Steal insightful content from another site, copy and paste here to your slashdot post, sprinkle in amazon (or other) affiliate links in keywords of your post, get modded +5 insightful, sit back and gain $$$.
By killing Pirate Bay, you will make them more powerful than you ever imagined. Ok, whatever, off to the MANY other bittorent sites to get me some illegal media.
Fedora seems to be too large of a desktop Linux to put onto these machines... same with Mandriva, SuSe, Ubuntu or Mepis. Why not a customized version of Damn Small, Puppy or Vector Linux? Would seem to be better choices in my opinion.
Features:
* CPU: AMD Geode GX2-533@1.1W
* CPU clock speed: 400 Mhz with 0.25 W power consumption.
* SVGA 7.5 diagonal transmissive and reflective liquid crystal display used in one of two modes:
o Reflective "sunlight readable" monochrome mode with 1200 by 900 pixel resolution (for ebook reading outdoors--this is 200 dpi)
o Transmissive Color/DVD mode with approximately 693 by 520 pixel resolution with backlighting (for laptop use)
* 128 MB of DRAM
* 512 MB of flash memory
* Wireless networking using an "Extended Range" 802.11b wireless chipset run at a low bitrate (2 Mbit/s) to minimize power consumption.
* Conventional layout alphanumeric keyboard localized for the country of use.
* Touchpad for mouse control and handwriting input
* Built-in stereo speakers
* Built-in microphone
* Audio based on the AC97 codec, with jacks for external stereo speakers and microphones, Line-out, and Mic-in
* 3 external USB ports.
* Power sources:
o AC Cord that doubles as carrying strap
o two C (R14) or D size rechargable batteries and a hand-crank generator
o four C (LR14) or D (LR20) alkaline batteries.
Intentionally omitted features:
* no motor driven moving parts
o no hard disk drive
o no optical drive (e.g. CDROM or DVD drive)
o no floppy drive
* no IDE interface (as there are no drives with which to interface)
* no PCMCIA card slot
Actually, they don't look that bad... I was just commenting on how they DO look like kids laptops... because they are! Anyway, I also read that they make them in these stand-out colors so as to prevent theft.
The comments on the pledge say that they will not be selling these laptops to the public... only available through government systems. While this idea of buy 3, donate 2 seems great, it won't work if the makers are not even considering selling these commercially. I imagine that they might be taking a loss on manufacturing these and are only going to give them to the poor who need them. In the western world, if you can think about paying triple for a laptop, then you probably also don't have a problem in just giving $200 to world vision or something. Take your remaining $100 and buy an old used Pentium 1 laptop from ebay if you really need one and install something like Damn Small Linux.
Why settle for the endless bloated OS's pumped out by the big corporations like Microsoft or Apple when you can get an excellent modern desktop OS like Ubuntu Linux for FREE!?!?
Really, with so many great free choices (Ubuntu, Mepic, PCLinuxOS, etc...) why are people getting all concerned about how much the next version of Windows is going to cost or what system requirements it has? If you are a home user, you owe it to yourself to get the best, get Linux!
If this virus were to wipe out most peoples HDs, they would realize that a 20Gig HD is sufficient to handle their programs and non-media related data. Porn, music and warez is what drives harddrive sales!
Yes, she's not great with Windows either... BUT, she had less problems with printing and digital image manipulations than she has now with Linspire. It's not that she was used to Windows software and not Linux software, the problem is that when she clicked "print 4x6 picture, 4 per page", on Windows it actually worked. The same thing done on "LPhoto" (basically rebranded KDE photo program) prints thumbnails when it should print 4x6. And I can't ask her to learn to learn Gimp to get proper prints. The problem is that some Linux software is buggy.
The "not for grandma" is just a convenient way to let people know what kind of user you are refering to. It does not mean that every grandparent is computer illiterate. I know of at least 2 people in their 80's that have taken to Linux like fish to water, which amazes me. My grandma (actually mother-in-law) is different. She gets stuck on the same computer problems every day. It seems to me that she is incapable of learning anything new. Even when she takes notes on how to do a certain computer related procedure, she forgets to look at them!! She also have never learned how to use her VCR properly, and has a much worse time with her DVD player.
Actually, the Unreal Tourniment and Doom series of games run NATIVELY on Linux. I know because I play onslaught in UT2004 all the time using Linux! If you want to play Half-life games, use Cedega.
Yes, yes, blatant advertising and hit whoring, I know
My site specifically is trying to focus on the home desktop user and I've personally converted a few non-technical newbies over to Ubuntu, Mepis and Linspire with only minor difficulties. Is Linux ready for everybody? Not quite, but there is great progress being made by a lot of distros... I am constantly amazed at how much easier and better things have gotten since even a few years ago.
I just realized the first book I listed is not even released yet, the one I actually meant to post was
Moving To Linux, which I am familiar with. It contains a live Knoppix CD customized by the author. But I suspect the Moving To Ubuntu Linux book will be just as good if not better.
I have used/given the following books to friends and family (that aren't geeks) that have been interested in trying out Linux and I think it is a great way to introduce them to it without hand-holding them through all of it...
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.kbcafe.com/adwords/default.aspx?search= adsense+api
Google simply doesn't make the existence of this API public.
For direct Linux CD downloads, try http://linuxiso.org/ and for torrents try http://linuxtracker.org/ There are others. Many others.
Steal insightful content from another site, copy and paste here to your slashdot post, sprinkle in amazon (or other) affiliate links in keywords of your post, get modded +5 insightful, sit back and gain $$$.
There are MANY other sites for torrents... not difficult to find. Ever 1 that is shut down, 2 more open.
By killing Pirate Bay, you will make them more powerful than you ever imagined. Ok, whatever, off to the MANY other bittorent sites to get me some illegal media.
I just downloaded the .bin file and it installed fine and works fine.
Wow, that was great! Mod up!
Fedora seems to be too large of a desktop Linux to put onto these machines... same with Mandriva, SuSe, Ubuntu or Mepis. Why not a customized version of Damn Small, Puppy or Vector Linux? Would seem to be better choices in my opinion.
Features: * CPU: AMD Geode GX2-533@1.1W * CPU clock speed: 400 Mhz with 0.25 W power consumption. * SVGA 7.5 diagonal transmissive and reflective liquid crystal display used in one of two modes: o Reflective "sunlight readable" monochrome mode with 1200 by 900 pixel resolution (for ebook reading outdoors--this is 200 dpi) o Transmissive Color/DVD mode with approximately 693 by 520 pixel resolution with backlighting (for laptop use) * 128 MB of DRAM * 512 MB of flash memory * Wireless networking using an "Extended Range" 802.11b wireless chipset run at a low bitrate (2 Mbit/s) to minimize power consumption. * Conventional layout alphanumeric keyboard localized for the country of use. * Touchpad for mouse control and handwriting input * Built-in stereo speakers * Built-in microphone * Audio based on the AC97 codec, with jacks for external stereo speakers and microphones, Line-out, and Mic-in * 3 external USB ports. * Power sources: o AC Cord that doubles as carrying strap o two C (R14) or D size rechargable batteries and a hand-crank generator o four C (LR14) or D (LR20) alkaline batteries.
Intentionally omitted features: * no motor driven moving parts o no hard disk drive o no optical drive (e.g. CDROM or DVD drive) o no floppy drive * no IDE interface (as there are no drives with which to interface) * no PCMCIA card slot
Double Doh!!
Actually, they don't look that bad... I was just commenting on how they DO look like kids laptops... because they are! Anyway, I also read that they make them in these stand-out colors so as to prevent theft.
The comments on the pledge say that they will not be selling these laptops to the public... only available through government systems. While this idea of buy 3, donate 2 seems great, it won't work if the makers are not even considering selling these commercially. I imagine that they might be taking a loss on manufacturing these and are only going to give them to the poor who need them. In the western world, if you can think about paying triple for a laptop, then you probably also don't have a problem in just giving $200 to world vision or something. Take your remaining $100 and buy an old used Pentium 1 laptop from ebay if you really need one and install something like Damn Small Linux.
...something Fisher Price would put out. Or maybe a speak-and-spell. Still, I wouldn't mind getting one for playing around with.
Really, with so many great free choices (Ubuntu, Mepic, PCLinuxOS, etc...) why are people getting all concerned about how much the next version of Windows is going to cost or what system requirements it has? If you are a home user, you owe it to yourself to get the best, get Linux!
I have a great modern OS also, and it was free! Also, I built my own box, to a grand total of about $800. I run Linux.
Where do we send the payment? Somebody needs to setup a website for this.
I'm with you! Spam drives me nuts... and I want to do something about... even it's not legal.
If this virus were to wipe out most peoples HDs, they would realize that a 20Gig HD is sufficient to handle their programs and non-media related data. Porn, music and warez is what drives harddrive sales!
... it's best to make sure you have your porn, music and warez all burned to DVD!!
Yes, she's not great with Windows either... BUT, she had less problems with printing and digital image manipulations than she has now with Linspire. It's not that she was used to Windows software and not Linux software, the problem is that when she clicked "print 4x6 picture, 4 per page", on Windows it actually worked. The same thing done on "LPhoto" (basically rebranded KDE photo program) prints thumbnails when it should print 4x6. And I can't ask her to learn to learn Gimp to get proper prints. The problem is that some Linux software is buggy.
The "not for grandma" is just a convenient way to let people know what kind of user you are refering to. It does not mean that every grandparent is computer illiterate. I know of at least 2 people in their 80's that have taken to Linux like fish to water, which amazes me. My grandma (actually mother-in-law) is different. She gets stuck on the same computer problems every day. It seems to me that she is incapable of learning anything new. Even when she takes notes on how to do a certain computer related procedure, she forgets to look at them!! She also have never learned how to use her VCR properly, and has a much worse time with her DVD player.
Actually, the Unreal Tourniment and Doom series of games run NATIVELY on Linux. I know because I play onslaught in UT2004 all the time using Linux! If you want to play Half-life games, use Cedega.
DesktopLinuxAtHome.com
Yes, yes, blatant advertising and hit whoring, I know
My site specifically is trying to focus on the home desktop user and I've personally converted a few non-technical newbies over to Ubuntu, Mepis and Linspire with only minor difficulties. Is Linux ready for everybody? Not quite, but there is great progress being made by a lot of distros... I am constantly amazed at how much easier and better things have gotten since even a few years ago.
I just realized the first book I listed is not even released yet, the one I actually meant to post was Moving To Linux, which I am familiar with. It contains a live Knoppix CD customized by the author. But I suspect the Moving To Ubuntu Linux book will be just as good if not better.
Moving To Ubuntu Linux
Mepis - Point & Click Linux
Linspire - The No Nonsense Guide
Each book comes with a live Linux CD for the specific distro the book concentrates on.