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HP Markets Cheap 4-User PCs To African Schools
Kracs writes "HP are supplying their low-cost multi-user 441 desktops to African schools. Running Mandrake Linux, and sporting four screens (1xTNT2 AGP, 3xTNT2 PCI), keyboards and mice (1 PS2 set, 3 USB sets) they provide relatively cheap computer access for up to four users (of particular interest to schools in low economic zones).
However, according to this article on New Zealand's Xtra news page they've only manufactured enough to outfit schools in South Africa. HP has commented that they're talking to several organisations and are hoping to bring the PC to market in other regions but have stated they will only be marketed to developing countries." (Remember, there are also home-grown methods to achieve similar results.)
(Sorry, I just couldn't resist.)
~Dr. Weird~
This is not a dupe post beacuse if you read they are a reseach group from UFPR university in Brazil. This post is about HP giving these computer setups to African schools. Great to see this happening (as I said in my other post)
Have you metaroderated recently?
They already do and Newt Gingrich spearheaded the legislation to make it possible to write-off 100% of the purchase price of 2yo machines when donated.
I lived in South Africa for my first 16 years. South Africa is definatly the most well off country in Africa, I can't really see how most of the other countries would be able to get net access, let alone be able to come up with the money for a machine. Everyone needs to start somewhere I suppose.
No, I didn't RTFA, and yeah, it's probably fairly safe to assume that it's winXP.
Nope, actually its not. From HP website:
Operating system - 9.1.3 MandrakeSoft HP PC installation
It only took me all of 1 minute to look under system specifications... who woulda thunk.
Every time a story like this appears, a comment like the parent appears too. The "they don't need computers, they need clean water" comment.
Learning new skills allows people to get jobs and earn money - yes, there is demand for people with computer skills even in Africa, more than you'd imagine.
This charity - The African Children's Educational Trust - trains over 200 young adults as computer operators in Northern Ethiopia. The skills they learn allow them to get jobs and support their families, and gives many of them a much better life.
South Africa is probably the richest nation in Africa. If not, it certainly has advantages over the hopelessly poor nations in other areas in Africa.
I'm the tech lead on the HP 441 development team in South Africa. Here is some background info on what has gone into it and where HP is going with this.
Firstly, it's extremely similar to the Brazilian effort (which is totally based on Backstreet Ruby, which is a multi-headed solution that has been around for more than 2 years now), and has been designed with the same basic ideas in mind. Both South Africa and Brazil can be termed "developing countries", and both countries are most definitely not the poorest in their respective regions. Linux , and Open Source in general, has had quite some time to bed down and influence the local market, so it would make sense that things like these would develop and happen at around the same time.
Why South Africa? Simple answer: HP has one of only two of their iCommunity centers here (url for the SA iCommunity site is http://www.hpicommunity.org.za/), the other one being in India. At the iCommunity they have intensive training programmes for the local residents ranging from job creation, culture preservation right through to computer refurbishment and even computer programming. So, the 441 system has been a logical "extention" to the ideas that they were working on at the time. Needless to say, the HP 441 system are being tested in India as well, although India has it's own challenges for such a project (over 200 official languages, go figure...).
One major item that puts the HP 441 system apart from similar efforts is work that has been done in the USB device department. As you know, the system consists of 1X AGP (using PS/2 k/b and mouse) and 3X PCI (each with it's own USB k/b and mouse). With the 441 system we have added the capability for each user having their individual sound card as well, so that they can listen to their own audio. Each user also have access to their own USB Disk-On-Key devices, ensuring privacy of personal files and so forth. Apart from this it is pretty much the same thing as done by the Uni in Brazil.
A last comment, this time on HP's commitment to Linux and Open Source in general: I'm not an HP employee, so this is not a "shameless plug". I'm employed by another company who has been contracted to help develop the HP 441 system. So far, it has been an absolute blast to work on this project, and under no circumstances can I say that HP was not committed. This product is actually on a massive "tangent" to what they normally do, so they are also in uncharted waters here. However, the commitment that HP employees have shown to us, both from the local HP offices in South Africa as well as from head office in Palo Alto, is nothing short of "absolutely bloody amazing". Let's hope that other large companies like Big Blue and others take notice of how HP pushes Open Source, sometimes at their own expense with no return at all, but doing so to invest in the developing markets. Now that's a "Way To Go" if there ever was one. One may critisize HP on a lot of things, but one thing that you cannot accuse them of is a lack of balls! :-)
Personal thanks to HP for giving me and my team the opportunity to work on this project. If you are interested in more technical info and product propaganda, here is the product page again: http://h40058.www4.hp.com/products/desktops/441/pr od_info.html
Yes, there are mud-strune shanty towns aplenty here in South Africa, never mind the rest of Africa (where things are even worse). Mobile computer centers does feature now and then, but what you don't know are the teaching methods employed. Yes, a truckload full of computers won't make a difference in the case where a kiddy who can only speak Sepedi or Setswana, because Windows doesn't come in anything even close to their language. However, since Open Source has become a Big Thing (tm) in Africa as a whole, people now have the power to localize things for themselves.
So, it's not the government shunting busloads of computers at schools, trying to convice people of their bleeding hearts, far from it. It's actually the people from the shanty towns themselves that have decided to help themselves.
Yes, computers does cost vast amounts of money. However, with Open Source, even old "throwaways" are being refurbished and put to work. Another thing, accusing an Open Source programmer for not caring about multilingualism is a severe slap in the face, so I suggest you go out there and check your facts. Some of them obviously do not care, but please don't say that too loudly in the company of the KDE developers, they might just nail you to the wall...
How do you create an environment where you don't have crime, corruption, pollution and aids? This cannot happen overnight. You cannot make people stop believing in pagan gods overnight. You HAVE to educate, and you can also only effectively educate when they want to be educated in the first place. It's easy to point fingers at Africans and say "what a bunch of barbarians", because you do not live under the same circumstances. I do live here, and have to see these things for myself every single day. The way to change things is to educate. To educate, you need education methods other than slates with markers. To teach teachers, you need to educate communication, values and "having an open mind". Therefore we need computers and things like Internet access. Companies like HP are doing that for Africa in a constructive way.
Speaking of phones, it's possible for me to take my cellular phone, and drive from Cape Town (southernmost city in Africa) to Cairo (capital of Egypt for in case you don't know) and only lose signal in a couple of places. Can you do that in the US? 'Fraid not! Only under very special circumstances can you roam with your cellular phone outside your home-state borders. Also, there are more GSM cellular phones in Africa (as a whole) in active use (granted, some are stolen, but that can only attribute to about 5% of active phones) than there are people in Australia. Most are used by the typical "couple-of-dollars-a-month" people, because it makes economical sense for them. It liberates them in terms of communication. And with communication it's only a couple of steps to education.
So, yes, there are more important things in life than computers. There are also more important things in life than putting misguided, anonymous posts like these on Slashdot. It would have been better if you actually knew what you were talking about, but sadly you don't. So why don't you send your old computer gathering dust in your attic to Africa? Be progressive for a change and help the next generation build a better future for themselves. So how about it, eh?
The second OOo user is up and running in a fraction of a second, 'coz practically everything they need is already in RAM.
The thing which kills a setup like this is high-bandwidth 3D, movie decodes and other heavily CPU- or buss-intensive work.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Almost the same solution was developed 4 years ago at Moscow State Industrial Institute. It was 3-headed machine with three Matrox PCI video cards, one PS/2 keyboard/mouse pair and two USB keyboard/mouse pairs. This solution is already installed in multiple schools in Moscow city (don't know if it was installed outside Moscow), and it was called Gorynych after the Russian Mythological "Zmey Gorynych" - dragon with three heads. Link in Russian: http://www.ctc.msiu.ru/zg/
An'it harms none, do what thou wilt.
How is about developing & using this kind of device instead of pci/agp cards? That might be able to support more "terminals"...
It is probably using the Ruby kernel patch wich enables better handling of separate keyboards. In a stock Linux kernel separate keyboards are always treated as one - which sux - with the Ruby patch - the different graphiccards and keyboards becomes separate consoles automagically. AFAIK this ruby patch is going in to the official Linux tree in the future when it is more mature.
If you read closely, what the grandparent was referring to was using the 2 vga ports on a video card completely separately (as in with its own keyboard, mouse, X-Windows, desktop, etc).
This is quite different from what you typically want do which is use the two video card ports rendering half of the same (extra-wide) desktop. This is easy under both Windows (Ultramon helps) as well as X with a number of different Window Managers (Xinerama works well).
Rob :)
The satellite is used to study hydrology and desertification, which has a direct result on the quality of life of the poorest people on the continent.
South Africa is a developed country for godssake. It is not some primitive collection of mud huts. Go live there for awhile before you jump to such ridiculous conclusions.
I built my computer a couple years ago, but I decided I wanted to do dual head, so I went for a special dual-head AGP card. I think I spent about $100 on it. (It's a 16 MB card; it wasn't nearly the fastest thing out there even when I built it.)
Anyway, it now seems like it'd be significantly cheaper to have put a pair of mid-range PCI cards in, rather than a single card. A single dual card might have performance advantages, but I feel like I paid through the nose for it.
Granted, this was a bit ago. It could be that it's actually cheaper to go for a dual card now. But I'd intuitively doubt it.
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suwain_2