Slashdot Mirror
New Linux-Based Laptop For Computer Newbies
Smivs writes "The BBC is carrying a report on how people confused and frustrated by computers can now turn to a laptop called Alex built just for them. Based on Linux, the laptop comes with simplified e-mail, web browsing, image editing and office software. Those who sign up for Alex pay £39.95 a month for telephone support, software updates and broadband access. The Newcastle-Based Broadband Computer Company who developed Alex has been working on this project for three years, and didn't immediately adopt a Linux solution — in fact, the first big trial was based on Windows. The company's Chief Technology Officer Barney Morrison-Lyons says that was never going to be the right route:
'The biggest problem with Microsoft is badly-written software — the operating system allows you to write software badly unlike Mac or Linux.'
Mr. Hudson, one of the company's founders, said the company also intends to launch an application store for Alex for customers who want to add more features and functions to their computer. 'People who love Linux will be keen to develop for this,' he said."
"I can't even mount non ntfs or fat filesystems in Windows. One could argue that Cygwin is to Windows as Wine is to Linux"
One can argue, but that "one" would be terribly wrong. Wine is much more than Cygwin. Just try to get a simple app such as cat running natively, without recompiling it, like we do with Windows' apps. That's what's so good about wine, it's basically just a reimplementation, not a port of anything -- and that, my friend(s), is incredible.
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Actually, the law of averages would apply just as much to *nix as it would to Windows. Windows would have more bad programmers by raw numbers but Linux would have the same percentage.