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Elonex ONE Subnotebook Shows Right Path For Linux
davidmwilliams writes "Whether it was to your taste or not, there's no denying the ASUS Eee Linux subnotebook was a massive sales success. Demand far exceeded initial production so it's not surprising competitor models are on their way. Just like the Eee, the Elonex achieves cost savings by bundling freely redistributable open source software including, of course, the Linux operating system (specifically, Linos 2.6.21). Those who use the Elonex ONE may well understand it uses something called Linux under the hood, but they don't really have to grasp what this means. They don't have to care that the WiFi hardware was carefully chosen to be one of the exclusive few which has supported Linux drivers. They don't need to tamper with the way their family computer is already set up."
"And hence, shall usher in the Year of the Linux Desktop..."
At least, thats what reading between the lines gave me. Your milage may differ.
Its a nice idea, but how many of things have said they've managed to bridge the gap?
I'm not holding my breath.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the years. It used to be that people who didn't like computers, but had to use them for a few things, avoided Linux like the plague. It may be that these very people are about to embrace it, if it gives them all they want.
Just what exactly is Linos? I tried Google, and it gave me nothing useful. (Photphonics, and Industrial software)
They might get even more publicity and help if they said "It uses Linos, which is based on [insert major distribution]"
Unless its not based on anything, which would be "cool" but not very well thought through, unless they have a huge Help & Support staff/department.
Unfortunately: this hasn't happened yet (in a big way) in the corporate desktop market. That will happen next year -- as I have been predicting for the last 8 years.
Apparently the Elonex ONE is just a rebranded version of this system, i.e. a digital photoframe with a keyboard/mouse and wifi grafted on (which is how they manage to keep the cost down).
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
As long as Excel and Word macros are ubiquitously used and locked tightly (not to mention the piles of features built into both apps), Google Docs will have a very hard time prying open Microsoft Office's dominance. Businesses are so dependent on them, in fact, that it would be much more feasible and secure for them to tunnel VNC/Remote Desktop sessions through SSH or VPN and run software off a central application server.
Of course, the client machine doesn't need to be Windows, so herein is a tremendous opportunity for Linux subnotebooks. Configure the client distro to use as much physical RAM as possible, and let your mobile users run everything inside VNC. No need to download files to the laptop, where you can have data leaks.
Other than a small screen, the fact that you'll still buy a pile of Windows Server and Office CALs, and possibly crummy 'net access, I can't see much to complain about this scenario. I'll leave it up to someone else to set me straight Car Talk style. Here, I'll start it for you: "You knucklehead..."
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
I thought Elonex (i.e. the north London PC makers we once bought from) went bust and were then bought from administration by someone else. Nothing wrong with that, except that New Elonex was reported in the press to be refusing to honour Old Elonex's warranties on the grounds that they were a different legal entity. Nothing illegal in that, but New Elonex's web site gives the impression of business continuity.
Could we perhaps ask New Elonex to clarify this point? Are they as honourable a business as we would all like to believe? The world is a bit too full of dodgy phoenix companies for my liking.
How many laptops have you seen rendered useless because the connection between the screen and the rest of the machine snapped? I can guarantee you this one won't be.
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
Linux is just the kernel, GNU is the operating system.
From TFA: "Unlike the Eee, however, the native resolution is a more regular (though narrower) 640x480 instead of the bizarre 640x400 ASUS offer."
This is false. I own the Asus Eee PC 701. It has a resolution of 800x480, not "640x400".
From TFA: "Now, returning to hardware, although I commented on how much the ONE seems reminiscent of the Eee there are some differences. I already mentioned the resolution which while taller is narrower."
Again, this is false.
However, it won't be Elonex. Asus is my personal bet for the one company to take Linux to the true desktop. They have the advantage of being both hardware mfr. and Linux developers, they have great stuff from Apple using them as their vendor.
Linux has needed a single, unified, vision from the beginning to get past all o fthe choice/freedom crap and get on to a unified UI, a solid look and feel, and most importantly ONE of everything that is best in class and 100% working by default. Since the OSS community will never agree to do this, a company is my only hope (as sad as that is). I'm wishing ASUS nothing but luck.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
As Joel wrote, a good business strategy is to drive the price of the complements of your product down to commodity levels. Decreasing the cost of operating systems will make laptops more profitable, so a lot of the companies entering the subnotebook field will be stimulating linux (and other open source) development. We've already seen this from VIA; I can't wait to see if some big US brands start openly supporting linux development.
The Eee wins.
I considered the Elonex One for all of 5 minutes before rejecting it. Ok, I paid twice as much for my Eee, but it doesn't look like an ugly botched abortion with an even more obscure "version" of Linux than Xandros. And the overall spec of the Eee is light years above the One.
I've installed Xampp on the Eee with no problems and it makes a curiously engaging development and demonstration platform. I'd hate to try THAT with the One!
Linux has needed a single, unified, vision from the beginning to get past all o fthe choice/freedom crap and get on to a unified UI, a solid look and feel, and most importantly ONE of everything that is best in class and 100% working by default. Since the OSS community will never agree to do this, a company is my only hope (as sad as that is). I'm wishing ASUS nothing but luck.
Fair enough, in a way I sort of agree, in the sense that Linux might be seen as a competitor to Windows as a marketable item. However, a strength of Linux (OK, and the BSDs too) is the customisability of the interface(s), since neither Microsoft nor Apple seem to care much about this. By now, the bigger players in the UI scene (i.e Gnome and KDE) have pretty much got their act together, and their products work at least as well as their proprietary counterparts.
The last thing Linux users need is to be squeezed into a proprietary box. We've seen enough of that already.
it is a VIA chip. x86 compatible. No, I don't get the code name thing either.
Elonex has a removable keyboard, even though the lack of touch screen makes it less usefull. I really want to have one of these with out keyboard, because of the small form factor the keyboard becomes alot more conspicuous.
I've been using small Laptops since 2000 and the keyboard has always been an issue. Sure 90% of the time it doesn't matter, but sometimes it really is helpful to remove the keyboard.
Linux is not for everyone. If you want EXACTLY one of everything and a lack of choices because you don't want to be confused, perhaps you should stay with windows. There is a market for a fisherprice OS, and it is you. The strength of Linux is Freedom and Choice. Stick with windows, you'll be happier, you want mind the lack of Freedom, or being force fed some corporations idea of what you need on your computer.
Though we haven't seen an updated to Elonex shopping page since march...
As opposed to the wide variety of wireless drivers that Windows supports out-of-the-box without manufacturer software?
Hint: MS doesn't write wireless drivers, the manufacturers do. The fact that Linux has native, non-manufacturer drivers at all speaks well for it.
Linux is different for the sake of being better.
I love the smell of troll food in the morning.
[citation needed]
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
the pre-production model that I borrowed for a week, and was shown at the Education show in Birmingham UK had Xandros on it. Sorry, this is original research, I can't cite anything.
Dear AC,
/.. An example might be one entitled GNAA Announces Website Partnership with Barak Hosni Mubarak Saddam Hussein Obama Campaign and purporting to bear news of an agreement to allow the Obama campaign to use GNAA's botnet (triggered by Last Measure, which is to replace the current Obama Campaign home page) to inject Hillary "God, I wish I'd married a real man like Anal Cox" Clitdong and John MacOSXPain (and all their heterosexually brainwashed followers) with Holy Gay Nigger Seed via the intarwebs, etc., etc.
You're just a wannabe who couldn't post a real GNAA troll is his life depended on it.
1. A real GNAA post takes the form of a press release, which is used to parody a recent issue in the news - it works best if it's recently been the subject of a story on
2. A successful GNAA post is a first post that's posted non-anonymously.
All you've done is post (most of) the standard GNAA coda as an AC, which is pathetic. It's not like there aren't heaps of examples at gnaa.us to get you started.
Have you even watched the movie? Geez.
Wisdom
Right display and memory
Right system and applications
Ethical conduct
Right patching
Right networking
Right configuration
Concentration
Right keys and touchpad
Right backups
Right clamshell hibernate
both hardware mfr. and Linux developers
:)
.deb and .rpm.
Yes, but their hardware quality, especially in comparaison to Gigabyte (by itself it's fine), has been in a rather harsh decline since the launch of S775/AM2.
Oh, they don't develop anything Linux/GPL IIRC. The linux distro on the eeePC is outsourced to Xandros, a shoddy company that puts my city's already crappy tech sector to shame. They were also one of the companies that signed a deal with MS, another reason to avoid them (Novell's turned out to be not too bad, the ones following it however were a lot worse).
Still, I love the eeePC, because it was the first and the only subnotebook to be under 400$ and released to the "general market", something MSI, Dell, and HP have missed.
Apple using them as their vendor
Apple uses Foxconn parts.
Linux has needed a single, unified, vision from the beginning
I would like to direct you to kernel.org
That said, really, there is no need for a unified Linux distro. Almost everything is "unified". The only thing that really differs amongst distro packagers are slight kernel modifications, small lib changes (basically things that would make an Ubuntu binary not run on Debian), and choice of package managers; even then, only two are relevant;
get past all o fthe choice/freedom crap
Why are you using Linux again? Might as well go back to MS/Apple if you have an attitude like that. That's not to say we're all elitists, I even less, but if you don't like the "choice/freedom crap" then you're free to leave you know.
and get on to a unified UI,
Why? I freaking hate EDE. I hate gnustep. I hate FLTK. I love GTK. Why should we have a unified UI? All of the major desktops (Xfce, Gnome, KDE) have unified on a set of desktop standards, namely Tango, so there's nothing really non-"unified". Sure, there's different toolkits, but hey buddy:
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/microsoft-learn-from-apple-II.media/vista.png (and they've left out non-MS toolkits too!)
http://bla.st/static/blog/macos_interfaces.gif
Yeah, good job Apple and MS! We should really be "unified" too! That's what people want! As opposed to two major ones, GTK, QT, and one minor one, FLTK!
"Linux" looks rather unified to me. Look at how well GTK and QT can play together.
a solid look and feel,
Feels solid to me. If you have complaints make 'em verbose & direct so we can fix it.
and most importantly ONE of everything that is best in class and 100% working by default.
Yeah, like things on the OSX and Windows side work 100% amirite or amirite? You don't have to install every effing program you know. You're free to use the apps you like, and I'm sure it's in your distro provider's best intentions to give you the nicest experience they can. Otherwise you've got a bad maintainer and should leave.
Since the OSS community will never agree to do this, a company is my only hope (as sad as that is). I'm wishing ASUS nothing but luck.
Yeah, like Asus does such a good job; have you ever looked at their xandros desktop? Not exactly farts and sunshine there. I especially like that they mixed IceWM and KDE. That's two toolkits that need to be loaded. Good game, guys.
And users care about that distinction because...?
Unfortunately, I think there's a big uphill climb in getting people to accept a desktop.
OS X has gained a respectable amount of traction but there's something that linux evangelists forget:
In order to grab a mostly disinterested audience, you need to have the desktop stay 90% the same year after year after year.
It's not the 80s. Folks aren't used to learning a new using environment every time they buy a computer.
I'm the same, more or less. By doing just about everything I can, except web browsing, on bash, I ensure that when the big leap in whatever interface happens, I can just keep doing things exactly like I have.
The world was really excited to try out new desktop configurations around 1989. It's old news now and we really just want ot get back to work.
The linux for the clueless distributions need to settle on a much more consistant presentation.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Good idea! When will you have it ready for us? :-)
I'm joking. Linux has developed into an ecosystem, not just a single product, so why reduce it to that?
The people using Linux on their mobile phones, and those using it on their research supercomputers might disagree with your idea of optimizing it for the desktop only.
There's room for everyone.
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
Yes, lets hide all those 'nasty details', like GNU and Linux being Free Software.
You wouldn't want users knowing they are actually allowed to modify or copy all of the software with no cost or legal problems. Lets hide all those details for those silly overweight four-eye geek types to worry about.
Absolutely disgraceful.
_
\\/ are accustomed' - First Lensman
WYSIWIG, but what you see might not be what you need
Thanks for the info. This sounds plausible as Elonex has a history of shipping Via based kit and hiding the bleeding obvious behind marketing bollocks.
This puts the One more or less in the right frame. Assuming this is C3, model 8 of C3 is a fairly low on the pecking order. Model 7 is classic Eden with no AES. Dunno what is model 8 is as I have only 8 and 10+ around the house, but it is likely to be more of an Eden than C7. 300MHz is lower than what is usually used for fanless Via Thin clients (400 for the HP based ones), but not entirely out of whack.
If it is Via at 300 MHz it can just about load a non-OO wordprocessor and be used as a general purpose typewriter, mp3 player and a note taking machine. By the time it has loaded a modern OpenOffice install you might as well go to the coffee shop and come back. Older Via CPUs need at least 1GHz to play MPEG2 video so this is out of the question as well. It will however have an excellent power consumption. I would not be surprised if it manages sub-3W for the CPU. If Via has fixed the errata for their DMA when changing CPU frequency it can also throttle even further to around 200 or less.
Overall, IMO this is probably too under-spec for a sublaptop. I would not buy it for that purpose. It is however a very reasonable spec for a machine to run specialised education software and/or a machine to run lab automation. In fact if I have to do lab automation again this looks like a perfect choice (with the splash-proof keyboard).
Oh, and this is definitely a linux only project. Even W2K will struggle on this one. 300MHz pre-P3-like CPU is too low for anything but linux.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
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