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Huh?

Huh?

Posted Jan 9, 2009 10:51 UTC (Fri) by Zack (guest, #37335)
In reply to: Huh? by BrucePerens
Parent article: EMTEC releases the Gdium netbook computer

>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.


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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.


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