Hi, I had an agreable surprise this morning while wandering around the Thi?n Quang lake (front of Lenin park).
I went inside a computer shop, located at the corner of Nguyen Du and Tr?n Binh Trong (Trung Anh computers), and saw that there were selling self-assembled computers (Intel celeron, Intel Dual core and Core 2 Duo, with prices ranging from 3.5 to 5.9 MVND, without monitor) and Ubuntu was one of the three proposed OS. Windows (XP and Vista) was the other OS but this not a surprise. Not done, music and demos displayed on three LCD monitors were running under Ubuntu (not Windows, as usual). Last but not least they had a very nice looking mini-PC (SingPC) with a small and thin case, using a dualcore Atom at 1.6 Ghz and OEM pre-installed with Asianux ! It sells at 4.5 MVND with a 16? wide LCD monitor included, which is a very very acceptable price when you look at the quality of the case (small casing is more expensive that normal cases). For an everyday computing use it would be an awesome choice, especially that as it runs GNU/Linux you could surely install the preferred distribution of your choice ! I think these are very strong signals of the beginning success of GNU/Linux on the end-user market in general, and the Vietnamese one in particuler. Latest GNU/Linux distributions, like Ubuntu 9.04 are now so easy to install (provided the hardware is comptaible) and to use in Vietnamese that I am not so surprised by this course of event. But I'm surprised it's coming rather quicker than expected. I think that such commercial initiatives should be encouraged and if I had to buy computer parts or assembled computers, I for sure will give a priority to such a store, as prices are not higher than anywhere else. Regards -- Agence universitaire de la Francophonie - Bureau Asie-Pacifique
