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VIA Introduces A New Laptop Motherboard
arrasmith writes "It looks like there is going to be an upgrade to that non-expensive $800 Linux laptop. VIA just came out with a new laptop motherboard based on the faster Nehemiah core for the C3. You can get all the specs at the Antaur homepage. If they stay near the $800 cost I can see this one selling pretty well. And they would have a great mobile media system if they added a hardware DivX decoder on top of the hardware DVD decoder. :) And now that the Linux drivers are starting to mature and the sources are finally starting to come out, by the time this is released to the U.S. market it should be a great little Linux laptop."
But I'd like to see a lot more of it. If open source software continues to team up with distributers and hardware manufacturers like this they could be well on their way to being viable M$ competition. If little johnny asks his dad for a computer it's going to be a tough job for M$ to convince johnny's daddy to buy him a windows computer for an extra $200(rough cost of OEM operating system license and office license?) when the linux machine boasts all the same features. M$ has ridden the coattails of every manufacturer in the world shipping a license of Windows/Office with every computer they sell for long enough. Now all they need is to work out a few more kinks and get some advertisement going.
I can count to 1023 on my hands. Ask me about #132.
I understand that this laptop mentioned doesnt require active cooling, but as it seems everyone is focusing on wow an $800 linux laptop I went to go see what $800 could buy you at dell..
2ghz celeron 20gb hd 256mb ram 14" screen... for $749
While i haven't ever owned one of these i've not had a problem getting linux on dell laptops in the past. If you are looking for an inexpensive laptop to run linux it seems to me you could do a lot better than a very underpowered core processor such as the via.