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OEone HomeBase Desktop

Posted by michael on from the training-wheels dept.

Mike Potter writes "OEone has released its OEone HomeBase product as an open source project, and a free download. HomeBase is a complete operating environment that runs on top of Mozilla, with the base operating system being RedHat Linux 7.1 or 7.2. There's a review of it over at Newsforge. Some of the OEone software has already been released as open source to other projects. For instance, OEone's calendar was the basis of the Mozilla Calendar project."

2 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. Its interesting by ACK!! · · Score: 4, Interesting

    At least someone is trying a tactic to finally get beyond the STANDARD desktop model. Instead with this setup you have a combo concept where you have a desktop model merged into a home page model. I doubt if you can count it as revolutionary but at least they tried to push the edge a bit.

    For an end user I think it might actually be better than some lame approach of merely emulating a windows desktop on top of linux the way a couple of distros seem to be going like the Lindows stuff.

    What would be interesting to see is how a real life end user would react to such a setup.

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    ACK /ak/ interj. 2. [from the comic strip "Bloom County"] An exclamation of surprised disgust, esp. i
  2. Basis for really cheap PC app. by alistair · · Score: 3, Interesting

    One of the most interesting things to come from the review was the potential for this to be sold as an embedded computing device. I guess many Slashdot readers grew up in the age when we had Atari 400/800s, Vic 20s, Commodore 64s, BBC and Spectrums. The interesting thing about all these devices was that that only required a TV for display and they all had costs which were in the $100 - $350 range, low enough to be affordable to 11 / 12 / 13 years olds. For a long time after that we have been educated that $1000 has been the right price to pay for a PC with Games Consoles holding the low end of the market.

    An embedded device with this plus Linux in a single keyboard device surely hold the possibility of a return to those days. This would boot directly into the browser and mail / OpenOffice and thus provide more of the functionality than todays set top boxes usually provide. The interior of Linux would be hidden but would be available for those who wanted to hack on the system. The price could then be lower than even the bare bones systems Wal Mart has been selling recently (and remember many of us in Europe still can't get systems this cheap). By using the TV as an output device it could compete with Games Consoles and run software of similar quality (Doom, Quake World, Tux Racer :-) ). The space advantages of having a keyboard sized device should not be underestimated, many people who have a PC for their home office don't want to take up the same space again for a kids device. As broadband take up increases this could share the bandwidth with other PCs and mobile devices.

    If they could get the price back to the level of the much loved home computers of old, I would buy one, if only to boot up Atari and Commodore emulators....