MeeGo, Zero To VT320 In Seventeen Seconds

muirhead writes "Installing MeeGo on an Eee PC 1000 netbook is quick, slick, and easy. The user interface is colorful and stylish with many quirky animations. MeeGo's features are easy to discover and it is fast and responsive. Underneath it all though there is still just a netbook. That means it's got a display screen that has no significant weight behind it. That means typing on an undersized keyboard that has no life. All of these undesirable features can, however, be fixed by adding 9kg (~20lbs) of VT320 video terminal."

Re:news?

[blackpaw]

Not to mention he mistook a DB25 connector for a parallel port.

Um, any Linux distro?

[Darkness404]

The pleasant surprise for me is that it was so simple to set up a thirty year old video terminal on a modern light weight host system. MeeGo has not forgotten its Unix heritage.

Um, doesn't -every- Linux distro include this? I don't know of a single Linux distro with the exception of perhaps DSL and some embedded distros that wouldn't include basic command line tools. What do you expect with a Linux distro? That because your running Ubuntu all it does is boot a version of Windows XP in emulation via the Linux kernel?

Re:news?

[BenFranske]

Why is this sad? What's wrong with implementing RS-232 on a 25 pin D-sub connector? In fact for real RS-232 support you need more than 9 pins and the 25 pin connector is really better suited. The fact that 9 pin connectors became the norm for RS-232 on PCs is the part that's more interesting.

Re:Uses Lego Mindstorm

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see the use of it. The Lego Mindstorm's is a null-modem cable, as for why they chose it to be is unknown to me, but hey, it means a DB9-DB9 null modem cable (female connectors on both ends, easy to connect to computer)

However, calling a DB25-DB9 a "parallel to serial" converter....
(Manual on the linked set for the VT320 talks about the 25 pin RS232 serial port, so I am really sure on that.)

Re:I'd just like to interject.

[Anonymous Coward]

>Core tools are easily replaced.

Then go for it, or start calling GNU/Linux by its proper name.

Re:Terminals on an Apple IIGS

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

There's not many dumb terminals around any more for sure

The dumb terminals are the users these days, as demonstrated by this guy watkin5 who thinks it's such an incredible discovery that a Linux distro can handle a VT320 that he has to write an article about it (complete with a confusion between parallel and serial port DB25s that screams "I don't know what the heck I'm talking about but I'll talk about it anyway"), this other guy muirhead who think it's worthy of a Slashdot story and submits it, and kdawson who accepts the story.

I guess in 15/20 years, we'll have a story on how Linux can still run keyboards and mice equipped with a PS2 plug originally invented by Sony...

Uh, yea...

[HaeMaker]

Guy calls a 25pin serial port "parallel" and is impressing us with is mad skillz using lego to "convert" it to 9 pin. The need for null-modem probably took him weeks to figure out.

I think this kid should get off of my lawn.

Re:I'd just like to interject.

[uglyduckling]

GNU/Linux is not its proper name, any more that Windows with Cygwin installed is called GNU/Windows. The OS is Linux, it always has been, the only person who wanted it called GNU/Linux is Stallman. In fact, there's probably more of X.org seen by the average end user than anything in the GNU toolchain, so maybe it should be called XOrg/Linux.

Re:I'd just like to interject.

[uglyduckling]

To the vast majority of people, Linux is the OS, Linux Kernel is the Kernel, and most people are happy that there are many flavours to the OS, called distributions. The Stallman/Debian idea that "Debian GNU/Linux" is the OS and Linux is the kernel is a minority view.