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Jobs offers Mac OS X for $100 Laptop
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Appliance
Choosing an open source OS for this machine is going to really hurt them in the end. This laptop needs to be an appliance. The target customers are going to have little/minimal technical experience. The thing needs to just work. As much success as Linux has had, it's desktop is just not suitable for this kind of market. Protest as much as you want but Linux is a geeks OS and just does not make sense for this product. They should take advantage of the great offer that Apple has made them
Choosing an open source OS for this machine is going to really hurt them in the end. This laptop needs to be an appliance. The target customers are going to have little/minimal technical experience. The thing needs to just work. As much success as Linux has had, it's desktop is just not suitable for this kind of market. Protest as much as you want but Linux is a geeks OS and just does not make sense for this product. They should take advantage of the great offer that Apple has made them
geese said:
There's a really good page about this project on some MIT site, going into the details. It was linked off slashdot a couple months back... ah here it is (#1 Google result for MIT $100 laptop) http://laptop.media.mit.edu/.
These are really neat! I want one! The display is full color, albeit pretty low res, but are compared to the LCDs on portable DVD players (so decent resolution and good color). They are also a dual mode technology so that they can be used as a high contrast black and white e-paper in high sunlight conditions (which is also good for low power usage).
The case is ruggedized, waterproof, and opens up like a normal laptop, or folds over for ebook style usage. The screen will also probably be a touch-screen (look at the pictures on that site). I think I remember reading that they will have 2 pointing devices on the final version. Maybe it was touch screen and an external mouse? Or maybe they wanted a touch pad in there? Can't remember and the site doesn't say. The battery is easily removable and replaceable, and can be charged with an AC adaptor (that doubles as a carrying strap) or a built in hand crank.
With a gig of flash storage, wi-fi, several USB ports, and a low power consumption 500mhz cpu there are no moving parts to fail or use extra power. I'm assuming there will be some sort of sound ports on there, as audio would be a huge learning tool for children (learning another language for example). Seems like the ideal travel mate to me. For $100 it's an amazing achievement.
Sadly they aren't planning on selling them to the public, which I think is a mistake. If they can break even on one of these at $100 (assuming they are selling at least 5 million, for example) they should sell them to public for $200 and simply donate one machine to someone who needs it. Even for $200 this would be a great deal!
Linux will be fine for this use. It is a completely known peice if hardware, liek a game console. There aren't thousands of different possible configurations possible that need to be accounted for and managed, just one. Once they tweak the kernel and all the drivers, and get all the software playing nice together on one machine it will be equally flawless on the rest.
I think it all comes down to understanding that the U.S. isn't perfect, but it's still the best thing out there. The rest of the world is just overly jealous of us, whether they choose to admit it or not.
Those are just the typical bloated distributions put together for conventional PCs. Little of that stuff is really necessary -- take a look, for example, at what even a fairly nice Mac could get by with in the mid-1990s, and those machines were more than functional enough for the kinds of things the MIT group wants to make available to students.Peace said:
I agree. As much as I like OS X anything that cheap should stick with open source. Stick with what is best on low end hardware.
this reminds me of one of those jackass IBM commercials where some third world kid is walking through dirt and carrying a laptop, or the one where the little chinese girl asks the guy at the helpdesk if she can go to school. of course! she can use a laptop!
never mind that they don't have electricity, telephone lines, safe drinking water, a reliable food supply, decent clothing, medicine, etc.
they should use the money to buy them each a cow and a few chickens. it would do them more good.
never mind that they don't have electricity, telephone lines, safe drinking water, a reliable food supply, decent clothing, medicine, etc.
they should use the money to buy them each a cow and a few chickens. it would do them more good.
Without all the details it is impossible to say what exactly Jobs offered for this project, it may have just been a reduced version of OSX that would run smooth and quick on these laptops.
It is also discouraging to hear people speak about how it is more important for us to be sending food and water. Do you fear that this technology might enable these children to gain an education that would allow them and their countires to rise out of poverty, there by competing for power with the more developed nations? Obviously since you are typing in this forum you have the luxary of this technology, why not share it with others?
It is also discouraging to hear people speak about how it is more important for us to be sending food and water. Do you fear that this technology might enable these children to gain an education that would allow them and their countires to rise out of poverty, there by competing for power with the more developed nations? Obviously since you are typing in this forum you have the luxary of this technology, why not share it with others?
macpro2000 said:
ROTFL. Thanks for the laugh.
( I'm very glad to be living in Canada and really don't want to live in the US, and I'm not in the least bit jealous of the states ).
Hence, thats for the laugh, troll!!
Sorry, I shouldn't feed them!
Peace said:
Mwahahaha. You do realize that Linux can be trimmed down to run on practically anything. And I do mean ANYTHING
It currently can run off your iPod. Or run off a 512MB flash drive. I've got a nice variant of Slackware on mine with Open Office, FireFox, a few media players, and a couple other apps all easily fitting in a 2GB space with over 1.5GB to spare. Sorry dude but when it comes to size Linux kicks the snot out of Windows and OS X. Now that beig said there is a lot of functionality in X and XP that, that 512MB install of Slackware doesn't have but for the basics its tiny and that is what we are talking about right now. How thin can you get?
Actually, I had a change of heart really didn't want to participate in this current line of thread - so I deleted it. Unfortunately, you replied to it before.mhouse said:
GW Bush related - some one claimed that some one else was bashing GW Bush...
Anyway, I wasn't bashing / promoting GW Bush, I was saying that all governments do not have their citizens interests at heart ( all the time ). They have their own agendas.
Stella said:
Sometime troll feeding is fun. But usually it ends up with them getting in a surly mood, which is NO fun to observe. If you can try to get a troll to start arguing against the point they are trying to make. Much fun and hilarity ensues.
Stella said:
True, but in my observation your feelings are shared pretty much only by residents of Ontario. Quebecers trust the USA more than they trust English-speaking Canadians, and western Canadians generally prefer the USA's economic system. You really don't have much of a nation up there, and it probably won't last out the century. But hey, that's cool too.
oober_freak said:That was a very harsh comment. I am sorry.. but that wasn't exactly out of a rational person's mind. If you want me to comment on it.. fine i'll do it..
I don't understand why do you ppl have to call poor countries as third-world countries? a few years back my country was called a third-world country too... thankfully, now you call it developing. what the hell is this third-world?
Can't you just term them as poor countries? Or is that too difficult to spell?
As for Iraq.. wasn't it attacked for WMDs.. whatever they were.
"Third world" is a leftish term from the cold war that was actually intended to elevate the perception of non-aligned nations. If the "West" was the "First World", and the "Communist Bloc" was the "Second World", than everyone tended to forget that there was another group of countries that fell into a third category. Hence the idea of giving this set of nations their own label. It was a well-intentioned term that is now archaic.
Gasu E. said:
I get the impression that the rest of Canada really don't like Ontario. But thats OK, I like living here, far better than my previous country anyway. All countries have their religional differences anyway, Canada is no exception.
The way things are going, I'm not sure humans will last the century... ( mainly due to religious fanatics, trigger happy / hostile countries ).
I think its a great idea for countries that already have a modicum of stability but are generally not wealthy. For example: China may be communist and of course it has its degree of corruption (what gonverment doesn't), but the biggest problem it currently faces is the rural/urban divide. Almost the entirety of the middle class on up is located in one of a handful of coastal cities. While we see Shanghai become an economic center and Beijing rushing towards the 2008 Olympics, we also forget to notice that cities on the Chinese interior are much poorer- why shouldn't kids who grow up in those cities not have the same advantages that richer cities and more developed areas have?
On that note, why only offer these to foreign nations? There are regions in the United States that could definitely benefit from low cost computing. Inner cities, rural towns, even community colleges- these are areas where a $100 laptop can help out. Loading a year's worth of english texts onto a computer, while at the same time offering students the tool with which to write about these texts.
I think its a novel idea. BTW, how is language support in Linux?
On that note, why only offer these to foreign nations? There are regions in the United States that could definitely benefit from low cost computing. Inner cities, rural towns, even community colleges- these are areas where a $100 laptop can help out. Loading a year's worth of english texts onto a computer, while at the same time offering students the tool with which to write about these texts.
I think its a novel idea. BTW, how is language support in Linux?
Jimmni said:
I agree.
Jobsy made the offer because MS made the offer, and both knew they would get denied because it wasn't what the project was after. Not at all. If you've ever seen the concept for this machine, you'd know that it wouldn't barely be able to run Windows 95, let alone XP or OS X.
And if they took the deal, they have locked themselves into the market of many poor nations, and if they were to ever become "second-world" countries, or even 1st world countries and not be in complete poverty, Apple knows they'll be getting their business, and they'd pay next time.
katie ta achoo said:yeah, but throw in some RAM and put windows (ew) on it, and you have a pretty good all-purpose laptop for your grammaw or something. (you know, the one that can't program her VCR.
They would also start getting the type of viruses that they've never even heard of.
sjo said:And you think eg US government is giving rat's ass about something else? Yeah right
I disagree, slightly. Republication priorities, in order:
1. Packing Supreme Court
2. Staying in power
They clearly will risk #2 in order to accomplish #1.
OS X may not fit the bill... but Darwin may. One of the interesting things about Darwin happens to be how they have discarded certain unix-style features in favor of cleaner, OS X style features. For instance, the lookupd and launchd services.
Future developments could include the use of OS X style frameworks which put all related resources in one package, rather than unix's mess of directories with everything spread out (bin/share/man/etc) and the associated installation and removal difficulties.
The Apple-supported development of an open source gui, limited in power but clean and functional in its execution, and with Apple's characteristic attention to detail, and perfectly suited to the education market, would be a great thing. For sure, it could be a great chance to tinker with conventional paradigms without having to worry about backwards compatibility.
And really, why should this machine be something you need to tinker with? Why not more like a game console or iPod, such that it works right to begin with and thus will work predictably and consistently for developers?
If I were Jobs, I'd just develop my own $100 laptop, using some of the same ideas from the MIT prototype and most of the cost-cutting measures, but with Apple interface design at the helm.
Also, I would include a professionally vetted version of a subset of wikipedia and dictionary in it.
OTOH, one of the major advantages of NextStep was that it could take advantage of the huge number of unix programs out there to begin with. BeOS was a rethink of computer design and did not draw on this resource. NextStep won the competition.
Future developments could include the use of OS X style frameworks which put all related resources in one package, rather than unix's mess of directories with everything spread out (bin/share/man/etc) and the associated installation and removal difficulties.
The Apple-supported development of an open source gui, limited in power but clean and functional in its execution, and with Apple's characteristic attention to detail, and perfectly suited to the education market, would be a great thing. For sure, it could be a great chance to tinker with conventional paradigms without having to worry about backwards compatibility.
And really, why should this machine be something you need to tinker with? Why not more like a game console or iPod, such that it works right to begin with and thus will work predictably and consistently for developers?
If I were Jobs, I'd just develop my own $100 laptop, using some of the same ideas from the MIT prototype and most of the cost-cutting measures, but with Apple interface design at the helm.
Also, I would include a professionally vetted version of a subset of wikipedia and dictionary in it.
OTOH, one of the major advantages of NextStep was that it could take advantage of the huge number of unix programs out there to begin with. BeOS was a rethink of computer design and did not draw on this resource. NextStep won the competition.
I think it is preposterous and selfish to look at this from the perspective of macs- this involves much bigger issues than that. On the one hand, the program sounds awesome. On the other hand, I feel like things like clean drinking water, education from teachers, and shelter are far more in need than laptops if we are trying to make this world a better place.
Peace said:
Not that I am saying the following is a viable solution for this hardware, but linux can be very powerful in a small install.
Check out: http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/
Its based on Debian for x86, runs off of a business card CD, is only 50MB and it has a GUI environment with browser, etc.
PtMD
macpro2000 said:
I DO have friends over there, and what I am rooting for is for them to come home.
Why don't you volunteer to go over there yourself? There are plenty of crazy people on the other side; we need some insane people of our own to counter them.
macpro2000 said:
I'm sorry, but:
Shut your damn trap and excercise a little bit of thougt and a heart.
I'm not even going to get into the political discussion as to why torture is ineffective, puts our troups in danger, nevermind major issues of morality human decency.
I just want to say, to call a whole nation idiots, and claim it is right to kill them, is heartless, mindnumbingly stupid, and abhorant.
Pardon the off topic post, and the language for which I expect a slap on the wrist, but I, being american, do not want to be reperestented by such shameful attitudes.