Comments: 272 +- Linux: ARM-Powered Linux Laptops Unveiled At Computex on Sunday June 07, @08:30AM
Posted
by
Soulskill
on Sunday June 07, @08:30AM
from the you-and-what-arm dept.
from the you-and-what-arm dept.
Charbax writes "At Computex in Taipei on June 2-6th, several companies unveiled ARM-powered laptops that are cheaper ($99 to $199), last much longer on a regular 3-cell battery (8-15 hours) and can still add cool new features such as a built-in HDMI 720p or 1080p output, 3D acceleration, connected standby and more. The ARM Linux laptops shown as working prototypes at Computex will run Ubuntu 9.10 (optimized for ARM), Google Android, Xandros OS for ARM, or some Red Flag Linux type of OS. In this video, the Director of Mobile Computing at ARM, is giving us all the latest details on the status for the support of full Flash (with all actionscripts), the optimizations of the web browser (accelerating rendering/scrolling using the GPU/DSP), the stuff that Google is working on to adapt Android 2.0 Donut release for laptop screens and interfaces and more. At Computex I also filmed an interview with the Nvidia team working on Tegra laptops, the Qualcomm people working on Snapdragon devices and the Freescale people doing their awesomely thin ARM laptops in cooperation with manufacturers such as Pegatron as well."
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Will they run Linux? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Will they run Linux? (Score:4, Interesting)
That said, I work in software development, and I'm the only one I know that has a netbook. I've heard that in Europe, purchase rates are 8-10 times higher than here in North America. Why is that?
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Re:Will they run Linux? (Score:5, Funny)
Full-sized laptops don't fit in Smartcars. Especially with the loaf of French bread poking out of the trunk.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I know you were joking, but a Smart is surprisingly spacious.
Re:Will they run Linux? (Score:5, Funny)
The average US citizen weights 450kg, this is why they drive around in Hammers. Besides they have absolutely no concept of beauty and design. *runs away before the flame war*
I personally prefer to drive in the entire toolbox as a hammer is just too small.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I think I speak for everyone when I say there's no more fitting place.
7" size missing (Score:3, Interesting)
As another Nokia Internet Tablet user, I look forward to a slightly larger size, but retaining 2+ days of battery use. 10" screens are too large.
Don't get me wrong, my N800 is good for highly portable needs (geocaching, mobile email, skype, lite blogging), all without a mandatory cell data plan, but there are times when a larger screen would be useful without adding weight. A Eee is too heavy and too large. A 7" screen with a built-in keyboard that I can touch type on and GPS included would be really nice
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
They will be able to run Windows CE (which is a good thing for Linux though :) ).
Re:Will they run Linux? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you take a look at the progress the Moblin distribution has made for the atom processor then you can see what is possible with a full blown OS. Near instantanious bootup (faster than a lot of phones) as well as an innovative yet full featured small screen interface. I am sure that linux can adapt to slower processors faster than Windows CE can adapt to bigger screens considering linux is already feature complete for computers a lot slower than the new arm processor.
One point you make which seems really fuzzy is about the tasks you do on a netbook being the same as the tasks you would do on a phone. I would be surprised if 99.9% of what you wanted to do on a current Windows CE device would include using a webcam, watching a high definition movie, running a complete development environment, playing strategy games, troubleshooting a network, writing a novel, running project management software, file sharing with a windows network.. etc. Basically, there is a lot you can do with a slow computer as long as the screen is big enough.
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Re:Will they run Linux? (Score:5, Informative)
The ARMs aren't THAT slow. If it's usable on an Atom, it'll probably be usable on a modern ARM.
And, here's the kicker... the ARMs have hardware DSPs that the Atoms don't, making them potentially much faster in certain situations, if software takes advantage of the DSP. (Granted, that does require modification.)
One thing that doesn't require modification to the code, it just requires the JVM to be modified, is Java acceleration - many ARM processors, including the ones under discussion, have Jazelle support, which means that they natively support a subset of Java bytecode. Seeing as "complete development environments" were mentioned... and Eclipse is written in Java...
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Re:Will they run Linux? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, they're not going to run Windows any time soon. Good opportunity here. I hope the application availability is going to be good - as a Nokia Tablet user I've been running a variant of Linux on a ARM processor for some time now and I can't wait to get my hands on a ARM netbook.
For all the fun poked at Debian for having such lengthy release cycles, I, for one, am glad that ARM is a fully-supported architecture. (Part of the reason for the long release cycles is each supported platform must be ready for the release.) I could have essentially the same setup on my x86-based laptop as I could on an ARM-based laptop. In other words, application availability really isn't an issue when it comes to the ARM platform.
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Re:Will they run Linux? RTFA dude, they do! (Score:5, Informative)
Get Wine on there ASAP and you're away for a good number of Win apps too...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the impression that Wine doesn't translate across architectures. Any windows apps you hope to run on Wine would need to be compiled for Wine from source. So all ARM/Wine apps will either:
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You could run it in an X86 emulator, but the number of tuples you would burn sort of defeats the purpose of using ARM.
Obligatory flame (Score:3, Informative)
I stopped reading after the printer lie.
Linus supports (other than Lexmark, I hear, but I've never even seen one of their printers here in the UK) more printers than windows these days, and without the need to download 10s of megabytes of extra driver and add-on crap from the manufacturer.
You're an idiot.
Re:Obligatory flame (Score:4, Insightful)
But you did research before making hardware purchases, yes? You see, there is the catch. Joe and Jane Public NEVER do research on anything less expensive than a car. They walk into best buy and go "Oohhh sale!" and add it to their cart.
Here, try the "hairyfeet challenge" and see for yourself. Open up three tabs in your browser. go to Walmart.com, Bestbuy.com, and Staples.com. These are the big three when it comes to retail PC peripherals sales. Now in each store you place these three things, which are the big sellers here, and NO RESAERCH!. Remember, you are an average consumer. No cheating! Ready? An all in one printer, a USB Wifi stick, and a USB TV Tuner. Now if you want this simulation to be accurate, buy the cheapest, as most consumers buy on price. Now go to...lets say Ubuntu, go to their forums and see if the nine items you just "purchased" as three average shoppers works. Go on, I'll wait.
They don't work, do they? I'll wager you won't get a whole cart out of the store without doing research. I'm sure you also avoided lexmark to try to tip the odds in your favor even though a consumer wouldn't know about lexmark support and wouldn't do that. You see, Linux is GREAT for servers and the enterprise markets. It is great because major corporations spend major bucks on making damned sure that server hardware "just works". But they don't give a flying fart about home users. So just like how you saw how Asus is phasing out Linux [computerworld.com.au] and even Canonical admits that Linux netbooks suffer higher return rates [laptopmag.com] you will see more companies try Linux and then abandon it. Why? because the stuff that is sold in the above stores don't work in Linux, that's why. And when it don't work they say the PC is "broken" and come wanting their money back. It is just that simple.
So while I truly support Linux as a server OS, and even as a desktop OS for those that are willing to spend the time and effort to research every product and go CLI whenever something goes wrong, the simple fact is that isn't going to fly in the mainstream markets. If you have to do ANY CLI it is a dealbreaker, just as if you can't support the new gadget they just got at Best Buy they will return the PC. I'm sorry, but the average users is not going to be willing to learn CLI or do research on every single purchase. They're just not going to do it because they don't give a flying fart about "free as in freedom" or "the M$FT monopoly" all they care about is does their stuff work, and you are deluding yourself if you think you can get them to change for Linux. And if their consumer level stuff doesn't work your OS is "free as in worthless" and they'll be taking it back for a Windows machine. Sorry, No Sale.
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Targeting the Chinese/Indian market? (Score:5, Interesting)
Price? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Link whoring (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Price? (Score:4, Informative)
They will care about being able to use existing Chinese apps and games, which are pretty much all Windows-only. I don't know if you've actually been in China, but Windows is even more entrenched there than it is in the West.
For them Windows is much better, because all the Chinese software that everybody around them is already using will work, and they don't give a hoot about piracy. In fact, lots of them don't even have a concept of "software piracy". Software is just something you copy from someone else, or buy from the street vendor for a dollar.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
For them Windows is much better, because all the Chinese software that everybody around them is already using will work, and they don't give a hoot about piracy. In fact, lots of them don't even have a concept of "software piracy". Software is just something you copy from someone else, or buy from the street vendor for a dollar.
But the box to run it on is 3 months pay... The "Free" WinXP gets very expensive that way. This is one place MS can't just get market share with Piracy. But they will try with WinCE. They can not just abandon the market... And WinCE can't run WINE and Windows apps either...
Who's gonna sell these? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't understand who are going to sell these when Microsoft call them up and say "Oh, I see you're selling computers with [non-windows OS], that's interesting... Yeaaahh so... you know those rebates you get on Windows? Yeah, you can forget about those. Have a nice day"
Do they think they're safe because they're on ARM?
Re:Who's gonna sell these? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, because Microsoft shareholders are just desperate for yet another massive antitrust case.
Parent
Who's gonna sell these? Everyone. (Score:4, Insightful)
> I don't understand who are going to sell these when Microsoft call them up and say...
Notice who is doing this. Mobile phone carriers, mobile chipset makers, etc. are the driving force behind this effort. They came together and did Symbian because they understood letting Windows in would end up with them in the PC situation where Microsoft is the one making the bulk of the profit. So if Microsoft had the ability to hurt them I'd think they would have crushed them like bugs already.
Remember also that Chinese contract manufacturers live in a totally different world where Microsoft has no influence. Get consumer electronics instead of PC makers to do the end marketing and again, Microsoft can't hurt them. That just leaves the retailers. Yes Microsoft owns a while isle in Best Buy so they might keep these guys out of there for an Xmas or two. And frankly Best Buy will fear them on their own for their ability to turn a $500 laptop purchase into a $200 netbook sale. Until the wireless carriers put them in the part of Best Buy THEY own bubdles with a 3G contract. And what of Walmart, Walgreens, etc. These puppies are cheap and heading down. Sooner or later they show up as impulse purchase items at Big Lots in blister packs. How much leverage does Microsoft have with any of those markets?
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Why phone vendors don't want to play with Redmond (Score:3, Informative)
It's an interesting story. [theregister.co.uk]
ARM floodgates blown? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:ARM floodgates blown? (Score:4, Informative)
HTC has been making phones with Qualcomm chips for a while, I just got myself a refurb HTC Fuze when I sold my soul to AT&T (I live in GSM land, and they own it all here now, literally.) It's also the Sprint-sold HTC Touch Pro. 528 Mhz Qualcomm chip, VGA display, respectable 3d acceleration, halfway decent touch. "A $500 value" free with a two year torture session. In real-world reviewed testing they manage five days of standby time and you get maybe six to eight hours of use... on a 1350mAh battery! (You can get power from any old USB connection with the included dongle, which also gives you headphone and headset connections.) That's a prior-generation version of this same idea, using am ARMv6 core (which runs ARMv4 binaries quite nicely, thankyouverymuch.)
I'm no Windows Mobile fanboy, the phone gets chunky here and there. There ARE some hacks you can make (I used "Advanced Config", which should work across all Raphael devices) to dramatically increase the responsiveness (caching mostly) and you can find a list on xda-developers raphael forums. Touch Flo 3D is no iPhone interface, and you get dropped to the Windows interface on a regular basis, but that's far less odious than it used to be and besides, it's possible to run Android on Touch Pro already. I would never have got this thing if I thought I'd be stuck with WinCE forever. Best acronym ever.
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Come on, guys (Score:5, Insightful)
I looked at the pictures in the article and was crestfallen. I don't want some half assed useless handheld toy.. I want an ARM powered real, usable laptop with an 8.9-11.1" display, readable outdoors in daylight , with a real keyboard, that will be everything that all netbooks to date have emphatically not been. Something with true 20+ hour battery life while doing useful work. It should have WiFi and mobile broadband. An ARM would be more than powerful enough for taking notes, surfing, reading and replying to email, etc. Ubuntu 9.04 would be just perfect. I would pay real money for this. I thought the HP2133 would be it, but mine is going unused. You can barely read the display in a dark room, let alone daylight or even a bright office. The Lenovo X301 is about the closest I have come, but it is a long way from where it needs to be, and brutally expensive.
Re:Come on, guys (Score:5, Insightful)
You want a good laptop, and that's the problem. The industry has always moved toward pretty, flashy or buzzy devices, at the expense of usability and performance.
That's why today's laptops still get only 1.5 to 2 hours on a charge. That's why 15" and 17" models are cheaper than travel-friendly sizes. That's why they can barely survive traveling in a padded bag. People would much rather pay for a shiny useless gadget, than an ugly functional one. The netbook is only the most recent cristallization of this attitude, users think of them as "cute toys". Some brands do offer a workable laptop, and they're all too happy to charge $3000+ for the "luxury" of a machine that cost maybe 10% more in parts and labor.
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Jumping the gun . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Here, we obey the laws of physics (Score:3, Informative)
implies either a monochrome e-ink display or something with enough backlighting to overcome skylight - which is where your battery life is disappearing to. Even LED lit displays are not going to give you what you want. OLED may one day get there, but is two technical breakthroughs short.
Even at 100% conversion rates - which are not likely to be attainable - I doubt you would get 20+ hours from a 3 cell battery on a 10 inch screen. A very rough calculation shows that you wou
Re:Here, we obey the laws of physics (Score:5, Informative)
implies either a monochrome e-ink display or something with enough backlighting to overcome skylight - which is where your battery life is disappearing to.
Or a transflective TFT. They're fairly common in small devices, relying on a backlight in low-light conditions but being reflective (front-lit) in bright sunlight. Because they don't use the backlight in direct sunlight, the battery lasts longer when they are front-lit.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The key here is a reflective color display (not reflective in the sense of a mirror, but like a book, which uses the sunlight itself to illuminate the page). My Garmin GPS has what they call a "transflective" screen that is color, but visible in daylight in just the same was as a monochrome LCD, and for dark conditions it
Re:Here, we obey the laws of physics (Score:4, Interesting)
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RiscOS (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:RiscOS (Score:5, Interesting)
Last year I put together a basic kernel reimplementation in portable C (as much as possible); interested parties may want to check it out [cowlark.com]. It was a pretty unpleasant job. While RISC OS looks elegant on the surface, inside it's a nasty maze of inconsistent APIs, duplicated APIs, APIs that require certain (unfriendly) implementations, APIs that should have been deprecated and haven't been, APIs that don't exist and should to avoid having to read the kernel private workspace, and most terrible of all, APIs that expose kernel implementation details. And, just to add insult to injury, most of RISC OS is written in hard-to-maintain machine code. (And the APIs are very unfriendly to C.)
Not to mention the fact that RISC OS is missing certain bits of functionality that everyone nowadays takes for granted: threads, preemptive multitasking, memory protection between processes, a GUI that can be driven from the keyboard...
Given how much of an overhaul it would need to be meet modern standards of functionality, it'd probably be easier just to start again from scratch with a proper OS design. I find myself rather intrigued by Prex [sourceforge.net], for example, which is a minimalist embedded operating system with hypervisor-like functionality and a Unixish system call interface. And, unlike RISC OS, it's BSD licensed.
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Re:RiscOS (Score:4, Interesting)
There is certainly some truth to what you say, though I may disagree with some of your interpretations. Though I have been away from RiscOS for a number of years, so cannot comment on the current state, I always found the APIs a pleasure to use. The ability to add or patch 'modules' was great. I interned at Acorn for my Masters and worked directly on the kernel (the http module amongst other things) and found the source well written and commented. There was certainly some ARM assembler (not quite the same as machine code) but I don't remember it being 'most' of RiscOS. I bow to your more recent knowledge though, you seem to have investigated quite thoroughly.
I've written RiscOS apps in ARM, C and BASIC, and it is the most pleasurable computer experience I have ever had. Even BASIC apps ran full speed, and GUI apps were a doddle to write. From a user perspective it was the most productive windowing system for its time. It did have limitations, however, and was very targeted at Acorn's own hardware.
I disagree that it misses preemptive multi-tasking and threads. It was a design decision to go with co-operative multi-taking, much like Linus decided to go with a monolithic kernel instead of a micro-kernel. And in much the same way as one was supposed to be theoretically better than the other but one "just worked", RiscOS was the fastest most responsive OS on the market. One software manufacturer forced their clients to buy Acorn computers just to run their software as no other OS was responsive enough to run it (Sibelius). It requires a different way of thinking, much like writing a Twisted module instead of an Apache one, but for all the theory of a rogue app slowing or taking down the OS in practice it never happened.
Though from a performance perspective RiscOS would be perfect for a netbook, and would be more responsive than most other OS, it doesn't make sense from a commercial perspective over Linux due to the vast wealth of available software easily ported. It is an easy choice for users between a slight performance increase, and Ubuntu with thousands of free apps installable in a single mouse click for free.
Phillip.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The new owners of (one of the branches of) RISC OS has actually released it as shared source, available here [riscosopen.org] if you're interested.
I'll agree that the overall design is very elegant, and the module system is nice, if rather primitive (relocatable code with no fixups! Aaaah!). But we know more about operating systems now, and a lot of Acorn's design decisions are no longer valid: for example, you actually get better performance from a preempting kernel than a cooperative one (because you can do work while o
At least someone different sees Linux's problems (Score:5, Interesting)
From one of the linked articles...
"He acknowledged two concerns for smartbooks are the lack of native support for Adobe Flash on ARM and the fragmentation of Linux application environments. However, he said solutions to both issues are in the works." Emphasis in bold mine.
And further,
"One of the downsides of Linux is the fragmented nature of it," he said. "That's why so many designers are excited about Google's Android, because it's managed by a single entity," he added."
Now, these are folks doing very serious work with Linux. Many Slashdoters have said the same things only to be branded as trolls. I can see a future for Android if Google continues to do a good job.
Re:At least someone different sees Linux's problem (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:At least someone different sees Linux's problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Fragmentation may be an issue, but trying to fix fragmentation by making a one-shot wonder isn't going to make it less fragmented, it's only going to make it more so.
Especially because it -is- Linux... I'm sure there's still people out there that are using e9 and xfce (for their own reasons).
I myself am not disappointed with the fragmented nature of things. It gives me choice. I got tired of toying with GNOME, so I moved to KDE.
Both of them have good applications, and yes, there are some applications that I'd still use over the 'native' counterparts, because they're just that much better. That's not a problem (to me) either.
Android is lighter and all; which is a significant plus. Providing an alternative to the heavyweights (like X) is a good thing! However, as another alternative, it's only going to fragment the landscape that much more. (i.e. can I run Android apps on my linux netbook? yes, but only if you run a container app).
And then, I have to ask: would you still want to use that KDE or GNOME app on your android netbook? Would you want it to be -capable- of running GNOME or KDE apps? (at worst, this means running a minimalized X server on top of Android).
The only solution to being able to run those apps at all would mean getting a high-end smartbook. This would include things like more ram, some sort of hard drive (I'd go with SSD here), and things like that.
And in the meantime, the general public would have to deal with a limited application environment. Which... isn't a big problem, provided it can at least do the basics.
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I thought linux was free software (Score:3, Funny)
I don't understand their thought process... (Score:5, Interesting)
the status for the support of full Flash (with all actionscripts)
Gnash [gnu.org] is getting extremely close to being a drop-in Free Software replacement for the Adobe Flash Player. In the linked videos, the ARM director of mobile computing was talking about how the ARM folks were working with Adobe to get Adobe Flash running on the ARM processors, but Gnash has already had ARM support for years. If they're demoing Ubuntu -- a Free Software OS -- on these machines, then why not use a Free Software program to play Flash programs on them? Why not invest their time and energy in the Free Software project?
Rob Savoye (lead dev for Gnash) wrote a bit on this topic [mail-archive.com] on the gnash-dev mailing list:
Jason Guiditta wrote:
> Just saw this...article...bsquared porting flash lite to run on an upcoming dell
> netbook.
Yes, I'm familiar with Bsquared. They're porting the Adobe v10 to
embedded platforms, basically getting rid of Flash Lite, which has
always been somewhat limited. I've talked to several company's also
talking to Bsquared.
> ...This seems like a perfect opportunity to get some
> funding for gnash, since it is already designed to run on so many
> platforms. If a big company like Dell is willing to pay to get flash
> well-supported on their netbook, why could that player not be gnash?
We'd need a contact at a sufficiently high level. Of the companies I
know using BSquared's promised flashplayer for ARM, MIPS, etc... have
decided they'd rather spend hundreds of thousands of $$$ for the
Bsquared solution, than give much smaller amounts to Gnash, which
already runs on the ARM and Android. Big companies that prefer
proprietary software seems to prefer to give business to each other,
regardless pf the much higher price tag. Of the few machines I've played
with the Bsquared plugin on, it usually hung the browser in seconds, and
many other stability problems. But I guess they'll get it right
eventually...
I also talked to Google about Gnash for Android several times, but
they don't appear to be interested in the slightest. Unfortunately, the
only people willing to support Gnash with any funding are people that
believe strongly in free software solutions already. To those people, I
can't thank you enough!
- rob -
Free Software can be a great benefit to the hardware folks like ARM, and can be great for a mobile platform like Android, but it's sad that these groups don't seem to take any interest in what the Free Software community is offering. That's why it's so important for people to donate time, code, and/or money to projects like Gnash. Software Freedom isn't going to just happen without people like you and me stepping up and getting stuff done.
Re:$99 huh (Score:5, Informative)
The Eee PC and similar netbooks don't have a CD/DVD drive, either, and yet they sold millions. I don't think people are quite as interested in "that cd you just bought from walmart".
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Re:No one can stop the x86 train... (Score:5, Informative)
VIA ultra-low voltage chips
Oh, this made me laugh. The OMAP3 used in these laptops is considered power-hungry in ARM circles. It draws 250mW when using the ARM core (complete with FPU and vector unit), the DSP, the OpenGL 2 ES GPU, the 512 MB of flash and 256MB of RAM and the other integrated components in the package. In contrast, the best 'low power' x86 chips use 2W for just the CPU and need more power for the GPU and supporting chipset. When you factor everything in, the best x86 solutions need over an order of magnitude more power for the same level of performance. Even the Geode has an embarrassingly high power consumption (close to 7W for a complete system, excluding display), and it doesn't even come close to the performance of a 250mW ARM system.
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Re:No one can stop the x86 train... (Score:4, Interesting)
It draws 250mW when using the ARM core (complete with FPU and vector unit), the DSP, the OpenGL 2 ES GPU, the 512 MB of flash and 256MB of RAM and the other integrated components in the package.
You have got to be kidding me. This is ridiculous. If this is what x86 compatibility costs in terms of power consumption, then this is a killer feature. If ARM laptops will get an order of magnitude more runtime on battery power, compared to their x86 counter-parts then Microsoft shareholders are going to be very disappointed in the coming year.
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Re:No one can stop the x86 train... (Score:5, Insightful)
The kicker is that display, mass storage, and wireless power start to predominate as you drop well below 10 watts in terms of total system power. These other components have a long way to go. Until then, the CPU could take 0.01 watts and battery life would still be a big disappointment.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is completely baseless. See point #1 here: http://bec-systems.com/site/326/intel-atom-vs-ti-omap3 [bec-systems.com]
In fact ATOM uses anywhere from the same amount of power in the best case, to much less than an order of magnitude in the worse...
And even if it were an order of magnitude difference in power consumption as you claim, you're utterly wrong that ARM will outperform x86 solutions
Re:No one can stop the x86 train... (Score:5, Insightful)
What that article is forgetting is chipset power, which is 2.3 W for the Poulsbo, which is more expensive and requires a more expensive (although 2 W instead of 2.5 W) CPU. So, 4.3 W there.
But, most netbooks run the cheaper Atom N270 and 945GSE, which is... 2.5 W for the CPU, 6 W for the northbridge, and 3.3 W for the southbridge. Total platform power consumption, 11.8 W.
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Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
Linux fonts and the Linux interface in general (I use Gnome) have really improved. In fact, many cross-platform apps like Firefox and OpenOffice don't show any appreciable difference between the Linux version and the Windows version.
Example:
I gave my mother-in-law a used laptop early last year, Gateway Solo 5300 700mhz with half a gig of RAM and Ubuntu 7.10
It was the first computer she ever actually owned. She had only used Windows machines up to that point.
She teaches at her hometown high school and uses her computer for email, browsing the web, editing Word documents and playing Mahjong.
I never once had her call for help, and she was able to do everything that she needed.
About 3 months ago the machine went dead, most likely a motherboard problem.
She had me find her a decent laptop on eBay, gave me a budget of $250. I roped in a 1 ghz Thinkpad for around 190 bucks and she requested that I set it up with Ubuntu. So I graduated her up to Ubuntu 8.04, handed her the machine, and haven't had a support call yet.
Unless you are an avid gamer, or your job/hobby requires esoteric software that only runs on Windows, Linux is ready for the desktop. Your 60 year old mother-in-law could even use it.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
These things have been hyped on trade shows for over a year now. Call me when they actually have something a consumer can buy in a store.
Does this count.. http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=261613 [maplin.co.uk]