Acolyte of the Butterfly
Posts: 105 from 2003/4/22
Quote:
Neko wrote:
Find a market where they need a high performance desktop-style system with PC-peripheral support based on MPC8610 or MPC8640D and we'll jump on it and go with it.
Heard of the "One Laptop Per Hacker" MIPS based gdium project?
Seriously, aim you producst at people like us, who actually think running somewhat "strange" hardware is cool, we are here. The rest of the world dont give a damn if it doesnt run windows.
Quote:
Right now the buzz is around ARM so we'll do ARM.
This one really amazes me - what the heck do you mean with "right now"? ARM has been around even longer than powerpc, I have ten or more devices that are ARM based, most of them years old, some dating back more than a decade... newton, ipaq, cowon, zaurus, nslu2 ... there are so many well established names in the ARM business, most phones and PDAs have been ARM based since forever, if I want another ARM machine I have plenty to pick from, why would I or anyone else chose Genesi?
Quote:
Our MPC8610 Netbook spec is not abandoned.. it's just looking for a partner. Unfortunately the advantages in an MPC8610 Netbook are basically only in better performance and lower power consumption than Atom, however it will not run Windows and "but it can run MorphOS!" is really, really not a selling point to anyone.
It's the only compelling selling point Genesi have, at all. Really.
MorphOS aside, there is nothing Genesi has to offer the market, face it.
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While this is true, an MPC8610 Netbook may appear but you will still have to pay again for MorphOS. Unless there is a way MorphOS can be subsidised through sales of a MUCH higher selling product or OS, it needs to be that way.
If you provide a fairly well specified powerpc netbook, it might even be somewhat expencive, capable of running MorphOS and also open enough for Linux and *BSD, even I might be tempted to get one.
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The other problem - which strikes ARM too - is that Linux distributions available today DO NOT come up to scratch as a viable alternative to Windows. No, not Ubuntu, not Fedora, not SUSE. Linus Torvalds just switched back from KDE to GNOME, even though he thinks GNOME sucks, just because KDE 4.x is really not ready yet and won't be for another 6-9 months.
This is nonsense, really. You could have said the same 5 years ago, and you can say it again in 5 years. Besides, there is windows for ARM. Yes, KDE4 is teh suck, but the marching morons seem quite content with KDE3 and Gnome, actually. The problem is not the OS nor the user interface, the problem is that the apps that "most users" want to run are made for Windows.
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What are you meant to do here? Ship something that sucks, according to the creator of Linux, that's what. It's the only solution anyone has. All you can do after that is hope that you can ship a viable upgrade later.
Why dont you join the crowd and build some atom based netbook that can run Windows? Obviously that's the only thing that makes sense, huh?
Quote:
Good things are on the horizon though; while KDE 4.3 or 4.4 appears you may be given a Qt-based desktop written by the Ubuntu guys, since it went LGPL this makes it a complete, open-source compliant platform which you do not need to play with the KDE exception to enjoy. However, this "Netbook Qt Desktop" will probably be 12 months or 18 months away..
Oh, those insanely clever Ubuntu guys will write us a completely new Qt based desktop that will just totally rule? Yeah, that will be the day... haha
But if so, then what?
-- kolla
