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Re: [News] Dell's Mini Laptops and the GNU/Linux Question

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Roy Schestowitz
<newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
 wrote
on Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:16:23 +0100
<1435422.hW7HBqMGFz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>
> Dell Mini Inspiron? New Asus EeePC?s? Its the keyboard, silly
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | No mention of what OS will be on it.

I would hope none, in an ideal world; just pick up
the machine, buy a box, and go, or maybe the machine
has just enough smarts to download a LiveCD/Installer,
in an ideal world, save it somewhere (possibly in a FAT
partition on the primary drive, possibly just in RAM),
and boot from it.  Such a downloader would basically be
a primitive Web user agent, though it might also support
FTP and possibly BitTorrent as well.  One might ask
interesting questions regarding remuneration and proof
of purchase, and then there's the issue of how one sets
up the network environment sufficiently to get data into
the unit.  If Universal WiFi is available that puts in
its own interesting wrinkles.

> | I don?t really care what flavour of 
> | Linux comes with it, I?m probably rooting for Ubuntu LTS, but if it comes 
> | with something crap like Xandros (aka Eee PC), its easy enough to
> | replace it with something more sensible.   

And presumably Xandros still gets paid...the same problem
as with Windows today.  I frankly don't know if I like
that or not.

> | 
> | All I can say is that the next couple of months should be real fun for 
> | mini-laptop purchasers. It almost seems like you?ll end up owning several 
> | mini-laptops, keeping them in various parts of the home?
> | after all, as we all move online, everything we need will be
> | within a web-browser, right? :)   

Personally, I'd think that idea better served by a clip-on
phone unit.  An iPhone form factor would be ideal for many
retrieval tasks.

If one wants a fixed unit, one might contemplate a Mac-like
folddown touchscreen unit, about 15" diagonal (the size
can of course vary depending on speed and price).  A
hanging-wall unit might work near, say, the front door.

None of this is of course even remotely related to Linux
except that Linux could be the invisible driver, along
with KDE, Gnome, and whatever else is required.

[snip for brevity]

> Microsoft worried over Linux ULPCs
>
> ,----[ Quote
> | An un-named Microsoft official quoted in the original
> | article claims that manufacturers currently offering Linux
> | on their low-cost devices ?have made some good inroads
> | with open-source, and Microsoft wants to put a stop to it.?

Indeed.  Can't be too careful with al Qaeda running amuck,
it might lead to dancing.

(Wait...are they going to try to foist Trusted Computing onto
the industry again?  Are we going to embrace Trusted Computing?)

> `----
>
> http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/05/12/microsoft-worried-over-linux-ulpcs/1


-- 
#191, ewill3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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