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."

Comments

unlike Mac or Linux

[jomegat]

Software can be badly written on any platform, and in any language.

Re:unlike Mac or Linux

[tomhudson]

the operating system allows you to write software badly unlike Mac or Linux." Mr Hudson,

Ms. Hudson disagrees with Mr. Hudson.

The operating system doesn't "allow you to write software", bad or good. Garbage software can be written for any platform. And the "PC" is really a netbook that uses their servers to store your data, so you're locked in.

Subscribers to Alex receive a USB stick which contains user-encrypted data and enables them to log on to their desktop from any Alex computer.

For their monthly fee, customers also get anti-virus software and 10GB of storage space on the Broadband Computer Company's servers.

The USB stick contains your log-n credentials, encrypted. Your data is sitting on their box. Vendor lock-in and over-priced.

They're not doing their users any favours.

Re:unlike Mac or Linux

[ErroneousBee]

Software can be badly written on any platform, and in any language.

You are quite wrong. On several occasions Linux has intercepted my code typos, SQL injunctions and XSS vilneravilities.

Once it even prevented me from accidentally biting into a Marmite sandwich.

Re:unlike Mac or Linux

[ais523]

Part of the reason is because Windows is backwards-compatible to Windows 3.1 and 95, which were build without reasonable security models. Since then, Windows' security model has improved a lot; but it still needs to be compatible with old programs, which tended to be written quite badly back then. (I'd say older versions of Windows encouraged sloppy coding because it was just so easy, unlike the UNIX variants around at the time which would generally complain if you tried to do things that broke security too badly). Windows also used to be more homogenous than UNIX systems (even nowadays, you can see Linux manpages talking about the difference between BSD-style and X/Open-style, such as this one which summarises the mess). As a result, old Windows programs tended to work even if written badly because they only had one sort of system to run on, which let them get away with dubious things, whereas old UNIX programs tended to need to be written well to work at all. (Classic Mac OS can be pretty-much disregarded here, because nobody uses it nowadays and Mac OS X is based on UNIX.)

Since then, all the operating systems involved have become more modern. In UNIX land, people were used to porting programs anyway, to get them to run on new variants, so when newcomers like Linux turned up (and later Mac OS X, which is less different from traditional UNIX than Linux is with respect to how traditional UNIX applications behave, although it's a lot more different with respect to newly-written applications designed to run on it specifically), it was generally the responsibility of people to modify applications to get them running on Linux in particular, or whatever. As a result, Linux can do its job quite well without needing to tolerate badly-written insecure legacy applications. On the other hand, Windows would lose one of its major selling points (its compatibility), if it did that. So Windows is written to be very good at running legacy badly-written applications; as a side-effect, though, this means that it's rather good at running badly-written applications, even new ones.

The end conclusion is that if you want to write well, you can do it on any platform; but lazy programmers who want to write badly will have fewer issues doing so on Windows.

(There's another force at play, too; the cultures of obtaining software in Windows and Linux are rather different, and as a result, well-written Linux software tends to become much easier to find than badly-written Linux software. I imagine there's lots of bad software out there for both Windows and Linux despite the above effects, but you'll find bad Windows software preinstalled on a newly bought computer alongside the OS itself (people debate the merits of various OSes, but everyone I know hates "shovelware"), and on driver disks with hardware you buy. This doesn't happen so much with Linux, because there's no, or not as much, money in it; people on Linux are so used to (legally) getting software for free, that they're unlikely to pay unless people are offering something of good quality.)

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Can't be serious

[Anonymusing]

"The biggest problem with Microsoft is badly-written software -- the operating system allows you to write software badly unlike Mac or Linux."

It's very easy to write bad software on all three platforms. I've done it! Many of you probably have, too!

um...

[cool_story_bro]

the operating system allows you to write software badly unlike Mac or Linux.

Yeah. No operating system known to man prevents you from "writing software badly".

Linux Alex

[CopaceticOpus]

Finally, a FOSS response to Microsoft Bob!

It's probably just a Beta unit

[Duradin]

The real Alex is off fighting the Ko-Dan armada.

Re:£39.95 a month?

[Animats]

For a slightly higher fee, can I just get someone who will use the computer for me whenever I need to do something on it?

That's expensive. IBM used to have that for their top executives, in the 1970s. The executives got a 3270 display with a phone handset. When they picked up the phone handset, they were connected to an operator who could bring up IBM internal financial and sales data. Really.

I don't quite see the market

[asdf7890]

"People who love Linux will be keen to develop for this," he said

No they won't. People who love Linux/community/whatever will develop for Linux/community/whatever. People who would love the chance to make a quick quid/dollar by packaging up a FOSS app for the app store will love it, but that won't create a marketplace full of will supported apps. And the general public see the "free!" part of Linux and the "free!" part of FOSS apps and won't be wanting to pay for apps from an app store, especially while paying that much a month for a support contract.

39.95 a month

You can get a free netbook or lowish spec laptop for that, which will come with Windows and will run Ubuntu quite happily, with many mobile phone contracts over here. This comes with mobile Internet access and a phone you can make/take calls and send texts with. I don't see the market - people will not want to get a free computer then pay that much for support when they can get a free netbook just by agreeing to a mobile phone contract and moan about the lack of support they aren't paying for later (and/or get their mate to support them because Dave knows about these things).

The biggest problem with Microsoft is badly-written software — the operating system allows you to write software badly unlike Mac or Linux.

This is wrong on a level or two. While I'm no fan of Windows and the terrible that definitely exists for it, I've also seen terrible apps and scripts for Linux too. No OS can protect the world from slap-dash design/programming with not mind for security.