On Tue, 30 May 2000, Thomas Charron wrote:
> Date: Tue, 30 May 2000 16:52:11 -0500
> From: Thomas Charron <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: Greater NH Linux User Group <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: AOL and Linux Appliances..
>
> No ones actually mentioned this quite yet, but I find it very interesting, so
> I figured I'd bring it up..
>
> (More info at http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-1980986.html?
> tag=st.ne.1002.thed.ni but the link contains links to pages that have been
> taken down)
>
> Anyone else find it interesting that AOL's net appliances being made with
> Gateway actually run Linux? Even better, using the Gecho technology out of
> (GASP! Dare we say it in a commercial sense??) Mozilla.
>
Actually, good reasons are found in the story:
----------------------------------
Using free operating systems such as Linux allows a company to avoid
license fees that would likely otherwise have to be paid to a company,
such as Microsoft, that could supply a competing operating system. It
also gives a company more control over the operating system.
-------------------------
So, it's no cost & you can tailor it. Remember, these are small
appliences, every byte counts (remember those days?). so, you want to
be able to cut out everything you don't need. You also want to be
able to customize it to your exact requirements.
Once you get beyond the "Who do I blame" that everyone likes to quote
as a reason for using MS (and thus showing they've never read the
EULA's), I can't think of a good reason to use MS technology. In this
small of a device, the only other ones that could compete (i.e.
designed for small devices) are Palm and Epoc, and they both cost
(and probably aren't tailorable).
> Personally, I think wide scale deployment of these devices, if they ever
> catch on, would be an incredible example of the abilities of Linux as an OS to
> provide a stable, quality environment for wide scale, end user use. Bear in
> mind, I'm not speaking from the terms of current Linux users, but the general
> perceptions by some less experienced that Linux is some sort of third world OS
> only usefull to 'those backroom hacker geeks'.
Yep, that perception's one of the hardest nuts to crack. However,
when it does, I expect you'll see mass migration, because things get
fixed in Linux. And if it's a choice of free & fixed, or expensive &
broken, which would you choose?
>
> Any ideas as to what kind of GUI that they would be looking at? I haven't
> heard much regarding the current beta Transmeta machines, but the one I have
> seen ran NanoUI. Anyone ever tried much working with NanoUI or some of the
> other stipped down interfaces, such as W Windows? Can these provide as stable
> an environment as the time proven X? (OkOkOk, no flames here, X crashes mostly
> becouse of hardware 'thingies' under X86. All X servers aren't as unstable as
> XF86 can be under many conditions).
>
> Anyway, just curiouse, and figured it'd make an interesting conversation
> peice..
The one sentence I found annoying in the story was: "Linux is still a
relatively new product in a constant state of change, however."
Hm. Linux 1991, Windows NT 1993? Of course, Windows is perfectly
stable. No changes at all between 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, WfWG, 3.1, 3.11, NT
3.0, NT 3.1, NT 3.5, Win95, Win98, NT 4.0, Windows 2000, WinCE, WinME,
...
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeffry Smith Technical Sales Consultant Mission Critical Linux
[EMAIL PROTECTED] phone:603.930.9379 fax:978.446.9470
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thought for today: Fundamentally, there may be no basis for anything.
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