdan, whose desktop environment has not only been selected by Intel for Moblin but can be found on many existing Linux netbooks, and talked Intel, Moblin, the future for netbooks and what challenges he sees for open-source newcomer Android.

MeeGo is an open source, Linux operating system based on Moblin (by Intel) and Maemo (by Nokia). MeeGo 1.0 targets mainly netbooks and supports most Intel Atom-based netbooks but MeeGo v1.0 Core also supports ARM-based Nokia N900 and Intel Atom-based in-vehicle. MeeGo doesn't work on netbooks with GMA-500, Nvidia or ATI Graphics chipsets.

Big tech companies don't always mean what they say when they make promises about open source.

Intel will work with Google on the development of its Linux-based Chrome operating system for netbooks, the chipmaker's open-source technology chief has said. Imad Sousou, who is in charge of the Moblin mobile Linux project, told ZDNet Asia's sister site, ZDNet UK on Wednesday that Intel did not view Moblin as a competitor to other versions of Linux.

The other night, I became curious about Moblin because of the different user interface it has. It was said to be made specifically for Intel-powered netbooks. Even if its just in Beta, I really had to get its img and try it out myself.

Intel's open source Moblin platform is beginning to ship on consumer electronics products. The Linux-based platform is designed specifically for mobile Internet devices that use Intel's Atom processor. The project launched last year and has evolved swiftly.

Last week I fired up the latest beta of Moblin, the open source netbook/MID/nettop operating system originally spearheaded by Intel, but now shepherded by the Linux Foundation.