Linux for the People

Chinese company produces US$150 Linux PC (Ars Technica)

The Municator, which comes with 256MB of RAM, uses a unique 64-bit CPU with an instruction set based on a subset of the MIPS architecture. Designed by a Chinese company called BLX, the the cheap chip is clocked at 400 or 600MHZ and supposedly provides performance comparable to that of an Intel P3. Unlike MIT's laptop, the Municator is not designed to be a mobile computer. Rather than using an LCD display, it features support for S-video and VGA which will enable it to interface with televisions and monitors. For storage, the Municator comes with a 40 GB external USB drive and support for an optional external optical drive. With four USB 2.0 ports and built-in ethernet support, the Municator is quite capable of supporting other external devices and connecting to the Internet. According to the YellowSheepRiver web site, integrated WiFi and a lithium-ion battery pack are also available options.

The Municator comes with a lightweight Linux distribution based on RP Linux, a reference implementation for Chinese Linux distributors. The Municator also comes with a variety of commonly used Linux applications including Firefox, Gaim, Red Office, Thunderbird, and Mplayer. The Municator doesn't use a standard Linux desktop environment; instead it provides a very simple menu-based interface that can be operated with either the keyboard or the mouse.

I'm a little surprised it's not cheaper -- for only US$180 I can buy an x86-based Linspire box at Fry's (though with half as much RAM). In any case, I hope they catch on.

Snail racing

I'm most of the way through the process of upgrading my (work) mac laptop to Tiger, which I had to do because it's needed for a demo on Monday. It's a lot like watching a snail crawl across your screen, with only a little dramatic tension added by the knowledge that, if it falls off, it will explode messily and get little bits of snail pulp all over your hard drive.

Right now I'm installing "xcode", which is what they call the development package. It's been telling me "Time remaining: less than 1 minute" for about 10 minutes now.

It's times like this that remind me why I use Debian as my desktop OS.

update: 14:31 ... and why does it take a fscking reboot and a fscking hour to install X11?? And how do I know it's not leaving little bits of snail pulp all over while it's doing it??? And why did I have to agree to their stupid licence for the fourth time in order to install software that's under the MIT license????

Racing snails (part 2)

Apparently the Mac installer is too stupid to actually look at what's on your disk and upgrade what's there, even if you tell it you're doing an upgrade and not a reinstall from scratch. Good grief! RedHat was doing that ten years ago. Admittedly it wasn't doing it very well -- it didn't remove obsolete stuff -- but at least it was trying. For that matter, Tiger probably isn't removing the stuff you don't need, either. And if it was, how could you tell?

Did I mention that I started this process before noon? Grumble.

What right does anybody have to claim that Linux is hard to install, and the Mac is a model of simplicity and user-friendly design? And how can it possibly be user-friendly without a package for xteddy?

Racing snails (part 3)

... and of course it doesn't bother to check for software updates after you install the upgrade. It's already connected... how hard can it be? Debian, as usual, has been doing this all along. And I had to check for updates yet again in order to get Java 1.5.

The Bear is not impressed.

Home from the snail race

Well, after some four hours of [edit disk-grinding, clicking, and] downloading, Tiger finally got installed on my Mac laptop at work, at least to the point where it will run finagler and mr_kurt's software that we for the demo on Monday. Spent a couple of hours debugging the demo with Brad (it's peer-to-peer stuff; so the final version of the demo will involve four laptops and a USB keychain drive). We'll beat on it some more tomorrow.

Still not particularly impressed with MacOS X.

Meanwhile, my ancient Roland HS-60 keyboard, which has been gathering dust for most of the last two decades, has been misbehaving -- we hauled it out of semi-retirement so the chaoswolf, who's taking beginning piano this quarter, would have something to practice on. Problem is that in a lot of the patches the notes just don't cut off properly. I suspect a bad envelope generator or VCA.

So I'm now in the market for a keyboard, preferably 88 keys, with good feel, and not particularly bulky (since it may get lent to visiting keyboard players at local cons). Preferably on the low end of the $500-1000 range. A pure MIDI controller is a possibility, since I have an old but still functional computer with a MIDI soundcard that I can probably figure out how to hack into a sound module. Any suggestions?