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New Sharp 3D Notebook Available with Linux
Anonymous Writer writes "Earlier this month, Sharp released the Actius AL3DU, the second generation laptop in its line of autostereo display products. EmperorLinux, Inc. is distributing it with Linux pre-installed, dubbing it the Molecule."
I was going to say "Bah, what's the use", but this is actually really cool.
Put aside that it's running Linux for a minute. Who cares what software is running it? Not important.
What is important is that we are finally moving away, on a hardware level, from flat, 2 dimensional displays. While the "Help me Obi-one Kenobi" 3D displays are still a long way off (or disappeared a long, long time ago), this is an immense step forward.
Sorry, couldn't resist :)
I dont ever see the discounts that are supposed to accrue from not paying MS Tax... Another point, what about the peripherals?
If it's like my Actius MM-10 (got it cheaply on ebay) it isn't really intended to be independent. It's really small and light, and it has a docking station so that it can act as a USB disk when powered down(a proper one - not with stupid drivers). However, it's not that powerful and it has a small HD (not that that matters when you use the docking station).
It's definitely intended for use with a desktop.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
How exactly does Emporer Linux justify chargin $500 more for a computer without a licencsed OS?
I'm not great fan of Windows, but why should I pay $500 so that some screw up can spend 15min installing a version of Linux I don't like (vs one I do like)?
I think I've just stoped wondering why linux as a desktop OS has never taken off.
I would rather be ashes than dust!
EmperorLinux (based on Fedora 3), Slackware, Red Hat Professional, Mandrake, Suse, Debian....they offer quite a good choice. Especially as most of these come for $0. Perhaps cusotmers will be more attracted to this notebook, when they see they don't have to pay extra $$$ for an operating system.
can anyone detail software optmized to take advantage of the 3D display technology
I've never heard of any software (CAD/CAM included) that is optimized for 3D glasses -- what utility does the A3CLU add to the computing experience?
And what linux apps are optimized for this? It would seem a bit of a waste if the only 3D tools were, say, KDE Widgets...
Besides the cool factor that is...
shooting is not too good for my enemies
The software win-modems on the Kiwi, Raven, Toucan, SilverComet, and Rhino series systems are fully supported in Linux with win-modem drivers.
They just forgot to add that there is no free Linux driver for software win-modems with Conexant chipsets. The best I could find was at http://www.linuxant.com/drivers/, with a free version limited to 14.4 kbps. Add $14.95 to the price, if you want your modem to work.
I get 4.5 hrs, including watching a DVD on my Asus M6N, though I don't quite know why this performs so well; considering watching/ripping DVD's is around twice the battery load.
. http://store.agearnotebooks.com/asusm6nphotos.htm
I run a fairly light window manager, which I'm sure hits the GPU and processor with a softer hand albeit.
Quite a hefty price for a laptop without a wireless card. Putting good wireless service into a Linux laptop would be a bigger step forward.
Right, I don't see what the problem is. I have a Centrino and the builtin wireless (ipw2200) works out of the box on these machines with Mepis/Ubuntu/Mandrake.
New concept in 3D sex TGP's. The next must be "Touch it" tecnology. ;P
It says:
Estimated Life: 1.3 hours
on the linux version. That's barely one average commute by train.
Meh. Laptop specs seem to be flat-lining, but the prices are distinctly not dropping. I mean, come on, three years ago, I bought a UXGA/1Ghz/1GB Dell for $1,100 LESS than this, with TWO optical drives (one CDRW, one DVD) and about the same battery life. Yeah, gee-whiz technology, but from previous reports, it's about as "3D" as a prismatic baseball card (and, frankly, about as high-tech). The rest of the specs are downright underwhelming. Even if that damned screen was by itself worth $2k, this is still way overpriced, not least because they force you to toss out BOTH 512MB modules if you later want to max it out. Screw that, if you're going to pry $4k out of my hands, you can at least have the decency to use a single 1GB DIMM, damn it.
You know, I want to support Linux vendors, but the model with Linux costs *$500* more than the version with Windows direct from Sharp. That seems a little pricey for a free OS, eh?
(And I have to assume the sort of person who'd spend $3500 on a laptop to run Linux on either knows how to install Linux themselves or has people paid to do it for them)
I think it's great to see laptops with linux being sold, but I ask one thing, who buy this kind of laptop? A linux user, or a person who doesn't know that it comes with linux? If it's the second option, does this person keeps linux, or install windows after he realize it's not the operating system of choice? :)
It'd be great to see some statistics about that
ajf
This kind of "solution looking for a problem" attitude isn't welcome round these parts.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
WARNING: SHAMELESS PLUG
I lead the team developing stereoscopic software that has been distributed with every Sharp stereoscopic 3D laptop ever produced. Well... All the Windows ones... If your interested in trying our DDD TriDef software with one of many stereoscopic viewing methods (anaglyph glasses; other glasses free 3d displays;) please send me an email mailto:Brendan.Langoulant@gmail.com.
DDD TriDef software enables you to:
You might like to check out our FAQs http://www.tridef.com/support/
Regards,
Brendan Langoulant
Director of Software
DDD
The guys at Emperor Linux had one on display at LinuxWorld in Boston last month. It was creating a mob scene of people wanting to check it out. It's actally quite slick. The only thing is, it is very viewer-position dependent. Meaning, you have to be sitting right in the sweet spot to get the full effect. If you're a little off, you can still see it, but it's not as pronounced and you start to see some funkiness with the colors. The 3D mode can be switched on and off and in 2D mode, it looked usable (but 2D res looked pretty low to me, I'll stick with my SXGA+ thinkpad thanks).
Personally, as an amateur 3D animator I'd really like to have something like this, it would really help a LOT when doing 3D stuff if I could quickly tell which parts of the wireframe are closer than others... staring at wirefame of a high poly object can get very confusing and most of the times a bit of turning around is needed to make sense of it.
I got the smallest of the small Sharp Actius laptops and they pre-loaded it with Debian Linux at my request. They don't just slap a Linux distro on and push it out the door, they make sure everything works as advertised, customizing whatever they need to to make sure it does. The modem works! Software suspend works!
The model I got comes with a really small battery, and I bought an optional larger battery that has more life, but has a big buldge in it. The unit itself has no removeable disk drives -- everything is attached via USB. It comes with a docking station which allows the laptop to be used as a USB hard drive while it's powered off. Way cool.
EmperorLinux provides a detailed manual on making the most of your laptop through the Linux environment. But enough about the geek stuff.
The most important thing of all: when I pull this baby out at Starbucks, the chicks all turn their heads. A Dell doesn't do that. A Titanium Powerbook doesn't do that (anymore).
Score!