In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Roy Schestowitz
<newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote
on Fri, 20 Jul 2007 18:12:47 +0100
<2517351.y2kRN2obAC@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> ____/ The Ghost In The Machine on Friday 20 July 2007 17:29 : \____
>
>> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Roy Schestowitz
>> <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> wrote
>> on Fri, 20 Jul 2007 07:29:44 +0100
>> <2252960.RnQHssqc9B@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>>> New network PC is cheap, easy
>>>
>>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>> | It also uses very little electricity (just 15 watts), and runs quietly.
>>> `----
>>>
>>>
> http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9027380
>>
>> I get the feeling this $99 + 2 year subscription model
>> was tried before ... although not with Linux. So I'm not
>> that hopeful. However, the 15 watt powersupply would make
>> many laptops green with envy.... ;-)
>>
>> (Does OLPC use only 15W?)
>
> <snip>
>
> Maybe less? I'm not too sure, but the comprison is not fair because
> you need to take the display into account.
True.
> The display in the OLPC unit is very energy efficient, but doesn't
> the backlight by far exceeds the cost of running a light system
> (in terms of power consumption)?
I'd frankly have to look. It wouldn't surprise me, though.
>
> This type of scheme was attempted before, but not at this price level.
> Security and size are some nice advantages. This could suit a niche.
If there's nothing in there already. WinCE, of course,
tried -- and failed. Various other speciality units are
also out there, many of them running Symbian.
> In fact, even schools can negotiate with the company that makes these
> and get a discount for large numbers.
>
> You don't appear so hopeful.
I was thinking at the time of the "zero cost" PC which
was surrounded by non-removable ads. I'm not a fan
of bundling. The good news: they do offer an unbundled
version for $249. The bad news: I just bought a used
laptop for $199, an nx9010.
I'm not sure I'm in the market. :-) Still, it might fill
a niche, as you said.
> What other options do people have?
I'll admit I don't know. Most likely we'll have a few
types that will eventually boil down to under-the-counter
kitchen models, entertainment models, portable models,
bedroom models (regular, quiet, or extra-spicy), bathroom
models (we already have battery-powered radios to listen
to in the shower, for example), etc.
> Vista won't
> play nice with energy. It has _a lot_ of organisations 'embedded'
> in the kernel and drinking CPU cycles and RAM.
An interesting way of putting it. Of course, Vista (and
XP before it) has even more organizations trying to plug
the holes (and drinking more CPU and RAM) of the first
tier of organizations; these are the antivirus companies.
(Why am I getting an image of Vlad Drakul here? Go back
to your crypt, Count. :-) )
Linux may breed an entirely new crop of viruses, but it
won't be nearly as easy as wiggling VB scripts and then
dropping them in a Webpage, spam mail, or packet flinger.
(For starters, someone has to actually try to run them. :-)
The BadBunny variant is about the only one likely to make
any headway at all, and that's assuming that OpenOffice
doesn't give an option to enable/disable macros -- I'm
not sure why documents should have macros anyway -- that's
disabled by default.)
> Vista is a Windows iteration where the
> customer is just one party among half a dozen that benefit from use.
Aye; it's a corrupted system. Of course, several people benefit
anyway:
- the assembler gets his cut, from any system sold.
- the component manufacturers get their cut.
- the OS supplier gets his cut.
- the distributor gets his cut.
- the seller gets his cut.
- the state government gets its cut through sales taxes.
- the federal government might be neutral, if the OS supplier
doesn't attempt to play "bribe the senators". But at least
that's a second-order effect. :-)
Not much I can do regarding the manufacturers of the
components (anyone got a HEPA cleanroom, some smelting
equipment, and some aluminum, silicon, copper, gold
ore, etc.? :-) ) or the state government (though the
out-of-state purchasing system through the Internet remains
a mess), but at least the OS and its utilities are darned
near free -- and modifiable to meet one's individual
requirements, if need be.
> They built it, but people don't come. They run away.
> They want Linux, Macs, or at least that familiar and light XP.
>
"Light" is not the first word that comes to mind regarding
XP, unless one is comparing it to Vista -- and I'm old
enough to remember operating systems that actually fit on
a floppy.
Like, oh, I dunno....MS-DOS 1.0? And that was a 180kB
floppy, too. (One of the old 5 1/4" jobbies.) The
Amiga wasn't too bad at one point; it fit on two 3 1/2"
floppies, one of which was "Kickstart". I'd have to
look regarding OS/2.
To be fair, that MS-DOS floppy had a lot less on it --
no browser, for example, and the editor was EDLIN, which
if one was lucky actually lived up to its name, but
certainly couldn't do more than one line at a time.
Even the latest MS-DOS I have needed only 6 1.44 MB,
and FreeDOS isn't much bigger than that.
I just got an nx9010 (HP Compaq laptop), used. Had a clean
XP on it. (Still does. I basically paid the Microsoft tax
-- actually, the prior owner did -- so might as well get
some of the benefits, on an "as needed" basis. Since I
don't contemplate reading emails or heavy browsing, and
I have a NAT firewall, risk is very low even while I'm
using it, and I don't normally use it. It does, however,
allow me to install IES4Linux on that unit, unless there's
something goofy in the XP EULA that prevents such.)
I was able to shrink XP down to about 10 GB, leaving 30
GB free for various uses -- Linux being the primary one.
(Might work for light gaming -- but apparently it's
one of those shared memory affairs. Oh well.)
In its way, Linux is actually *heavier* than XP, but only
if one dips a big ladle into various source repositories
and slathers it on heedlessly. If one doesn't need all
of that sauce, get something lighter. ;-) No-dressing
salad or 10-course meal? I get to decide.
I do like that flexibility. Vista? It's basically a
large, congealed lump. (And a moldy, rancid lump at that.)
Macs, I'm not sure where they fit into this analogy
(soup or nuts?), but at least they're edible; the main
problem is that one has to use a different type of bowl.
But they're working on it.
--
#191, ewill3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
fortune: not found
--
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