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Mandriva Joins the Netbook Market With the GDium
Posted by
timothy
on Sat Jul 19, 2008 01:22 PM
from the price-is-all dept.
from the price-is-all dept.
AdamWill writes "Lately it's hard to avoid the buzz about netbooks — the small, cheap laptop systems that were popularized by the Asus Eee PC. Mandriva is providing the innovative operating system for the upcoming GDium netbook system, produced by Emtec. The first GDium will be a netbook with a 10", 1024x600 resolution display and a battery life of four hours, weighing in at 1.1kg. The innovative G-Key system stores the Mandriva operating system and all the user data on a USB key — nothing is permanently stored inside the GDium. You can use your own desktop and data by plugging the G-Key into any GDium."
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Mandriva Joins Ubuntu With a Linux For Netbooks 64 comments
Slatterz writes "Linux publisher Mandriva has unveiled a version of its platform designed specifically for the new breed of mini laptops. Mandriva Mini features a fast boot-up, comprehensive connectivity support and multimedia codecs, and is adapted to work on key netbook platforms such as Intel's Atom. Mandriva previously offered a customised version of its 2008 Spring release for the Asus Eee PC, and was a distributor of Linux for Intel's Classmate PC initiative."
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finally, something that has potential to show (Score:2)
Gayaplex? (Score:5, Funny)
From the site:
10.
1024×600.
1.1Kg.
4 hours.
Mandriva Linux.
G-Key.
Gayaplex.
I understood the first six things on the list. But what the heck is a "Gayaplex"? I'm going to assume that it doesn't mean what its spelling implies...
Re:Gayaplex? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Gayaplex? (Score:5, Funny)
Here I thought it was some special Mac OS X emulator...
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Really? I thought it would be called Aquaplex if it was an OS X emulator.
Re:Gayaplex? (Score:4, Insightful)
Looks like they mis-spelled gaia, or they tried to mix gaia with maya, and got gaya. I wonder if the school boards and PTA's are going to pick up on this one?
Parent
netbooks (Score:5, Insightful)
It is headed the opposite direction, they are getting more expensive, not less, and gaining in size. When that first eeePC hit I thought "cool, pretty soon now the hundred buck blisterpack small notebook". Man, I was wrong.
Re:netbooks (Score:4, Informative)
Well, the 9'' Eees are already pushing what's usable in that form factor anyway. Extended use of its keyboard makes an unhappy me.
The extra inch of the 1000 series makes all the difference in the world. But you lose some of teh tinies and teh cuteness.
It's a tradeoff.
Parent
tradeoff (Score:2, Interesting)
ya, but already at the same price or getting more than a regular 14 inch laptop I can snag at local wallyworld off the shelf, and being a regular manual laborer, a pound or three difference means absolutely nothing to me, just not that big of a deal with me when it comes down to it, I carry around more weight than that with various tools stuck in my pockets all the time, 2 lbs or 5 lbs, meh, I don't care, 50 lbs sacks of mineral are at my low end of crap I have to move by hand all the time. I was more inter
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Re:netbooks (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, but at least they're becoming way more usable. The small low-res screen, shitty keyboard, low storage and relatively poor battery life made sure I wasn't getting myself the EEE 4G/700. Now Dell is coming up with the $299 "E" laptop [engadget.com] which appears to be what the EEE should've been all along, and I'm rather interested.
No matter how many unpaid overtime hours the Chinese kids work, there still is a certain price floor at the current technological level. I'd be quite satisfied if they just kept improving the product at the current price range until it's feasible to go lower without producing something completely useless.
Parent
Here ya on useability (Score:3, Interesting)
Very good point, surfing today takes a bit more power than ten years ago for sure. That's why I wanted to upgrade my backup machine, that PB1400m that is a 1997 model, just not enough processor or RAM to be of much use for much longer. Thankfully you can still get an iCab browser for it that works pretty fair. Thanks for the link to that new Dell review! Getting closer! I'm still going to hold out a bit longer though, joe cheap here, heh.
GDium (Score:5, Insightful)
From a cursory glance, I'd say I like this. It seems the first Linux distro that is actually tweaked to run from Flash RAM storage, rather than just a somewhat leaner generic Linux bolted on top of a SSD-based computer. Less logging, less unnecessary data to and from the storage, more stuff loaded into RAM. This is what I was hoping from the Eee PC's Xandros, but was disappointed (Xandros on the Eee PC is every bit of a normal Linux distro, with some of the less useful logfiles annoyingly and dangerously often updated).
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Also, while not advertised it uses the MIPS-derived Loongson CPU. I don't know how it compares to Intel's ultraportable offerings performance-wise but I really like affordable non-x86 systems.
Come to think of it, nobody can install XP on MIPS and this is A Good Thing (TM).
OTOH (Score:2, Informative)
Universal Binaries, anyone? (Score:2)
*In theory* a binary format such as Mach-O favoured by Apple could be used, booting from an architecture-neutral bootloader.
I'm not a low-level ones and zeros programmer so I'm not sure how much effort would be required to release such a dream.
Of course the limited capacity of the flash storage device would probably then be the deal breaker.
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With the initial 8GB keys, this won't be the case, but you will be able to access the home partition from other machines.
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I love SLAX! It can even be booted so that it completely runs from RAM. But unfortunately, the logging issue remains.
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Loaded with homoerotic terms... (Score:3, Funny)
Use MANdriva Linux to login to our Gayaplex using your Gkey?
Come out with your Gdium!
A Comparison (Score:2)
With a half pound more and a FireWire flash key (from Micromat) you can boot the MacBook Air with reliability & speed and a 13" screen, and an internal hard drive to use however you want (encrypted data or take it out).
There are new things coming and I think these options are good.
Re: (Score:2)
Ahem...I misstated in a FireWire flash key. Indeed you need to use a USB key on the MacBook Air.
FireWire Flash key is used on my Mac Book Pro.
Approx $420... (Score:4, Funny)
Humbug.
I can live with cute, small, slow & quirky if it's CHEAP.
I can live with cute, small, fast & innovative if it's CHEAP.
$420 is refurb "normal" laptop range. I REALLY want a cheap laptop/notepad/"wtf is that thing?", but I want cheap.
Re:Approx $420... (Score:4, Insightful)
You can get lots of cheap laptops. Problem is they're usually 3.5kg+ and huge beasts that really are more like desktops in a laptop packaging.
Parent
no he's not.he gets the point (Score:2, Interesting)
Cheap is definetly part of the appeal of a small portable low specced computing device. In fact it is right up there in the article summary ->""Lately it's hard to avoid the buzz about netbooks -- the small, cheap laptop systems that were popularized by the Asus Eee PC." We had small and light before, but they were expensive. The asus was an immediate hit because the original one was *loads* cheaper than anything else out there, and the OLPC XO project suffered terminal extreme dumbness and couldn't get
Re:Approx $420... (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
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I honestly actually have no idea what the U.S. pricing will be. I haven't seen any numbers on that. I expect it'll probably be competitive with the Eee 900 / 1000 range and the Acer Aspire, which are kinda the most obvious competition I guess. But yeah, there's no finalized price set yet that I know of.
Well it's certainly a niche (Score:2)
It's not a value proposition. It's something else. Because I can get a 'real' notebook, somewhat more clunky and heavy, such as a Lenovo R61 with SuSE Linux pre installed for $700. For $636 you can get Vista, remove it and install your own Linux.
Re: (Score:2)
somewhat more clunky and heavy
Bingo!
Re:Well it's certainly a niche (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah I suppose. I would not like to be compelled into any long term use of a 10" screen though. What you're telling me is that it's your 'other' PC. Of course the selling point of THIS unit is that it's NO PC. You deploy these everywhere in your organization and simply hand out USB drives to everyone. A kind of hybrid thin client.
So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Interesting)
As I understand this, the root partition is stored on the machine's internal ROM. The user's home folder sits on the USB key, along with something that somehow links to /etc/passwd to provide authentication. The key is automatically mounted when inserted. Correct me if I'm wrong.
This doesn't sound particularly promising - it would be very easy to lose the key. I also fail to see why, when most ultra-sub-notebooks are bought by a person for their use, and their use only.
Also, will the home folder on the key be accessible when plugging into another computer, say, a desktop running OS X, Windows or another Linux distro? If so, it would kind-of defeat the object. Emtec would be entering the market very late, so they can't expect this to take the market by storm. If it doesn't, it kind-of defeats the object of sticking everything on a USB key.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd imagine if the key was lost you could still log in as root and create a new user. (I suppose you would need another blank key).. you can probably have multiple keys for different users, have one set up for say business stuff, and another for multimedia.. or whatever you want... Don't know if it would be possible to "log on" in another machine to the key but I imagine it could be set up to do that for say your own desktop at home (probably requiring a version of Mandriva that is compatible), but dependin
Re: (Score:2)
In this case, it means that losing the key, the smallest component, would mean the computer becomes useless. In that case, it would be better to have the base OS on the computer's ROM, especially because it's easier to lose a USB key than a notebook.
Also, I disagree with your statement about Emtec being a pioneer in this respect. The ultra-sub-notebook/netbook market is generally split into a high-end and low-end - the low end is dominated by the Asus Eee PC, and the high end has been practically cornered b
I have little doubt... (Score:2)
Sigh. If only they'd taken proper care of their BitDefender or Clam, everything would have been OK.
I gave up on netbooks... (Score:2, Insightful)
The day that VIA claimed its Nano is only for 10"+ laptops...
That and the fact that the HP Mininote has all the potential to be the best subnotebook... But the screen is too glossy (they need to have a matte option), the thing gets pretty hot, the CPU is not very good for the task, and not to mention the exact same laptop (except maybe there's no speakers on the side of the screen for the Dell?) but the Dell happens to be 64-bit and 200$ cheaper... VIA needs to swoop in and supply them with cheap nanos, or
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Anecdotal evidence alert!
I've been running Ubuntu 7.04 off a 4GB thumbdrive for over a year now. What evidence is there that USB keys are unreliable? I've never had one fail.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, I meant my story was anecdotal.
That being said, none of the dozens of USB keys I use for work (FAT32) have suffered a single file loss.
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i have a FAT formatted usb drive, and windows XP refuses to format it as anything other than fat, or fat 32, sure i could go ext2/3, but then it would be significantly harder to use it with windows.
BTW fat file systems are very annoying, i have to format my USB about ever 3-4 months, or else there will be issues reading/writing to it from linux.
if you format a fat device often enough it's reliable... if you let it go more than 4 months without a format then you're asking for trouble.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
i have a FAT formatted usb drive, and windows XP refuses to format it as anything other than fat, or fat 32...
Go hunt down the command line FORMAT command; you can use this to format the USB key as NTFS. If you're working off one, like I used to do, this makes all the difference. Not only is it much more robust it also supports things like symlinks, proper access flags, compressed files, etc. *And* with an NTFS file system XP will let you turn off the option to flush the cache after every write, which vastly speeds things up. (You just have to remember to unmount it before removing the device.)
Re: (Score:2)
"If you're running your OS off one with all of the data I can easily imagine some important blocks becoming unaccessible in 6-12 months."
Fine with me. USB keys are cheap and easy enough to back up.
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I'll wait for the Tdium.
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I'll wait for the Tdium.
Won't that get boring?
Re: (Score:2)
It would infuriate you?
Wow....
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