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ARM-Powered Linux Laptops Unveiled At Computex
Charbax writes "At Computex in Taipei on June 2-6th, several companies unveiled ARM-powered laptops that are cheaper ($99 to $199), last much longer on a regular 3-cell battery (8-15 hours) and can still add cool new features such as a built-in HDMI 720p or 1080p output, 3D acceleration, connected standby and more. The ARM Linux laptops shown as working prototypes at Computex will run Ubuntu 9.10 (optimized for ARM), Google Android, Xandros OS for ARM, or some Red Flag Linux type of OS. In this video, the Director of Mobile Computing at ARM, is giving us all the latest details on the status for the support of full Flash (with all actionscripts), the optimizations of the web browser (accelerating rendering/scrolling using the GPU/DSP), the stuff that Google is working on to adapt Android 2.0 Donut release for laptop screens and interfaces and more. At Computex I also filmed an interview with the Nvidia team working on Tegra laptops, the Qualcomm people working on Snapdragon devices and the Freescale people doing their awesomely thin ARM laptops in cooperation with manufacturers such as Pegatron as well."
Well, they're not going to run Windows any time soon. Good opportunity here. I hope the application availability is going to be good - as a Nokia Tablet user I've been running a variant of Linux on a ARM processor for some time now and I can't wait to get my hands on a ARM netbook.
I would buy such a 9" smartbook and use it as ultraportable second laptop (as it can do OOo impress presentations it would be very useful too.) I can imagine other computer users in Europe and the US to buy such a machine as second (third) system. However, if the suppliers can keep prices under the $200, it will be an affordable system for "the masses" in China, India and South America that were unable to afford their own PC before. Somehow, prices for netbooks crept up with the addition of harddisks and Windows.
extern warranty;
main()
{
(void)warranty;
}
I don't understand who are going to sell these when Microsoft call them up and say "Oh, I see you're selling computers with [non-windows OS], that's interesting... Yeaaahh so... you know those rebates you get on Windows? Yeah, you can forget about those. Have a nice day"
Do they think they're safe because they're on ARM?
Belief is the currency of delusion.
The most interesting part is that those devices have integrated CPU/GPU/Video Accel. on a single chip. Something that Intel, AMD and nVidia is pursuing for a long time, but these ARM based solutions from Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and others are delivering now and the performance / power consumption ratio is already impressive.
Nowhere in the article does it mention $99. The quote is "Some of the ARM-based systems will sell for as little as $199." Now $199 is pretty cheap but that is a starting price and will unlikely be the mean let alone allowing for $99 units. The summary is misleading.
These things have been hyped on trade shows for over a year now.
Call me when they actually have something a consumer can buy in a store.
now i'd love one of these products, i think ARM is sexy. but mass market appeal? very unlikely. if it can't run that cd i just bought from walmart, your sunk.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I looked at the pictures in the article and was crestfallen. I don't want some half assed useless handheld toy.. I want an ARM powered real, usable laptop with an 8.9-11.1" display, readable outdoors in daylight , with a real keyboard, that will be everything that all netbooks to date have emphatically not been. Something with true 20+ hour battery life while doing useful work. It should have WiFi and mobile broadband. An ARM would be more than powerful enough for taking notes, surfing, reading and replying to email, etc. Ubuntu 9.04 would be just perfect. I would pay real money for this. I thought the HP2133 would be it, but mine is going unused. You can barely read the display in a dark room, let alone daylight or even a bright office. The Lenovo X301 is about the closest I have come, but it is a long way from where it needs to be, and brutally expensive.
Submitter was trying to squeeze in yet another techvideoblog.com link.
I'm not a Linux fan myself but that is actually a pretty attractive feature set for $100 and I would seriously consider buying one if they were:
1. Fully supported: I don't have to hack anything to get something working, ever. That means after updates too.
2. Battery life was really ~10 hours.
3. Flash worked (sadly a web necessity).
4. Hibernate works flawlessly.
5. ARM repository is respectable and frequently updated.
6. It at least works as fast as my P3 1GHz on WinXP.
6 check marks there and you've got a check from me for a nice light web browsing / word processing computer.
Has the font situation improved in Linux since like 4 years ago?
As another Nokia Internet Tablet user, I look forward to a slightly larger size, but retaining 2+ days of battery use. 10" screens are too large.
Don't get me wrong, my N800 is good for highly portable needs (geocaching, mobile email, skype, lite blogging), all without a mandatory cell data plan, but there are times when a larger screen would be useful without adding weight. A Eee is too heavy and too large. A 7" screen with a built-in keyboard that I can touch type on and GPS included would be really nice. Some external connections - monitor, keyboard, USB, 100base-tx would be really nice too. Those missing things hurt N800/N810 adoption, IMHO.
No need to support video editing or any other high powered processing. Just lite word processing, spreadsheets, web surfing, email, plus all the things the N800 does already.
Of course, RiscOS is a tailor-made OS for ARM processors. That really is a very lightweight and simple OS and while it doesn't have the applications available that a Linux distro does, it might make an interesting port for this sort of platform.
Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
What if we in the Linux world could confidently say that an app can be written and be able to run as expected on everything Linux?
If such were to be the case, news such as this would be sweet. Sadly, it's going to be a "mess" to Microsoft's delight.
Sometimes I wonder whether Microsoft is responsible for some of the chaos in the Linux OS community.
Distros that feature...
(a) Different libraries to do the same thing
(b) Different versions of the same software to do similar stuff
(c) Different naming conventions for libraries
(d) Different "homes" for applications and systems files
(e) An over zealous following, some of who make key decisions
(f) Creators that do not appreciate the fact that human beings do not neccessarily want change...even when the change is for their own good ...will always be "behind."
Now kudos to the developers for I know writing code that actually does something useful is no easy task.
Do they think they're safe because they're on ARM?
They are at least until Microsoft tries to revive Windows Mobile for subnotebooks.
Linux will never compete with Windows as long as a vast majority of software, particularly cutting edge software, is written in Windows. Unless Microsoft screws up badly, inertia will keep them king of the hill.
The government should create a second source for Microsoft software. It worked wonders for the processor industry. The amount of innovation created by the competition from AMD and Intel is on a level never seen before. I think it would work for the operating system industry.
P.S. I am hopping mad right now because I crashed a plane in Flight Simulator due to two bugs. If Microsoft won't fix their own software, the government should find someone who will.
implies either a monochrome e-ink display or something with enough backlighting to overcome skylight - which is where your battery life is disappearing to. Even LED lit displays are not going to give you what you want. OLED may one day get there, but is two technical breakthroughs short.
Even at 100% conversion rates - which are not likely to be attainable - I doubt you would get 20+ hours from a 3 cell battery on a 10 inch screen. A very rough calculation shows that you would need about 2W just to light a daylight readable display at 100% conversion. A 3 cell battery is around 22WH. That means that it could run the display alone for only around 11 hours.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
From one of the linked articles...
"He acknowledged two concerns for smartbooks are the lack of native support for Adobe Flash on ARM and the fragmentation of Linux application environments. However, he said solutions to both issues are in the works." Emphasis in bold mine.
And further,
"One of the downsides of Linux is the fragmented nature of it," he said. "That's why so many designers are excited about Google's Android, because it's managed by a single entity," he added."
Now, these are folks doing very serious work with Linux. Many Slashdoters have said the same things only to be branded as trolls. I can see a future for Android if Google continues to do a good job.
I agree with the sentiment but this a a trade show and the designs on offer are by "industrial designers from the Savannah College of Art and Design". I am not saying they won't come to market . . . well, to chuck in a gratuitous car reference - how many of those concept cars that we see at motor shows actually make it to mass production?
So are these coming to Europe any time soon or will they be for the Asian market only?
Eight hours on a battery at a 200$ price point? Windows is dead.
Let's see, what do we need... Email? Check. Browser? Check. Office suite? Check, with OO.
Now, how to convince your boss that this is the laptop he's looking for. The 8 hours battery life should be a good selling point (heck, it sure would be one with mine), but what about the design? he'll need it for bragging purposes as much as for actual work, so it has to look really cool and important.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Well, if it's a Linux varient there's plenty of native apps. Get Wine on there ASAP and you're away for a good number of Win apps too...however for the intended target market I suspect that a well-rolled *x distro with some decent bundled apps would be enough for most users. 'Power' ones could figure out the Wine stuff for themselves.
Why do you need an Adjustable Rate Mortgage to power it?
I was curious about one of the prototypes listed, so I searched for it. One of the pictures, for example, shows what seems an okay sized keyboard displayed on a touch-sensitive screen, but one wonders how it would feel to actually have to type very much on it. One of the reasons I've been waiting for prices to drop on the Asus EEE PC 1000HE Netbook is that I wanted a small-form laptop with quite long battery life which also offered a keyboard large enough to allow a decent amount of typing before my fingers would suddenly thrash around and reach for my throat.
I do like the idea behind these "smartbooks", especially with Linux distributions, but just how small is it possible to make keyboards (virtual or real) on what looks like a small laptop before people will simply balk at them (sometimes without quite knowing why)?
How has this worked for other common ultra-portable devices with semi-full keysets that haven't been explicitly marketed as "smartbooks/netbooks/notebooks"?
A truly excellent pizza parlor is a delight unto the heavens. Treasure the sauce and the toppings!
So they're happy to have a single entity that focus on a subset of hardware with a consistent API and a development force behind it. Where have I heard that before? Let's see, it's run by a mercurial egomaniac...
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
Get Wine on there ASAP and you're away for a good number of Win apps too...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the impression that Wine doesn't translate across architectures. Any windows apps you hope to run on Wine would need to be compiled for Wine from source. So all ARM/Wine apps will either:
Wine is not an emulator. Unless you run it in one or compile the Windows binaries for ARM, there is no way Wine will work on an ARM chip.
Fragmentation may be an issue, but trying to fix fragmentation by making a one-shot wonder isn't going to make it less fragmented, it's only going to make it more so.
Especially because it -is- Linux... I'm sure there's still people out there that are using e9 and xfce (for their own reasons).
I myself am not disappointed with the fragmented nature of things. It gives me choice. I got tired of toying with GNOME, so I moved to KDE.
Both of them have good applications, and yes, there are some applications that I'd still use over the 'native' counterparts, because they're just that much better. That's not a problem (to me) either.
Android is lighter and all; which is a significant plus. Providing an alternative to the heavyweights (like X) is a good thing! However, as another alternative, it's only going to fragment the landscape that much more. (i.e. can I run Android apps on my linux netbook? yes, but only if you run a container app).
And then, I have to ask: would you still want to use that KDE or GNOME app on your android netbook? Would you want it to be -capable- of running GNOME or KDE apps? (at worst, this means running a minimalized X server on top of Android).
The only solution to being able to run those apps at all would mean getting a high-end smartbook. This would include things like more ram, some sort of hard drive (I'd go with SSD here), and things like that.
And in the meantime, the general public would have to deal with a limited application environment. Which... isn't a big problem, provided it can at least do the basics.
There are no perfect answers, only the right questions. More questions at http://foresightandhindsight.blogspot.com/
not even Intel!
GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
From your posting and the quotes you refer to, I'm guessing the issue you seem to be having is the availability of proprietary software on Linux.
From my perspective, I couldn't care less about proprietary software. I've got linux. I've got Debian Linux. I've got 24,000+ software packages ready to go on ARM. What do I need proprietary software for? What's the smartbook for? Reading e-mail, web browsing, watching a video, maybe doing a presentation. Where's the need for proprietary software? I already have google for online searching, maps, e-mail. What need is there for proprietary software?
If you're a proprietary software developer why not save yourself some grief and pain and write your software for the iphone. Apple would be happy to review your software for its suitability to its platform. I'm also sure that if you write software for Microsoft's platforms and it's wildly successful there's a pretty good chance of being bought out by Microsoft on their terms, and if the terms aren't good enough for Microsoft they might just take your good idea and make their own inferior copy of it.
If you really want to write proprietary software for Linux, then I would encourage you to write web based software where you own the server and your clients interact with your server using a standards compliant browser. That way it doesn't matter what OS the client is running, and you don't have to deal with support issues.
> I don't understand who are going to sell these when Microsoft call them up and say...
Notice who is doing this. Mobile phone carriers, mobile chipset makers, etc. are the driving force behind this effort. They came together and did Symbian because they understood letting Windows in would end up with them in the PC situation where Microsoft is the one making the bulk of the profit. So if Microsoft had the ability to hurt them I'd think they would have crushed them like bugs already.
Remember also that Chinese contract manufacturers live in a totally different world where Microsoft has no influence. Get consumer electronics instead of PC makers to do the end marketing and again, Microsoft can't hurt them. That just leaves the retailers. Yes Microsoft owns a while isle in Best Buy so they might keep these guys out of there for an Xmas or two. And frankly Best Buy will fear them on their own for their ability to turn a $500 laptop purchase into a $200 netbook sale. Until the wireless carriers put them in the part of Best Buy THEY own bubdles with a 3G contract. And what of Walmart, Walgreens, etc. These puppies are cheap and heading down. Sooner or later they show up as impulse purchase items at Big Lots in blister packs. How much leverage does Microsoft have with any of those markets?
Democrat delenda est
You could run it in an X86 emulator, but the number of tuples you would burn sort of defeats the purpose of using ARM.
If someone made an ARM notebook with a cd or dvd drive, someone could write a compatability layer for 3DO console games! The original 3do was based on an Arm-60 chip. a portable games console even if the initial titles are older would be awesome.
You are right, of course. It's a completely different architecture. Not thinking today...
... basic web surfing (no flash required), multiple ssh's being usable, long battery life, and a good keyboard.
Yep. The eeePc 1000 series with the Atom chip is very nice. I didn't wait for the prices to drop, and I got one shortly after the container ship from Asia disgorged. It's isn't perfect, though. The battery life, while pretty good, is nowhere near the 7.5 hours promised by ASUS. After seven months of regular use, (and I don't use any power-saving features because I find them annoying), battery life has leveled out to about three and a half hours of useful time, plus another twenty minutes of panicked warnings (in XP), that your system is about to lose power, --which makes that last twenty minutes kind of useless imo, because you're stressing over the battery and not concentrating on your work.
Still, it is by FAR the best netbook I've seen; durable and well-designed, and the hibernation system is flawless, as close to instant-on as I've needed, and I've enjoyed instant-on writing devices before. But the keyboard is what makes it truly practical. --Even after the honeymoon period wore off, I still use the eee regularly. It has become what I'd hoped; a good, solid tool.
These new machines, if they can do what they promise with battery power on the ARM chip, will be quite impressive. If they build something you can actually type on comfortably and which offers a decent screen size, (I refuse to work on anything with less than 10" of screen real estate; I find small screens make me feel claustrophobic and this affects my writing, making me think smaller and more breathlessly). . , if such problems can be overcome, then such a device would definitely be worth a look.
However, it sounds to me as though they're trying to sell Nintendo controllers with screens where you can use your thumbs to enter text. --Rather than sell devices designed for getting actual work done. I suspect this is because they simply did the market research and realized that while the common user SAYS s/he wants to work on a mobile computer, what they really want is to goof off on Facebook.
It'll be interesting to see how they manage to sell these things past people's false notions about themselves.
-FL
The PDA offered all sorts of personal data and other functions for people who needed or wanted their information handy. It also played some simple and at times addictive games along with supporting ebook reading. The PDA never attained critical mass and the majority of people never really accepted them. They were seen as nerdy and geeky and at the same time they lacked the power to appeal to the actual nerds and geeks so each side had reasons for not getting them. Merging phones and PDAs were a good step but they were often too big for all but the most serious power users. Blackberry beat the odds by really catching on in the business/corporate marketplace. These devices were NOT fun and didn't have any flash or fanciness. I'm a little lost on why they caught on and continue to maintain a strong user base, but they do... and I have a blackberry pearl model myself.
But mobile computing... a cute and attractive toy. It has plenty of geek appeal. And with the ever-growing market for social networking sites like "Friend Face" and others, it maintains its value with the non-geek crowd so long as they can connect to the internet using wifi hotspots and the like. The term "Netbook" keys on "Net" and every time I see one that doesn't easily support common WiFi services and such, I see doom for them. (They should all have Bluetooth and make it easy to get to the internet with a user's smart phone. And they should be able to connect and work with even those stupid "Windows Only" Wifi services... both of these points are criticisms of Linux based Netbooks. The inability to connect Netbooks to the Net is a show-stopper for many and represents a pretty high hurdle for Linux on the Netbook.)
I love my netbooks. I have an ASUS 900a and two Mini9s. They are fun to play and hack with. I still run Windows on them though... as comfortable as I am with Linux, I want access to everything I have in the box and among these are the AT&T mobile card in there complete with GPS functions. I'd run MacOSX on one but to what end? Same problem as Linux... not all the hardware works. It's the functionality that matters to me. (FWIW, I run Linux everywhere else. My routers, my servers, my laptop/workstation. Everything else but the Netbook.)
Linux on the Netbook needs some special attention paid that will address primarily how people will use it. The Microsoft monopoly does lots of damage to the potential of Linux on the Netbooks. In some cases, the barriers are outside of Linux entirely as there are too many "Windows Only" devices and services out there blocking the way. Seriously... Linux Netbooks are STRICTLY for the geeks and nerds and shouldn't be pushed onto the general public until they can do everything Netbooks are needed for and it's all about getting connected the way I see it. Geeks and nerds will push through the problems and make it work. Regular users will not. There is a lot of work on the Netbook and the nearly exclusive "Windows Only" networld we live in.
Windows has been built in such way that it is extremely easy to port to new architectures. For instance the fabled Alpha port (of NT) was basically done in 2 days, thanks to the fact that they have always had an abstraction layer for the hardware. If Microsoft got serious threat from these ARM devices, do not count that they couldn't answer to that.
Probably however the threat is nonexistent. Wake me up when these devices have some actual market share.
Some company should design a keyboard which can slide out sideways to offer more space. It would be really cool to have a full-sized keyboard on a netbook. Bonus if they can also make an extendable LCD screen.
A full sized keyboard and a wide screen which, when closed, measures 6 x 8 inches and maybe 1.5 inches thick? Sign me up.
When Microsoft twists the arms of OEMs to prevent innovation on netbooks - by proscribing storage, processor and screen size limits - this is what happens. Many OEMs stay inside the limits and sell lots of Microsoft boxes. And the innovators change the rules, gaining a free space to create product differentiation - guaranteeing they get a good return on their investments. Along the way the MS solution cements its reputation - boring and old.
Brilliant!
Help stamp out iliturcy.
It's an interesting story.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I assume you're talking about Apple?
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
It's somewhat ironic that the ARM chipset and architecture was first created by a computer manufacturer that flopped, only to see the cpu architecture that was the offspring actually be the only architecture to ever gain at the expense of the X86 architecture that probably was the culprit of destroying acorn computers.
And with this happening and even more focus being shifted onto the web as being the platform independent delivery platform, it won't be Intel flirting with Apple and Linux that got MS onto the fast path to obscurity. But the availability of a ever so cheap platform, powered by a ghost from the past.
That's a serious question. Perhaps the people who modded this Informative would care to answer it.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I would not be surprised to see ARM a player in the data center in 10 years time - power consumption there is becoming increasingly important. Once people use ARM in a laptop, it will migrate up.
Bingo! It wouldn't work, and it'll probably get me flamed for saying it, but that is why I think ARM will never be more than a teeny tiny niche. The Linux guys seems to think its about the OS, its not, although the first time they take their ARM Netbook home and find it won't print to the new printer they got from Walmart they'll probably take it back, but its about the apps.
For the home consumers they don't really care WHAT OS it is, hell most can't even tell you what OS they have now. For them it is having the "must have" apps that just don't work in Linux. For example, down the street from me is a college. While about 10% of the Netbooks are hackintoshes, most are running WinXP and the odds of getting them off it are slim to none. Why? iTunes. They like being able to set their playlists with iTunes, so for them no iTunes? No sale. For my business customers it is Quicken/Quickbooks, for many of my home users it is the printers and camera software. In all of the cases there is something they consider a "must have" that won't work in Linux, much less ARM.
And I already know what you are gonna say-It is a Netbook, it is for the web, etc. That may be how you and the other geeks see it, but Joe and Jane Public don't. I know because I talk to them five days a week at my shop. And at least 3 times a week or more I get someone in here asking about those "baby laptops" which is how they see them. To them a "baby laptop" is just a slower big laptop, and therefor should do the same things a big laptop should do...just slower because they are "babies". trying to explain to them that their "baby laptop" will never work with their new Lexmark printer, or run their camera software, or play iTunes? They'd have it taken back so fast it would make your head swim.
So while the long battery life might make it attractive to those that actually know about Linux and make a conscious choice to use it, for the consumers that ask about "those cute baby laptops" if it doesn't run any of their stuff or won't even hook to their all in one printer it is worthless. So while I wish them luck I wouldn't hold my breath with regards to taking the world by storm like the "baby laptops" did.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Yes you can run wine on arm. Source 'man qemu-i386':
"The qemu-user emulator can run binaries for other architectures but
with the same operating system as the current one."
In other words, my calculations are roughly correct - to get what he wants in a basic netbook format would need a screen roughly four times more efficient than the one on an iPhone.
Millions of Apple fanboys may be laughing at me, but that's because they don't understand basic physics - and nor do you,low userid or not.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I stopped reading after the printer lie.
Linus supports (other than Lexmark, I hear, but I've never even seen one of their printers here in the UK) more printers than windows these days, and without the need to download 10s of megabytes of extra driver and add-on crap from the manufacturer.
You're an idiot.
I am still holding out on buying a netbook just because of these. ARM netbook seems to make a lot more sense to me, especially with the price point, battery life, and no Windows options! :)
The first steps have been made to let Risc Os run on modern ARM boards:
https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/5/topics/166?page=4
> Get Wine on there ASAP
WINE = WINE Is Not an Emulator
ARM is not an x86 instruction set based CPU, which is why it can be several times more efficient.
WINE does not translate x86 codes into ARM codes, or any other.
the status for the support of full Flash (with all actionscripts)
Gnash is getting extremely close to being a drop-in Free Software replacement for the Adobe Flash Player. In the linked videos, the ARM director of mobile computing was talking about how the ARM folks were working with Adobe to get Adobe Flash running on the ARM processors, but Gnash has already had ARM support for years. If they're demoing Ubuntu -- a Free Software OS -- on these machines, then why not use a Free Software program to play Flash programs on them? Why not invest their time and energy in the Free Software project?
Rob Savoye (lead dev for Gnash) wrote a bit on this topic on the gnash-dev mailing list:
Jason Guiditta wrote:
> Just saw this...article...bsquared porting flash lite to run on an upcoming dell
> netbook.
Yes, I'm familiar with Bsquared. They're porting the Adobe v10 to
embedded platforms, basically getting rid of Flash Lite, which has
always been somewhat limited. I've talked to several company's also
talking to Bsquared.
> ...This seems like a perfect opportunity to get some
> funding for gnash, since it is already designed to run on so many
> platforms. If a big company like Dell is willing to pay to get flash
> well-supported on their netbook, why could that player not be gnash?
We'd need a contact at a sufficiently high level. Of the companies I
know using BSquared's promised flashplayer for ARM, MIPS, etc... have
decided they'd rather spend hundreds of thousands of $$$ for the
Bsquared solution, than give much smaller amounts to Gnash, which
already runs on the ARM and Android. Big companies that prefer
proprietary software seems to prefer to give business to each other,
regardless pf the much higher price tag. Of the few machines I've played
with the Bsquared plugin on, it usually hung the browser in seconds, and
many other stability problems. But I guess they'll get it right
eventually...
I also talked to Google about Gnash for Android several times, but
they don't appear to be interested in the slightest. Unfortunately, the
only people willing to support Gnash with any funding are people that
believe strongly in free software solutions already. To those people, I
can't thank you enough!
- rob -
Free Software can be a great benefit to the hardware folks like ARM, and can be great for a mobile platform like Android, but it's sad that these groups don't seem to take any interest in what the Free Software community is offering. That's why it's so important for people to donate time, code, and/or money to projects like Gnash. Software Freedom isn't going to just happen without people like you and me stepping up and getting stuff done.
coding is life
You seem to be a little confused here.
emacs, gedit and kate beat notepad. (I actually quite like vim too, but only for quick edits.)
You used VB and still say that? o.O ...
No, it's not. =) /me puts his asbestos longjohns on.
Flame away! =D
Oh, the irony... "Anonymous Coward: If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear!"
"Let's see, it's run by a mercurial egomaniac..."
We may not like mercurial egomaniacs, but some of them are good at getting shit done.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I know who's going to jail if it's her fault.
Which ninety-nine percent squared it will be.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
WINE stands for: Wine Is Not an Emulator.
It's an API compatibility layer. It will not emulate any CPU, but will use the existing one.
The notion of "fragmentation" being a negative attribute of open source software is idiotic. What you call fragmentation, I call freedom. If somebody doesn't like the window manager on their computer, they can change it to one they do like. Or, in the worst case, they can make their own. You simply can't do that (and many other things) effectively or efficiently on a proprietary system with One Blessed User Interface.
You can't have an open source ecosystem that isn't "fragmented" in the first place, so fighting it is pointless. Every person is going to have a different idea of how a particular line of code should be written, let alone how an entire project should be structured. They are going to arrive at different solutions and are going to prefer their own solutions to others'. It's competition and, in a way, rather like natural selection. The software that solves the problem the best, wins. If there is no clear winner, then at least there are multiple alternatives for users and developers to choose from. I will keep preaching this on Slashdot and everywhere else until it finally sinks in: If you don't want the freedom that open source offers, then don't use it. Really, you won't be hurting anyone's feelings by not jumping on the Linux buzzwagon.
The difference between the trolls and Google is that Google is doing something about their complaints. Rather than bitching and doing, the trolls were just bitching, which is a very trollish thing to do hence they were correctly modded as such.
Also, doesn't it strike you as rather hypocritical that Google would bemoan the fragmentation of the "Linux application environments" and then sets out to create their own? I mean, if fragmentation were really that big an issue for them, then they should have taken an existing solution like Hildon, Moblin, or Maemo and improved or extended it to get the features they wanted. Creating Android only increased the fragmentation of the Linux's mobile interface offerings.
With M$ managing to usurp the netbook by redefining the product in it's bloated image (must have a screen over 10 inches etc etc etc.) It would seem that the NetBook manf's have walked away from their market and become nothing more than a small notebook. (Apple doesn't need to introduce a netbook, the 13inch macbook is now a large netbook) Additionally the top end of ARM is around the same power as the Desktop we used just a few years ago, add on some very powerful GPU's and poof.
Enter the smartbook and ARM. Windows is so completely tied to x86 it can barely do 64bit let alone get ported to ARM any time soon. So you are left with two possibles in the SmartBook realm Linux and OSX. Apple won't release OSX as a product separate from Apple built hardware. That puts Debian, Maemo and Android at the top of the heap.(with *buntu on coat tails.) Since Android is the current buzz it's at the forefront for sure. But an ARM based system with 3G connectivity would rock. Sure I won't be doing compiles on it, but what would stop me from coding on it, and compiling remote? The cloud is a natural environment for one of these, E-mail and presentations, No problem. Watch a movie, piece of cake. Any routine use I can think of, one of these is more than enough to do.
Now that several NetBook manfs have abandoned the market they created, why not have someone else step in and take up the slack. I'm up for one.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
I said it before and ill say it again I don't think the home user needs a personal printer any more than they need to smoke cigarettes. Unless you have a child who needs to print stuff off for school reports, the number of real times you will print non-photo things that can't be written down in 10 seconds by hand come by but once every two months ON AVERAGE. Even writing directions somewhere and drawing a copy (tracing) a map to go with it only takes 10 seconds in 99% of the cases. The only time I've used a printer in the last three years for "home use" was to print off resumes. Photos simply get printed at wally world (using a better process no less!) And resumes get printed at Kinkos for 0.20 a copy of whatever. The cost of driving to kinkos once every other year and driving to walmart to print photos once a fortnight is still much cheaper than the cost and upkeep on a home printer. Anything else gets printed at work (guitar tabs, etc). I've been without a home printer now for seven years with no issue whatsoever.
moox. for a new generation.
There's always something that some people want that there's no open source equivalent for. And, remember that people consider netbooks as underpowered laptops, not as portable internet appliances.
The problem is, people in general don't care about choice, they care about stuff working. And the more fragmentation/freedom/forking/whatever f word you want to use to describe it, the less stuff just works, the more confusing stuff is.
Not to take anything away from ARM, who doesn't build and sell chips but rather sells/licenses IP, all of those devices use Nvidia's Tegra platform which combines an ARM core with an Nvidia GPU on the same die. The whole computer fits onto a module around the same size as a ram stick. All you need is a board to add the connectors, and you're set. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6ZDgvXsYDM
"One of the downsides of Linux is the fragmented nature of it," he said. "That's why so many designers are excited about Google's Android, because it's managed by a single entity," he added."
Now, these are folks doing very serious work with Linux. Many Slashdoters have said the same things only to be branded as trolls. I can see a future for Android if Google continues to do a good job.
Windows is managed by a single entity. Macintosh OSX is managed by a single entity. If being managed by a single entity is such a great thing, why do we need another OS?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Stop spreading that old-economy bullshit.
Imagine a world with one country, one party, one OS, and one ISP, and you instantly see, what's wrong with that idea.
It's like the US party system. Ary it's the same thing that is wrong with monopolies. Look what Microsoft could do to the IT world with that.
I like my Linux freedom of choice! Thankyouverymuch.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
>I'm sure there's still people out there that are using e9 and xfce (for their own reasons).
There are a great many people using something other than Gnome/KDE.
I certainly don't use xfce or e9 (??? do you mean e16/e17 - enlightenment?), but I do use Awesome WM.
As far as I can tell, lightweight WMs and particularly the *boxes and tiling WMs are growing in popularity, mostly with more advanced users (and the number of those is growing, it seems to me, as some that started out as newbies on Ubuntu gain skill). Meanwhile, moderately knowledgeable users are often interested in XFCE or LXDE.
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
I said it before and ill say it again I don't think the home user needs a personal printer
Two words: Character Sheets.
Yeah, that just happened.
like hitler?
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
You can print a lifetime supply of character sheets at kinkos for a dollar
moox. for a new generation.
Really? Depending on the system, we used to go through characters so fast that we'd bring multiple pre-made characters to every gaming session just so we wouldn't have to waste time in-session making new characters. I started writing up my characters on notecards (why bother with detailed history or equipment when the average life expectancy is a couple hours?).
*sigh* back to work...
Uuuhhhh....Rebates, my late sister's recipes, my mom needing detailed maps to go pretty much anywhere(her sense of direction sucks) my oldest printing howtos and walkthroughs,the youngest printing his artworks, etc. I could go on all day. And the most important part is the consumers doesn't CARE whether you think they "need" a printer or not. That isn't your decision. They simply want to go to Walmart and put one in a cart without having to spend hours on Ubuntu forums to see if that new all in one will actually work.
And how many times have you seen a driver for device "foo" in Linux distributed as a tar where you have to compile? What are the odds a home user would be able to actually do that, or more importantly want to? Or how many times have you seen a simple action like choosing the correct resolution for a monitor requires editing config files? or even a simple thing such as "run As Admin" which has been in Windows since Win2K isn't in most default Linux distros. Why?
It is because Linux is written BY geeks and FOR geeks, that's why. Most feel more at home in Bash than they do a GUI. Most see no problem with editing a config file, know all the make commands, have no problems using Sudo. Sorry, but any of the above is a dealbreaker for mainstream home consumers. That is why Apple and Windows own the market. With Apple I have a nice Apple Store where everything "just works". With Windows I can walk into any mainstream store and everything comes with a CD that makes it "just work". And with Linux if I don't do research, if I don't learn Bash and like running long CLI commands, if I don't learn make? Then it doesn't "just work" and for the items in Best Buy, Staples, and Walmart most will never ever "just work".
So I'm sorry, but as a PC retailer I can tell you that the market for Linux machines is simply too small to worry about. The mainstream users will never do research, will never learn make or bash, will never edit config files or sudo. If it isn't easy and GUI based they will simply bring it back. If it doesn't support the items at Staples and Walmart they will simply bring it back. Because to them the Linux OS is "free as in worthless" because it is too complex and too hard to buy devices for. Sorry, No Sale.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
hand drawn maps are still faster and more personalized (your Mom) than google maps in 99% of cases. lol @ rebates. you could just all print your sister's recipies off in one monolithic print job at kinkos for $10 and save $100+ a year on printer maintanence.
rest of post: I'm not arguing for linux at retail; I'm arguing against home printers.
moox. for a new generation.
Make me wonder of you couldn't have a binary compiler. Treat X86 as the source and do a compile of the exe and any dlls to Arm. Not a JIT like a VM mind you but do it during the install process.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
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