Huh?

Posted Jan 9, 2009 5:27 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510)
Parent article: EMTEC releases the Gdium netbook computer

I must be missing something. What is compelling about this offering?

Huh?

Posted Jan 9, 2009 7:06 UTC (Fri) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link] (1 responses)

"Yet another netbook with a few twists". MIPS sounds interesting, if it's not being used in some x86 compatibility mode. I could by a netbook solely for the reason it would not be the oh-so-boring x86 (waiting for the ARM ones). 10" screen is larger than in most competitors, and keyboard is also probably pretty good compared to eg. Eee PC:s. Mandriva ought to be a lot better out-of-the-box experience than Xandros or Linpus.

Interesting that they don't promise more battery usage time, since eg. the video card is straight from the mobile/embedded world, I think, with no 3D acceleration.

Huh?

Posted Jan 9, 2009 10:04 UTC (Fri) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link]

MIPS sounds interesting, if it's not being used in some x86 compatibility mode.

It does not have one. It is a quite pure RISC. One project I'm involved with uses a 64-bit MIPS architecture processor in an embedded system. The Gdium notebook might actually be a usable stand-in for the expensive real boards for some testing (faster weeding-out of x86-isms that sometimes creep in).

Huh?

Posted Jan 9, 2009 10:51 UTC (Fri) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link] (2 responses)

>I must be missing something. What is compelling about this offering?

Their "one laptop per hacker" program is unusual.

Also the fact that it uses a mips processor. This means that for now it's firmly wedded to the GNU/Linux operating system, instead of GNU/Linux being an also-ran shipped only with the intention of being replaced with a infringing copy of a proprietary operating system at a later date.

I'm not sure if it is compelling enough to be mentioned seperately on LWN, especially since one of their competitors ships a mips based netbook which includes a free software bios and a somewhat similar attitude regarding free software. But it's great if a non-x86 architecture would manage to carve out a persistent market space in general computing devices, which would automatically piggyback free software operating systems into lead position in that space.

Huh?

Posted Jan 9, 2009 16:57 UTC (Fri) by amimjf (guest, #506) [Link] (1 responses)

--
But it's great if a non-x86 architecture would manage to carve out a persistent market space in general computing devices, which would automatically piggyback free software operating systems into lead position in that space.
--

Not automatically i am afraid as Windows CE/Mobile runs on MIPS.

It would make the applications developers work harder though.

- Matthew

Huh?

Posted Jan 10, 2009 20:19 UTC (Sat) by dmaxwell (guest, #14010) [Link]

Windows CE/Mobile doesn't enable the installation of J. Random Win32 App. With that network effect crutch taken away, WinCE has to compete on technical merit and price.