Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

China to Be Laptop Leader

Posted by michael on from the guess-where-your-powerbook-is-made dept.

prostoalex writes "IMS Research says that by the end of the year People Republic of China might become world's biggest laptop manufacturer. The plants will be largely owned by Taiwanese manufacturers, though. Taiwan is current #1."

9 of 294 comments (clear)

  1. Saturday Night Party by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I'm high as fuck.

  2. How do I fix my Trailer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Hi all! Michael Sims here. I live in a cheap trailer in Dallas. I need
    some advice on a rather embarrassing problem. I weigh 400 pounds and while
    I was standing, trying to stomp on some cockroaches, the floor of the RV
    gave way and I got stuck in the hole. Anyway, after the police came and
    had to use a hydraulic excavator to get me out, I realized I was left with
    a crater in my trailer! How can I repair this? Thanks.

  3. Hopefully not macs... read this! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    Many Unix geeks, particularly on Slashdot, have praised Apple's decision to base Mac OS X off of the enterprise-ready BSD codebase. However, it seems that most have never actually taken a closer look at this OS. If they had, a closer inspection would reveal that Apple's philosophy toward *nix and Linux compatibility has been one of "embrace and extend", and this is meant in the M$ sense. Wherever possible, Apple has engineered their operating system to be incompatible with industry standards. Simply put, Mac OS X is a nonstandard, bastardized Unix that bears about as much resemblance to the real thing as does, say, Windows ME.

    Let's start with the windowing environment, since that is the first thing users will notice. While both KDE and GNOME are mature, stable, and accepted as IEEE standards, Apple has elected to use neither. In fact, they don't even use X at all! Their display system is a proprietary, closed-source system called Quartz Extreme. In addition to the moral issues involved with closed software, this precludes the user from running X apps. There is an untested and alpha-quality X11 emulation layer available for download, but it is emulation, so programs will be slow. Does this sound like a standards-based system to you?

    Looking under the hood, it gets worse. While all other *nixes use standard ELF binaries, Darwin (Apple's name for their proprietary "Unix" kernel) does not. It uses Mach-O, an unproven format that is proprietary to Apple. The moribund FreeBSD, off which OS X is based, uses ELF, so clearly Apple went to the extra effort of "switching" (heh) simply to break compatibility. With ELF, users would be able to run most of their Lunix apps; with Mach-O this is impossible. Additionally, Apple has moved most configuration info fromhuman readable text files into a proprietary database called "NetInfo", which is much like the Windows registry we all loathe. Why? These are only a few of the ways that Apple has deliberately broken compatibility with other systems, presumably in order to lock users in to expensive Mac hardware.

    When we factor in the threat to users' civil liberties that is posed by the DRM included to support the iTunes Music Store (do you really think it will end there?) it is obvious that real *nix gurus should give OS X a wide berth. Caveat emptor.

    1. Re:Hopefully not macs... read this! by siddhartha03 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Looking under the hood, it gets worse. While all other *nixes use standard ELF binaries, Darwin (Apple's name for their proprietary "Unix" kernel) does not. Ummm, Darwin is open sourced, www.opendarwin.org. And almost everything is "standards" compatible. Run Samba or almost any other common unix app and it will go AND work. So quit your griping. Jeez, they just changed the "windowing" environment as you call it. And I think they got that from NextSTEP.

      --
      Sock puppets stole my sig.
  4. Am I the only one... by imag0 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Am I the only geek who flinches when they see the word "Be" in a headline? (think BeOS, best operating system in the universe).

    Ok, i'll stop jumping so hard when I see headlines like that, just please stop writing "Be" with the upper case letter in headlines.

    Doc already told me to lay off the caffiene.

    Please, Zeta guys, release it already!

    :wq!

  5. MOD PARENT UP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Apple is a monopoly. They make their OS and their hardware propreitary. How is Microsoft worse than that? Microsoft makes a great product, and they have done for longer than Apple. Just because most computer users choose the ease-of-use and professional style of Windows, means it's a monopoly? Riiight...

    And IE for OS X is no more. Boo hoo, Apples. It's obvious, Apple isn't brave enough to make Safari for Windows, because they know it would be way worse than IE. Oddpost is a great example of IE's greatness. Let's see mozilla do that!

    Of all the programs on my Windows computer (1 windows, 3 RedHat), QUICKTIME is the least stable. I mean, come on! It takes about 15 seconds to load, it runs dead slow, it crashes after a few minutes of playback. It's just ridiculous that Apple has not only customers, but fans!

    Grow up, people.

    1. Re:MOD PARENT UP by siddhartha03 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Apple is a monopoly. They make their OS and their hardware propreitary. How is Microsoft worse than that? Microsoft makes a great product, and they have done for longer than Apple. Just because most computer users choose the ease-of-use and professional style of Windows, means it's a monopoly? Riiight... That's not a monopoly, apple control's its own hardware. NOT the whole computer industry. Why don't they port Safari? They have no moral reason to or any reason to whatsoever. Apple isn't in the business of making apps for windows, they make their own OS.

      --
      Sock puppets stole my sig.
    2. Re:MOD PARENT UP by shione · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      What was there to see at the oddpost link?

      It loaded up fine in my Mozilla Browser.

      then I opened it in IE. Both look and function the same to me.

  6. NO MORE GODDAMN SOVIET/COMMUNIST JOKES by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    SERIOUSLY! (all caps for emphasis)