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New Tablet PCs With A Linux Option

Posted by timothy on from the chocolate-meet-peanut-butter dept.

Oliver Wendell Jones writes "InfoWorld is running an article about a new kind of inexpensive (starting under $800) tablet PC that runs your choice of Windows 2000, Windows XP or the Lindows distro of Linux. The PC is called the DocuNote and features an 8.4" touch screen with digital camera and microphone. The PCs are being created by a company called StepUp, which is formed of a lot of people from the old eMachines organization. DocuNotes are scheduled to start shipping in mid-December."

1 of 276 comments (clear)

  1. Amongst the cries of "YAY it runs LINUX!!"... by cscx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A few things of note:

    1. You CAN run Linux on a MS Tablet PC. No one's stopping you. Woo hoo.

    2. These have TOUCH SCREENS. MS Tablets have electomagnetic pens, kinda like a Wacom tablet. NOT pressure sensitive like a touch screen.

    3. MS Tablets have XP Tablet Edition, with the handwriting recognition/Ink software. Linux doesn't, and seeing the state Linux fonts are currently in ("Linux fonts are fine!! Just copy the TrueType fonts from Windblo... um, nevermind"), I don't think handwriting recognition software is on its way anytime soon (and before anyone brings it up, SourceForge projects below stage 3 or 4 DON'T COUNT).

    So what we have here is a glorified Palm running linux or WinXP. Glue a touchscreen LCD onto a brick PC and you're done. Wahoo. I can go back to sleep now, because this in no way offers competition to the MS-based tablets. HAND.